I can hardly believe that the moment I have been training for for MONTHS is less than 10 days away. About a week and a half ago I did my last long run of 11 miles, and although I started to feel hip pain around mile 8, I made it through alive and in good spirits. I've been pumping up my hip stretches since then in the hopes that I can avoid running into an issue during the actual race -- also crossing my fingers that my adrenaline will mask any pain that should creep up!
I also am officially prepared with all of my race day gear. Since this IS the Disney Half Marathon, it seems almost sacrilege to NOT go dressed as a Disney character, so I've created a psuedo-Minnie Mouse outfit that is both comfortable to run in and pretty cute for pictures. I'll be wearing black running pants and a black running top with a Minnie Mouse-ears headband and this adorable red tulle skirt that I got from the girls section at Target (yay for stretchy waists, but sad that there are actually kids that still shop in the girls section that would fit into this skirt!). I also picked up a $3 "throwaway" sweatshirt from Goodwill (red of course, to match the theme) to wear during staging and this weekend I plan to buy a cheap throw blanket from Marshalls to keep me warm. I'm preparing for about an hour and a half of idle time sitting in the staging area and there's nothing worse than sitting on concrete AND being freezing!
At the end of the day, I'm both excited and nervous. I know I'm prepared and that I've never ever averaged a 16-minute mile or longer, but I still have that tiny devil sitting on my shoulder saying I'm going to be one of the unlucky few to get picked up by the Loser-mobile (i.e. the van for folks who run too slow and won't finish the race within the pacing requirements). That or the little devil starts taunting me about my hip pain or threatening to bring bad weather on race day. If you'd please, I would greatly appreciate some final encouraging comments from all my tiny angels out there (aka you if you are reading this right now!) so that I can smash this devil once and for all.
Naturally, I will be sure to recap every little detail in a little over a week, including posting pictures. Until then...
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