Last night was the first night of our unofficial Goofy Challenge clinic. Originally there was going to be a formal clinic at the Running Room but for a variety of reasons they had to cancel it. The cool thing is that in place of that formal clinic the other Goofy runners at the store decided to run their own informal training group on Facebook. Yay!
I got to meet everyone in the group for the first time last night and I have to say, what a nice group of people! Admittedly, I was a bit nervous on my way to the store. What if everyone else was a superstar runner and I wouldn't be able to keep up? It was kind of like starting my very first clinic a few years ago. Turns out my fears were unfounded because even though I only just met them, I think I'm going to have a great time running, training and travelling with these people.
Our group is small (about 7 runners) but within the group there are runners of different ages and different levels of experience too. One girl has run Goofy before and several others have been to Walt Disney World for either the half or full marathon already. I'm excited because while most have run a marathon before, there is one other runner will be running his very first marathon at Goofy (like me!). It sounds like a bunch of them have travelled together for races so they have some history together, but it's great to know that they have that experience with runDisney events and WDW in particular.
After chatting about what we wanted the clinic to look like and what availability people had for long runs and weekday runs we headed out for our first run together. A nice easy 5-ish km. What I noticed right away is that our group could pretty much stay together the whole run. I'm sure our pacing will change over longer distances but I have a feeling we will all be pretty well-paced as a group. I am hoping that's true when we get into those long marathon distances which happen to fall right in the middle of our cold, wet winter!
Anyhow, it was a great start to what I am sure will be a memorable training cycle. I had prepared myself mentally to do the whole Goofy training on my own so it is a real treat to have a local group of runners to train with. I have really missed the clinic environment with so much of my training done solo this year and I am psyched to be back with a group, especially one that has such nice people in it!
So, there you have it. One run closer to Goofy, approximately 89-ish more runs to go!
That's so awesome! Goofy 2011 was my first full marathon and my first runDisney event. (now I'm hooked!)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found a group to run it with!
Good luck! I have contempleted doing the goofy challenge as my first marathon - then I tell myself I don't want to run that far.
ReplyDeleteEIGHTY NINISH runs to go! Not that your counting or anything tho right lol:) Sounds like an awesome race!
ReplyDeleteIf there's any race that a running group is going to be very beneficial for your training it's the Goofy Challenge. I'm glad you had a great first run with your group!
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