TNT Coaching Disney 2011

I coached the Disney marathon and half-marathon for Team In Training (TNT) this year. Before the early-January trip to Orlando, I dyed my hair a brilliant shade of violet; Pimpin' Purple was the color name (kudos to Jenni @ Rock Paper Scissors Salon in Durham!). I thought it'd be fun, and might be a fun conversation starter with other TNT'ers and particularly with participants on course. Little did I know.

I coached / ran / walked both the Half and the Full, and loved the zone coaching plan; TNT assigned each of the 70-ish coaches a 4 mile 'zone' that they were to cover. I really think that I'm a more effective coach doing my thing in one place - where 'one place is my 4 mile zone - and having all the participants come by me. I know my run pace is such that I'd only see a small group of participants around my pace. So, I worked my zones Saturday and Sunday, and ran with whoever I could - fast and slow, those that looked like they needed it and those that looked like they didn't, from any and seemingly every chapter. I had some great conversations along the way, some mission based (Why TNT?) and some not (Running? Family? Job? etc.) - with way more participants than I can remember.

Jump forward a few hours to the victory celebration - with me still sporting the purple hair. I had a dozen (or so) participants from all over come up through the evening and thank me for running and/or walking them. "I wouldn't have made it through that part without you." "I was doing great, but thanks for running with me and talking to me." "Thanks for the encouragement." (and other similar sentiments). And this was on top of the gratitude and love I got from the utterly awesome NC crew I traveled down there with. I know it was the hair that had them remember me and that made me findable at the victory celebration, but I had no idea that there'd be this effect when I had it done. Those people taking the time to come up to me and thank me and share with me really made my coaching experience. And it guarantees I'll be doing the hair again for my next event coaching assignment. Nothing like direct feedback to have you get the difference you're making with people. I certainly got it that evening. In spades.

I love what LLS does for cancer research and for patients and their families. I love what TNT does for participants - enabling them to train for and finish their (for many, first) endurance event. And I love that I get to be involved in making this happen!

GO TEAM!

I am a Marathoner

After discovering sometime in August, 2006 that the 2007 Disney Marathon was ON my 40th birthday, I had to register. I mean, how could I not?

I started training, building slowly, as I wasn't doing any running beyond hashing. Over the fall, I ran a couple times during the week, and did long runs pretty regularly on weekends. Hashing fell by the wayside as I got way too paranoid about hurting myself in some foolish, ankle-twisting way. I ended up doing a modified version of the Jeff Galloway program I found online. Another Galloway idea that I embraced was the run/walk intervals. It made the distances a lot more possible than they would have been for me, doing them at a 2-minute run / 1-minute walk pace. My longest training run before the marathon was 18 miles, and it was about a month before the big race.

We flew to Disney World for the big weekend, and due to a foolish bit of procrastination on my part, ended up having to stay off Disney property. (Dearest Susie and her HotWire prowess to the rescue!) We did a couple of light park days, because we were at Disney World! I mean, how could I not have. :-) We covered the new rides since last time: Mission Space, Soarin', the Everest coaster, and a bunch of the old favorites. I miss going as frequently as I used to.

My buddy Jan and her husband Shane and their son came over from Largo to help watch Bon and cheer us on. They saved our bacon, and without them we wouldn't have been able to bring Bon along.

Okay, more on the actual race, including pictures, in the next post.