The Goofy Challenge

It all started with a shirt... A simple orange shirt with Goofy (the Disney character) and the words "race and a half" on it. That's all it took. The idea was planted... the seed was sown. Orange isn't even my color... but I knew at that moment I had to run the Goofy Challenge. But when?

My wife decided middle of last year to run/walk the 2008 Disney marathon in Orlando. She trained for the latter half of 2008 and we both went down to Florida for the event. I intended this marathon to be my second... I wanted to run the 2007 New York marathon but ended up with a knee injury that prevented this. But my knee was better at the time and good enough to join my wife. I hadn't done any serious running for a few months...

So there we were, a few days before the marathon at the expo. That's when I saw the shirt. And I really wanted it! I bought a navy blue marathon shirt that day as inspiration/reward to complete the marathon. My wife had no confidence issues but she does wish she had bought a shirt in hind sight.

Race day was gorgeous. We had some mist in the morning so it was cool outside (perfect running weather if you ask me). It did get a bit warm as the day progressed... but the experience of the race was just phenomenal. It was great! I knew shortly after crossing the finish line I was signing up for the 2009 Goofy Challenge. And dragging as many of my family into it as possible (my father and brother are runners too).

So here I am today, having not run even a mile since the marathon in January. I'm trying to find inspiration. I've been pretty much burnt out on everything lately... in a rut of sorts. And tired...

I plotted out my training schedule for this year. My formal training starts week of June 15th. I need to run a little before then though. And I need to do my knee exercises. When I got my knee injury the doctors found some mechanical issues in my knees and gave me some strengthening exercises to perform. Of course I have not been doing them...

Sigh...