So it’s official! I’m all signed up and registered for the Walt Disney World marathon next year. Coincidentally, it was the only race NOT sold out this morning when I finally got through the queue so I was able to nab a spot for this race. Literally everything else sold out, the 5k, 10k, half, Goofy and Dopey challenges. Only the marathon alone was still available, and luckily for me, it’s the only race I’m aiming for. I don’t want to attempt the Dopey challenge til I’m confident I can survive a full marathon on it’s own first. One step at a time. I don’t want to be too ambitious and set myself up for failure, or worse, injury.

But this morning’s experience has me nervous because I have to do it again next month for the Princess Half weekend registration. I’m worried because last year I had no issues signing up for the Princess race weekend. There was no waiting in a virtual queue to get through registration. I was able to register all 3 races for myself and Kerri, and my sisters for the 5k with me. This year, I heard about issues with Wine & Dine races selling out at both early registration and general registration sales. And of course, with everything in 2020 being cancelled and the WDW Marathon weekend in January being the most popular of the RunDisney events, this morning’s registration was sure to sell out fast. Princess weekend is becoming more and more popular every weekend too so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more registrants this year, along with the pandemic causing everyone to go crazy and sign up for events for next year to have something to look forward to. I love Princess weekend so I really hope I can go again next year. At least I have two chances at registration next month.

Currently I’m looking up blogs and other people’s experiences with their first marathon for advice, tips, and tricks. I’m going to continue running since that’s all I really can do but I’m wondering when I should actively start training for this since I feel like now is too early because if I start training too soon and meet goals sooner than the event date, I might get too overconfident and relax too early before then. I feel like I kind of did this with Princess training this year since I had ran a test half marathon a good two weeks before the actual race. Then I started easing off and it probably hurt me in the long run because I could’ve performed better and gotten a better time. RunDisney’s official training program by Jeff Galloway does suggest a 29 week training program even for experienced runners, and we’re currently 36 weeks out from the race. So I’m not exactly too far off from where I should begin for training. I usually train a little more aggressively than their proposed calendar but with the marathon, it might be harder since 13.1 miles is the farthest I’ve run, and that itself is time consuming enough, let alone adding more miles on weekly to increase endurance and how far I can go. Simply put, this is going to be a lot of work and I probably should stick to the schedule a little more closely to give myself enough rest in between training as well as ensuring I avoid injury. That’s the last thing I want to do, put myself out of commission and not be able to crush this goal on go day.

If you have any tips or would like to share your own experience, please, feel free to share away below in the comments. I love reading other people’s dos and don’ts and what they’ve learned. I’m not going to lie and say I’m not terrified because despite being 248 days away, I’m definitely scared as all hell. The funny thing is the night before, I was telling my husband how it was one of those situations where I’m terrified of making it through registration (because then it would mean I actually have to go through with this) and I was also equally terrified of not making it through registration if it sold out. Pick your poison. Ah, the life I choose to live.

In other updates, OMG, my hubby has cleared the den in my house and turned it into a beautiful workout space for me. He organized, threw out, and cleared out everything we had cluttered in there, put down gym mats, and positioned all the equipment in place for me. He even bought me bright white lights and set up my Mickey speaker. The bright white lights are a small detail to some, but to me, it’s a big deal. I love bright lights. Something about light in a room helps put me in the right mindset to get things done. And my Mickey speaker connects to my phone, ipad or any other device so I can stream music or play audio if I’m watching a show or whatever. It’s really helped to improve my home workouts and boosted my mental health mindset. I was stuck in a self destruct mode a few weeks ago with my demons playing at me literally EVERY DAY but since my new space was put together, I’ve been doing much better. I’m slowly starting to get an actual routine and new rhythm of things as I adjust to a new normal, even if it’s for a temporary time, albeit we have no idea how long this ‘temporary’ will last. But it’s amazing how little things like this affect your mood and help to set the day. I’m definitely still fluctuating back and forth on the scale, I’ll be honest. I’m rubberbanding currently between 115-118 but I’m coming to accept that a little weight gain during this quarantine is just inevitable. I still try to eat clean and healthy on most days but some days I let myself be human and give in to what I want to eat. I’ll work it off later when the quarantine is lifted and I can get back to my usual go hard or go home workouts in the gym. For now though, I’m going to try to relax a little bit and attempt to be kinder to myself. I know I’m really hard on myself and it’s a little unhealthy and probably what took a big toll on my stress a few weeks ago. It’s funny because despite the scale numbers gradually creeping up a little, the pictures I constantly take to track my progress help to balance out that anxiety. I still like what I see in the mirror and honestly, yes I do look bloated here and there sometimes, but for the most part, I’m still very happy with where I’m at and how I look. I don’t want to take away from that because I worked really hard the past 2 years not only on my physical appearance, strength, endurance, stamina, self discipline and health, but laying down good habits and finally sticking to them. I used to be a lot more sedentary and complacent. Now I try to get in at least 20,000 steps a day. I am very conscious of how much protein I consume and try to limit my carb and sugar intake. I make time to make sure I'm packing proper meals for work so I'm not mindlessly ordering out, wasting money and wasting progress. I try to focus more on fueling my body, rather than mindlessly feeding it and damaging it in ways that would create health problems and weight problems later on. I plan all my meals in advance, even if I plan on ordering food, I'll try to pick healthier alternatives. I hydrate like a fish. All I drink is water and lots of it daily. I learned that as long as you stick with something, what seems so hard now will one day be your warm up. 5ks used to be insufferable for me. Now a 10k is routine. I try to run for at least an hour when I do go running. I work out almost every day, whether it’s a run, weights, stretching or a combination of various workouts. I’m looking to learn and incorporate yoga possibly into my routine during this quarantine. I mean, no better time to learn, right?

I’m learning to treat exercise as a celebration for what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate. I look forward to my daily runs and my home workouts. I do them because I want to. I try not to skip workouts because I’ve learned to love consistency. I’ve grown into the mindset that I’d rather come out with 3 months of progress, instead of 3 months of excuses. So much can change in 30 days. That can be good or bad, depending on how you want to take control of the situation.

I’ve also learned to use social media more intentionally. People always complain about how we need to use it less and spend more time off our phones. While I do believe I need to unplug every now and then, I do believe you can use social media in a more productive way. I started unfollowing and muting everything that doesn’t speak to me. Marie Kondo-ing my feed, in a sense. I only want to follow those that inspire and motivate me. I want to engage with people I can learn from, and those that produce genuine, positive, interesting conversations. So that I’m not just mindlessly scrolling. I’m trying to rid my feed of the complaining, hating, negativity and bitterness that plagues social media and gives it a bad name. I’m learning to starve the trolls because it’s not worth my energy or time. I’ve never cared about the number of followers anyway. So now I’m focusing more on the followers that have stuck around and have something of substance to say, instead of the average fuckboi DM. I do enjoy the friends I’ve made and the relationships I’ve built on there, from those following me through running and working out, rather than the skimpy cosplays. So for those of you taking the time to read this all the way to the end, love you guys! And for those of you working on your own goals, know that I’m rooting for you! I love when you share your stories and accomplishments with me and I’m really glad my IG stories inspire you. It’s why I keep posting every day, y’all keep me going. Here’s to being goal-diggers, goal crushers and working hard to go the distance!