Deskchair to Dopey

In October of 2018, I started running and finished my first 5k about a month later: the Plano Turkey Trot.  Then, I ran my first 10k the following April.  By that time I was signed up for my first long race: the 2019 Disney World Wine & Dine 2-Course Challenge the first weekend of November. This would be a 10k on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday. I had about eight months or so to train for it. No big deal, I thought.

When I mentioned this 2-course challenge to a co-worker, he jokingly said we should run the Dopey Challenge together some day. This is a race series at Disney World which includes a 5k, 10k, half, and full marathon run on consecutive days. You have to be "Dopey" to do this! Well, after reading about it, I was hooked on the idea. So, instead of training for a half marathon in November, I was now training for a full marathon in January (which I would be running the day after a half marathon!).

Below is my story.  I had many ups and downs. My hope is that my story from "Deskchair to Dopey" encourages you, maybe even inspires you to do something you've never thought about before: running a race!

The first article will be a short story about how I got started running, but the rest will focus on the actual fitness and training aspect of becoming a marathoner.