imperfectly courtney

I can hardly believe it’s really here. No, not 2012… but the week of my first marathon! I feel like I didn’t really expect it to actually happen when I signed up for it.  Last marathon update was when I ran 23 miles, and I killed it. At least for me. I wrote how I was supposed to run my last long run the week before Christmas. I was building up the anticipation for it and when the alarm went off at 4:15 that saturday morning I knew something was off… I felt horrible. Couldn’t breathe through my nose, head throbbing. I had a sinus cold, ick. I still went…

What?? The last time I updated was November 11? Where did November go?? I can hardly believe we’re already full swing in the Christmas season! December snuck up on me. I can’t believe Christmas is a few weeks away, Not to mention in just over ONE MONTH I will be running my first marathon. This nervous excitement is almost too much… Speaking of the marathon, I haven’t kept you up to date on my training, so here’s a recap… The week of thanksgiving was my second to last “long run” of my training… 23 miles! 23 has always been my favorite number (its my birthday! 3/23) So I figured when…

So, I know it’s a little late…. buuuut I ran 20 miles last saturday!! Twenty. Like 2 and 0….. Wowsers! I woke up around 4:30am and was out the door a little after 5. I was feeling pretty good to start out with and I was trying to keep a good pace and run/walk ratio. I knew when I was yawning on mile 3 that it was going to be a tough one… It was foggy, which made it kinda creepy. I did pretty good for the first few hours, just trying to maintain a reasonable (for me) pace. Here is a picture of the fog around mile 9…. isn’t…

So it was about 6 weeks ago that I first posted about my plans to run the Disney Marathon. I’ve been following the Jeff Galloway plan that Disney put out and I’m very proud of my progress. Usually in things like this I get excited at first and that tapers off and I lose interest. This is different. I’m excited to see how far I can go. At this point I’m not too concerned about my pace, despite the fact its right on the line of the guidelines Disney gives. Most of my runs are around 16 minute paces, but I also have been doing most of my running out…

Apparently I enjoy setting high expectations for myself. I do it over and over again. and I’m at it again. Since high school I have always wanted to be able to run. It always seemed like an unachievable goal for me. I buried myself under books and called myself an intellectual to avoid the world of athletics. oh how i regret that now. It seems like I’ve been able to believe in myself in every other area but athletics. Over the last few years I’ve dabbled here and there in the running world, at the beginning of this year I even built myself up to running 6 miles at a…