The Home Stretch

I took some much needed time off from blogging about my training to spend some time with my family over the holidays and to catch up on some sleep. A lot is happening right now, Dopey-wise, so we have a lot to get caught up on!

The biggest news is....today was my last training run for Dopey!! Yahoooooooooo!! I've scaled the mountain folks, and I've come back down the other side. I still seem fairly healthy (knock on wood) - I've been going to PT and doing my exercises (honestly, I think they should just make me an honorary Athletico employee at this point), I'm trying to eat well (and often....all the time actually...hey, is that a bagel?) and I've even started taking a daily vitamin c/zinc supplement to boost my immune system. Today's last run was bittersweet. Sweet as in, I'm done with this craziness, and bitter, as in it was bitterly cold and I froze some of my bits. But with this morning's sometimes painful last run, I can put training in the rear view mirror and focus on details for my trip. Thanks to Karin (a regular running companion and veteran Dopey who gave me tons of advice), Kristen, Dawn and Amy for enduring this morning's early wake up and cold weather to see me off in style.

Dang, it's cold. Who would run in this kind of weather?

I'm literally salting at the mouth. Sexy.

Packing has already begun. Lists have been made. Supplies have been purchased. And psuedo-OCD like packing has already taken place. When preparing to be gone for a week - and doing 4 races while you're there - you need to pack A LOT of stuff. First things first - race outfits. I pulled together all the items I will need for each race and packed them in individual 2.5 gallon plastic bags, labeled with the race and day. These will go in my carry-on. The individual packing makes it easy to see what I need and also easy to grab at 2:00 am when I'm stumbling around the hotel room trying to get dressed in time to make the race shuttle.

2.5 gallon bags are a Dopey girl's best friend.

Of course, race outfits are just the beginning. I also packed epsom salts, pre-measured recovery drink powder, my foam roller, compression socks, plastic baggies for ice....oh, and socks, underwear and pajamas. And honestly the idea of pajamas didn't come to me until a day later. I haven't packed clothing yet because I'm waiting for the forecast to sort itself out.

Thank goodness my training peaked the weekend before Christmas because I had almost zero motivation to run over the holidays. Thankfully my dad had plans to meet some running friends on Christmas Eve morning so I tagged along to get some miles in. He ran me to my fastest Dopey training mile up until that point, until a midnight New Year's Eve run turned in a faster one a week later.

Thank goodness for dads that drag you to Christmas Eve runs. He even bought me breakfast afterwards.

Another lucky thing was that my sister-in-law and her mother and a friend had a 7 mile run planned the day after Christmas, so I drug my unmotivated butt out the door to meet them for a run that ended up being a run-until-you-reach-a-flooded-road-and-then-turn-around-and-run-to-the-next-flooded-road kind of run.

See that water behind us? That is normally a dog park.

Lots of running until the road ended under a newly-formed lake

I spent most of the week surrounding Christmas in an unconscious state. And by that, I mean I was sleeping. A lot. I would sleep about 12 hours a night and still take a nap on several days as well. I felt kind of bad spending all that time asleep instead of with my family but my mom told me she was ready to feed me and let

me sleep for a week when I came to visit for Christmas break this year. She gets me. 

When I got back home, I knew I still had a few more runs to knock out and luckily am surrounded by friends who are nearly as crazy as I am....or more so...so finding someone to run with was not a problem. I started off by joining my friend Lauri as she finished up her first year 'streaking' - running every single day. (She? I told you some of my friends were crazier than I am.) Lauri had been getting up early to run with me quite regularly so I didn't want to miss her big day. Some other crazy folks turned up for this New Year's Eve morning run to help commemorate the occasion. 

There are a couple of streakers in there...and not the naked kind.

But that wasn't the end of my running for the day (for the record, Dopey veteran Karin advised against that). My friend Robyn had arranged a New Year's Eve running party whereby we literally ran into 2016. The party started at 11:00 and we started our run about 11:45. We were decked out with blinking lights and brought along noisemakers to blow when the clock struck midnight on our run. When we returned, we were met with some of the running husbands who had sparklers, champagne and cheesecake waiting for us. It was an awesome way to start the new year. I will admit though, the 2 jello shots I did at an earlier party came back to haunt me a bit at mile 2 of our run. 

First, we run. Then we eat cheesecake.

So now the training is done. The packing has started. The race forecast is being obsessed over. Everything seems to be going according to plan (knock on wood). I can take a little breath and spend some time thinking about how fortunate I've been during this process so far. I've had a few injury issues but my amazing PT (who sometimes I curse under my breath) has kept me in the game and never once told me I could't do this, even when he might have thought it. My friends have stepped up and run with me on days that weren't fit for man nor beast. They woke up before the sun came up and they kept me supplied with Gatorade along the way. My family has been supportive too. Even though my mom would really rather I didn't do this, she has ridden her bike alongside me, sewn me a costume, fed me and let me sleep as much as I wanted. The Fleet Feet customers have been great. They always asked how my training was going whenever they stopped into the store and several of them even took shifts running with me. My co-workers at Heartland have been supportive as well. I've taken several hours of vacation during the last month of training in order to fit in some of the longer training runs and they've rolled with it. And then there was one special person who went all Secret Santa on me and arranged a sly drop off at my physical therapy facility of some Disney gift cards to use on my trip. I still haven't found out who that is but I am so thankful and was beyond surprised. You don't know how this made my day.

I have the best friends.

Seriously. The best. 

 You know that phrase, "It takes a village"? Well, it certainly does. This challenge has been my Everest this year and I've had so many people acting as my sherpas. Thank you everyone. I hope I can help you accomplish your dreams someday too. 

I know a lot of you are probably so tired of hearing about Dopey. I apologize for being so single-minded for the last several months. It's almost over - I promise. I hope I haven't bored you too much.

But this isn't over quite yet. The big event starts in 4 days. I feel like I'm about as ready as I can be. So let's do this thing!