The week was cold, the week was also a week of forgetting and loosing items. The cold, well check out the Dark Sky time machine data Jan 4th, Jan 5th, Jan 6th, Jan 7th. What did I loose? I lost my one good working AirPod on Flight of passage. I also lost, or misplaced, my MagicBand when packing my luggage the night before my flight home. I eventually did find the MagicBand a few days later shoved in the toe of my running shoes.

I ran a race in 2017. I didn’t think I would and I wait to nearly the last moment to register. I have four weeks of vacation to use or lose over the course of year. I try to spread them out over the year. Looking a head back in early January I had no plans of running any races this year. I did however plan my vacation time around local events that I could run if I so choose to.

Talk about a late posting. I had this done for months just waiting to publish. I slacked off all year and failed to up-date my 2015 year in running. In late 2014 to early 2015 I decided I wanted to run the Dopey Challenge along with the inaugural Dark Side Half Marathon at Disney World. I tried to make my 2015 supportive of these goals. I registered to run my home town half marathon early in the year along with the fall full marathon in Grand Rapids.

Last year was the first year I ran this event. Mentally I felt down for most of the race, physically I felt a bit off; I ran my fast official half marathon it was also the last race I ran. This year, I was in a good place mentally but a tad unsure physically. When I signed up I wanted to better last years time, my goal time was 2:10.

Last year I had many plans 2014, running wise. After the Dopey Challenge I didn’t do much and only finished one other event. For that event, Let’s Move Festival of Races, I didn’t do any training. I also entered Kona Running Company’s Kona Run, a massive fail. A few days earlier I had eye lid surgery, I miss-calculated the drive time and missed the start of the race partly due to to the eye lid surgery.

The trip of course didn’t start as planned. The schedule flight out of DTW to MCO was canceled the previous morning due to weather conditions. I quickly called the airline and the earliest flight I could get to MCO was scheduled to land at 755pm; the expo was scheduled to close at 8pm. The initial question of how do I get to Disney was replaced with how do make it to Disney in time to pick up my bib.

My final vacation for the year is just around the corner, which of course I’m looking forward to. I have spent the last week thinking of different projects I want to tackle over the week. I of course want to fin down some of the details to my January vacation plans… the quantitative self side of things. I played my order for the Magellan Echo, which I plan on using all four days of the Dopey Challenge.

I was a huge watch person in the later years of high school and most of my college life. Then sometime in my senior year I stop wearing a watch. It wasn’t until early this year I start wearing a watch on a semi-regular basis. But first let me back track, once I decided I was going to make an attempt at the Goofy Challenge in `13 I wanted to find a way to track my effort in a quantitative way.

I think a good deal of my current running related knee pain is related to weak strenght in my hip flexors along with hip flexibility and mobility.

This may sound like a horror story at first but I assure you it isn’t. I wanted to find a lightweight shoe comfortable to wear daily, with a low toe to heal drop. However this shoe wasn’t intended to be used for daily use but as a gym workout shoe. Over the winter I’ve been eyeing up Sketchers GOrun 1 line from a distance. Just a few weeks ago I stopped by my local Skechers Outlet, and picked up a new pair of shoes.

My 2013 goal was to complete the Goofy, and I meet my goal. I was nearly sure I would running the Goofy in 2014 as I felt I could have done better. Now Disney has announced the Dopey Challenge; 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon for a whopping 48.6 miles for 6 medals. I think I now have a new challenge. My room is booked.

I started writing this post on the plane home after completing my first marathon in January. Then it sat in my draft folder, and sat some more; the time has come to finally publish. In 2012 I ran the Chicago Rock ‘n’ Roll Half along with the Walt Disney World Wine and Dine. The Chicago Rock ‘n Roll went far better than I could have expected, while the Wine & Dine went far worse than I could have imagined.

When I first started to run I would run excessive at the gym, indoors on a treadmill. The idea of running outside, where the elements and nature could interfere with my feeble attempt at running horrified me. I knew I need help to start running, couch to 5k apps where all the rage. They where all relatively cheap and similarly priced at $2.99. I knew I would eventually outgrow the 5k apps, as I was targeting completing a half-marathon.