A Goofy thing happened on the way to the race...

For those of you who have been following my sporadic entries to this blog, you'll know that my wife and I have been trying to get ourselves ready to run Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge in January 2013 in Disney World.  We've even booked our two daughters (age 12 and 2.5) into milder versions of run events for that same weekend.  I don't foresee any problem getting our youngest daughter race ready - being the result of two recent Ironman competitors I'm pretty convinced that she is born to swim/bike/run/destroy all she can get her hands on.  By all appearances she could probably handle a half-marathon distance now!  Our oldest daughter is a bit more of a challenge.  Aside from dealing with mild cerebral palsy she is a little less enthusiastic about training/preparing for race day than her parents/dad would like.  I've been trying to get her to train at longer distances and faster pace than the actual race will demand.  My rationale for that is based on the hope that when she gets to the real deal she will find it far easier than the boot camp her dad has been putting her through!  So far that rationale has not been getting a rave reception!

As for my wife and I, we've had our struggles trying to stay on track with training what with work obligations and a recent trip to Ohio to visit friends and watch the Buckeyes continue their undefeated season.  Somewhere between travel, meals out, and shopping at the outlet malls, our training runs contemplated for the four days in Columbus never materialized.  Since getting back we have been getting in training runs of upwards of 2 hours for the both of us.  However, neither of us is really happy with the lack of consistency with which we have been able to approach training.  So needless to say expectations for a sub 2-hour half marathon and a sub 4-hour marathon at Disney World in January are being re-evaluated much to our chagrin.

And...then we confounded our plan even more...by getting pregnant.  Heidi will be 18 weeks pregnant at the time of Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge. [NOTE: Ultrasound image is only representative and not our actual baby]  So there is even more (justifiable) reason to manage the pace of both races.  She's been getting some conflicting messages about training - risk to her, risk to baby, whether she should run both races and so on and so forth.  If my parents have anything to say about it Heidi should be curled up in front of the couch starting now!  At this point, we expect to continue to train and to run both races.  Our goal, however, is being adjusted from trying to achieve personal bests to focusing on enjoying the day and getting our medals for completing both events.  We believe that we both still have time to take the challenge of Goofy more seriously in the future but this time around perhaps we'll spend more time with the Disney characters than we otherwise might have.

I'll try for my personal best run performance later in 2013!  When things aren't so Goofy :)