As we are partly into December and a month away from flying into Orlando for the Dopey challenge, I wanted to give an update on my training.  I just got back from my Sunday morning run (one of my favorite parts of my week/weekend).  It was a VERY rainy day Saturday so I was hoping that rain would push away overnight and Sunday would be clear.  My alarm went off at 7:00 and I peeked out the window to see everything wet and cloudy but no more rain drops were dancing on the pool cover.  I got up, had my tea, got dressed and hit the road.  Six miles were on the schedule today and I had the latest pod cast on my ipod from Another Mother Runner which was about the Philadelphia marathon (which I had just run 2 weeks ago), so I had something to look forward to listening to on my run.  All bundled up, I hit the road SLOWLY today.  I start off walking some of my hill and then began my running intervals.

I headed up to the vineyard and it was peaceful and beautiful.  It was a very wind morning so on the hilltop I was getting blasted.  But it was still wonderful.  At the vineyard I totaled up to 3 miles so I headed back home for the remaining 3 so I could wake up the family and get ready for breakfast with them.  On the return trip home I finished my podcast and then switched to music which gave me an energy boost and I had a productive 2 miles return trip home. As I was running home I was thinking of how thankful I am that this year I didn’t need to go to physical therapy for any issues and that I was remaining strong and healthy for this training and also keeping focused.  Despite a little burnout during the Philadelphia marathon, I am on the right path to successfully complete my first Dopey challenge and I am happy about that.  I have one more group of training runs in the next two weeks which will contain most of the miles that the Dopey challenge will be; but I am making slight modifications based on what I decided after Phillly. I don’t want to do to the full 26 mile training run and then the full marathon at Dopey, that would be 3 marathons withing a 6 week time period and mentally that would just be too much for me.  So my plan is to do 20 miles on my last long training run and then the marathon during the Dopey challenge.

So good reports overall and I am happy with my progress.