2017 Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge - DIY half marathon

Posted on January 17, 2017 | 4 min read time

This is post two of three for the 2017 Dopey Challenge. Checkout my recap for the expo, 5k, and 10k here. No disappointment here! So this was the weird day of this year’s Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. We’d been watching the weather all week and knew it was going to be rainy. I don’t mind running in the rain if it’s not too cold, but thunderstorms were in the forecast, which…is a problem. [Read More]

2017 Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge - pre-race, expo, 5k, and 10k

Posted on January 17, 2017 | 6 min read time

What better way to start off a new year than with a weekend full of racing in Disney? For the second year in a row, I ran the Dopey Challenge in Walt Disney World. It’s a 5k, 10k, half marathon, and marathon over the course of four days. And it’s a fantastic and wild event! After last year, I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore. [Read More]

One weekend, two DNSes

Posted on November 21, 2016 | 5 min read time

Two races. I DNSed two races this weekend. I’m not too happy about it either. Back in July, I started kicking around the idea of doing a second fall marathon this year. I didn’t want to commit to it at the time, but it was an idea I had in the back of my head. I figured there’d be two circumstances in which I would actually do it. The first was if I didn’t like how training was going for Chicago Marathon and wanted to push my goal race back. [Read More]

How did I run a nearly flawless race?

Posted on October 19, 2016 | 10 min read time

The me in this photo was expecting pretty much the opposite kind of race performance. It’s been a week and a half now since my nearly-flawless marathon in Chicago and I’m still trying to put together what I take away from this race. I’ve always been of the mindset that there’s much more to learn from failure than from success, but this race feels like the exception to the rule, for me. [Read More]

2016 Chicago Marathon - 3:28:41

Posted on October 11, 2016 | 20 min read time

Oh, yes, look at that smile! Marathon number nine is in the books! And it was fan-fucking-tastic! I would go so far as to describe this as not just my best marathon, but my best race ever. Pre-race The plan after getting to Chicago was to hit up the expo and then take it mostly easy though the rest of Friday and Saturday. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on my feet. [Read More]

Chicago Marathon training recap

Posted on October 8, 2016 | 6 min read time

It’s marathon time. I guess. Well, not I guess, actually. It is marathon time. Tomorrow. Oof. For the most part, training went better than I had expected, but one part of marathoning that I’m really bad at is managing the nerves leading up to the race. I’ve be super stressed about it for the last two weeks. This is typical for me, but this time around it’s even worse. [Read More]

2016 Newport Liberty Half Marathon - 1:39:51

Posted on September 20, 2016 | 9 min read time

I haven’t raced a half marathon in a long time. Sure, I’ve run half marathons, but it’s been about four and a half years since I actually tried to run a fast half and cared about my time. That was about a month before I decided to transition. Granted, I also haven’t raced much in the way of any distance in the last two years, but it’s certainly been the longest for the half. [Read More]