Barca33Runner
Please excuse the crudity of this model
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2014
I have been posting on these boards for a couple years on and off, primarily on the runDisney/Events/Competitions board and almost exclusively within threads with some relation to WDW Marathon Weekend. I thought it might be good to start a journal for an added measure of accountability to my fitness goals.
A little introduction...My name is Jared and my username refers to my favorite football team FC Barcelona. In Summer of 2011 I weighed around 260 pounds (I know it was at least that but I avoided the scale) with very poor muscle tone; not a particularly good place for a 5-9, 29-year-old guy. I love sports but was never an athlete and I could not name the last time I had traversed 1 mile in a continuous effort (running, walking or any other means). As a result I had been overweight for basically my entire life. It is something that I hated about myself and had tried numerous times to correct without any success.
My sister had recently given birth to her second child and was looking at ways to find motivation to lose some of her baby weight. She had come up with the idea to train for and run her first half marathon. She heard of the WDW Marathon (something which I was completely unaware even existed) and was looking for someone to go run with her. I saw an opportunity to finally undertake an effort which would force me to get in shape, but mainly saw a chance to go to Disney World with my nearly 3-year-old nephew. On a bit of a whim we both decided to sign up for the 2012 WDW Half Marathon (I signed up in September, I am still grateful that the <2-hour sellouts had not yet begun).
To my shame, I did a very poor job of training for the race. My confidence in my ability to walk a 16:00/mile pace helped me backslide into one of my worst tendencies-to procrastinate and do the bare minimum amount of work in order to achieve something. I had lost virtually no weight and was still giving in to any excuse not to exercise. I finished the race but did not enjoy the fun as much as I should have and was ashamed of my lack of training. Around the 8-mile mark I had come to the conclusion that I would redeem myself the following year by running the full marathon. My sister, for much different reasons, had also resolved to tackle the marathon the following year so we had a new plan in place.
In 2012 I did a much better job of training. I lost around 30 pounds and felt great about my chances in the marathon. The 2013 WDW Marathon was one of the greatest achievements of my life and although the weather and the overwhelming challenge of finishing a marathon caught me by surprise I was able to finish. Still looking for a bigger goal, my sister and I decided we would try for the Goofy Challenge the next year. Those plans changed when the Dopey Challenge was announced. After a couple years of being envious of the Goofy runners, we knew we had to go for the biggest challenge the weekend offered and wanted to be in for the first year.
During training I lost another 40 pounds and was in the best shape of my life. I shaved almost 2 hours off my marathon finishing time despite the added rigors of the challenge. We have continued to run the Dopey Challenge the last two years and plan on making it a tradition.
That brings me to the title of my post. I finished my first marathon in 7 hours and 11 minutes. I was and still am very proud of that achievement. Over the three Dopey Challenges my marathon times have been 5:22, 5:17, and 5:27. I knew coming into this year that my fitness had taken a little step back and was already thinking of ways to re-motivate myself to greater emotional and fitness gains. Training for the Dopey itself had become too comfortable and I was once again slipping into bad habits. That's why I came up with my 7:11 Challenge. I would like to finish the 48.6 miles in the 2017 Dopey Challenge in less time than it took me to finish my first marathon. My goals have always been just to finish the races I have entered, but now I need to bring a new element of competition for myself in order to keep moving in a positive direction.
Thanks to everyone who made it to the end of this post. Hopefully I will be able to post regularly to update progress. Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome.
A little introduction...My name is Jared and my username refers to my favorite football team FC Barcelona. In Summer of 2011 I weighed around 260 pounds (I know it was at least that but I avoided the scale) with very poor muscle tone; not a particularly good place for a 5-9, 29-year-old guy. I love sports but was never an athlete and I could not name the last time I had traversed 1 mile in a continuous effort (running, walking or any other means). As a result I had been overweight for basically my entire life. It is something that I hated about myself and had tried numerous times to correct without any success.
My sister had recently given birth to her second child and was looking at ways to find motivation to lose some of her baby weight. She had come up with the idea to train for and run her first half marathon. She heard of the WDW Marathon (something which I was completely unaware even existed) and was looking for someone to go run with her. I saw an opportunity to finally undertake an effort which would force me to get in shape, but mainly saw a chance to go to Disney World with my nearly 3-year-old nephew. On a bit of a whim we both decided to sign up for the 2012 WDW Half Marathon (I signed up in September, I am still grateful that the <2-hour sellouts had not yet begun).
To my shame, I did a very poor job of training for the race. My confidence in my ability to walk a 16:00/mile pace helped me backslide into one of my worst tendencies-to procrastinate and do the bare minimum amount of work in order to achieve something. I had lost virtually no weight and was still giving in to any excuse not to exercise. I finished the race but did not enjoy the fun as much as I should have and was ashamed of my lack of training. Around the 8-mile mark I had come to the conclusion that I would redeem myself the following year by running the full marathon. My sister, for much different reasons, had also resolved to tackle the marathon the following year so we had a new plan in place.
In 2012 I did a much better job of training. I lost around 30 pounds and felt great about my chances in the marathon. The 2013 WDW Marathon was one of the greatest achievements of my life and although the weather and the overwhelming challenge of finishing a marathon caught me by surprise I was able to finish. Still looking for a bigger goal, my sister and I decided we would try for the Goofy Challenge the next year. Those plans changed when the Dopey Challenge was announced. After a couple years of being envious of the Goofy runners, we knew we had to go for the biggest challenge the weekend offered and wanted to be in for the first year.
During training I lost another 40 pounds and was in the best shape of my life. I shaved almost 2 hours off my marathon finishing time despite the added rigors of the challenge. We have continued to run the Dopey Challenge the last two years and plan on making it a tradition.
That brings me to the title of my post. I finished my first marathon in 7 hours and 11 minutes. I was and still am very proud of that achievement. Over the three Dopey Challenges my marathon times have been 5:22, 5:17, and 5:27. I knew coming into this year that my fitness had taken a little step back and was already thinking of ways to re-motivate myself to greater emotional and fitness gains. Training for the Dopey itself had become too comfortable and I was once again slipping into bad habits. That's why I came up with my 7:11 Challenge. I would like to finish the 48.6 miles in the 2017 Dopey Challenge in less time than it took me to finish my first marathon. My goals have always been just to finish the races I have entered, but now I need to bring a new element of competition for myself in order to keep moving in a positive direction.
Thanks to everyone who made it to the end of this post. Hopefully I will be able to post regularly to update progress. Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome.
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