This is it, the last run before the big race. I’ve done all the training I can do before Saturday. Not to say I couldn’t have done more, I’ve missed some runs, I’ve missed some runs recently even. I’ve justified it by thinking that its better to have missed those particular runs and be healthy but “less ready” than to have attempted them and risked injury. But tonight I finished my last 4 miles on a night run, feeling good, with the moon shining down lighting the roads. Read more

In our household October means EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, at least for the adults, it’s one of our most looked forward to trips all year and has been for 9 years now. Even though we had just been down 3 weeks prior for #EpicOctober and Wine and Dine Half Marathon, I never even made it to EPCOT to try even one dish or glass of wine. Read more

Sadly, today was my last run in Disney until October when I’ll run my 1st half marathon. Oh, I’ll have run more than 13.1 miles at a time by then, but not in an “event,” so as long as I stay healthy and injury free, the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon, which is at night, should be a breeze. Read more

Today’s run will stand out for two reasons. The main was is that we stayed out til 2:00AM at Magic Kingdom this morning and weren’t in bed til 2:45ish so I got up a little later than usual, not a lot so I’m probably going to burn out quicker this evening, but a little later. This cause me to be a little slow getting out the door and I ended up on twitter talking to two friends and next thing I knew it was another hour later so I didn’t even get outside until after 9:30 and paid dearly in sweat droplets. Read more

I’ve actually been looking forward to today’s run, especially after the 12 miler Sunday, I only needed 6 today. It wasn’t too long ago I thought 6 miles was forever but it’s almost a “short” run any more except my Saturday 4 mile runs, maybe we’ll call 6 “maintenance.” Read more

I’ve been worried about this run for a while now, I mean, I’ve done  two 10 milers and all but there’s just something about 12 that has been a hangup in my head, I don’t know why. Part of it may have been my bad experience last Sunday on the 10 mile run at Rails to Trails. Another thing that’s been worrying me was WHERE to run since I wouldn’t be at home, but in Disney for our 8 night trip. Read more

Typically we go to Disney for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival in mid October or later so we had planned to go the weekend of the 22nd-24th. There was a little logic behind this particular weekend because we had been on both Halloween and Columbus day weekends and both seemed to have heavier than usual crowds, so we booked the weekend in between way back in December. We’ve always had mediocre luck in the weekend we chose because someone cool had either JUST been there and left before we got there, or were coming in the day we left, so we always seemed to miss the cool celebrity chefs of bands playing the Eat to the Beat concert series. We usually book far out like this so well before Disney has booked anyone to come but we’ve tried to wait until later to see who was coming but then we had a harder time getting the resort we wanted for that weekend. So we finally decided “this is what we’re doing and when we’re doing it and we’ll have fun regardless.” This was also planned well in advance of even knowing about #epicoctober2010 since that trip was booked just 3 weeks or so out so we had assumed this would be our only Food and Wine trip. Read more

Wow, that’s the first thing that comes to mind after this trip, what a whirlwind. We’ve always done a lot of last minute trips, sometimes with a purpose, others just to get away, this one definitely had a purpose. I had actually seen earlier this year that there would be a new half marathon on opening weekend of the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival, and it would be at night. One of the things on my bucket list is to run a full marathon so while the thought crossed my mind to do this half, I just didn’t think we’d be able to do two trips in October and we already had one planned later in the month. Read more

After the enjoyable trip we had last July and my first attempt at working from Disney World, we returned again to give it a whirl with some extra knowledge on how to do it even better. The biggest two differences this year are we are staying in a 1 bedroom verses a Studio last year, and we are staying at Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary verses Saratoga Springs last year. Don’t get me wrong, we really enjoyed last year, but Kriss and Kellie pretty much stayed at the resort or walked over to Downtown Disney last year. This year being at the Contemporary opens up a lot more possibilities for them since they don’t like to take the bus or drive in Disney without me so while I work, they can hit the pool, walk to Magic Kingdom, or take a monorail EPCOT. Also staying in a Studio last year put me at the foot of the bed working while they were still asleep in the morning or getting ready, now they can go to the living room or kitchen and I can shut the door if I need quiet. This year we also decided to stay in one place the whole time, last year we hopped from moderate resorts on weekends to a DVC resort do the week, and back to a moderate again for the last weekend. Read more

It’s hard to believe another year has finally passed and it’s time for our annual pilgrimage to Disney with the whole family. Travel day, Sunday, was pretty non eventful and went like most of our travel days do. Everyone was up early actually, no one had to be drug out the bed except the youngest one who then slept to somewhere around Daytona I think, and we had no problems or arguments even. We got our Little Guy trailer loaded pretty quickly and were on the road 15 minutes before planned. Read more