Welcome to my lovely blog about two of my favorite things: cupcakes and running! The best part of being a runner is that I can eat cupcakes without feeling guilty. Not that I eat many, lol. To be perfectly honest, I am actually more of a "bake the cupcakes and make everyone else eat them" kind of girl. But still.
I have been running for a little over a year. My first half marathon was the 26.2 with Donna (in my case, 13.1). After that I did the Disney Princess Half Marathon, Disneyland Half, and Walt Disney World Half. I am a huge fan of the Disney races for two reasons- 1) they are huge! I love blending in with 22,000 other people. Yes the course is crowded in some places, but everyone is always super friendly and happy and not taking life too seriously. Plus any kind of race where I can run through a castle and take pictures with chatacters is pretty awesome. 2) they are slow people friendly. I am totally one of those slow people, and I like knowing that I am just as welcome as the fast people. Plus with all those thousands of other people, I do not have to worry about being last. Not that there is anything wrong with being last, I mean it is the same 13.1 miles, but I would prefer to go unnoticed and sneak across that finish line without all the bikes and medical people and pacers and such chasing me :-)
This year before the WDW half I figured out that the reason I have been having so much trouble breathing when I am running is because I have exercise induced asthma. This has been the most frustrating part of my journey. I was faithfully running my three times a week, but still could not run more than one lightpole (this is how I measure the distances in my neighborhood, and thankfully the lightpoles are evenly spaced) without gasping for air. It was frustrating seeing people start running and so effortlessly increase their speed. And of course there were a load of well meaning people telling me that I just wasn't pushing myself, not using proper breathing techniques, etc, etc. Which made things even worse. So my faithful training runs became more and more sporadic.
After running WDW on about 6 miles of training, I decided to stop being so flippin hard on myself and stick to a training plan. It is just a fact that it will take me longer to build up speed and endurance, and it is going to be easier to lose that work by not sticking to a training plan. The good thing is that with an inhaler I can actually breathe, so now I just need to get my legs moving and step things up.
I love love reading other people's blogs about running, and race reports. I figured just in case there were other people out there who are the same, I would add my two cents into things! And due to the somewhat random nature of my personality there will be some posts thrown in about non running things as well - and I am sure a few pictures of cupcakes and other delicious things I happen to whip up in the kitchen :-)
Happy reading!
:-)
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