Possible marathon buddy!

I may actually have a tentative teammate! I texted a couple people to see if they would want to maybe run the Disney marathon with me, and my brother laughed (though said he thought it was awesome I was doing it), Erin C has an ACL injury that has put her long-distance running days behind her, BUT Erin B might do it! Erin, you know you want to go to Disney with me and run a freaking long way. We can be a team! And have costumes! Or maybe I'll just have a possible costume and Erin can stand a ways away and pretend she doesn't know me, that's fine too. :-P

I found out through Facebook that John, my high school prom date, did one of the Disney races and asked him for suggestions. He definitely came through - I got a good long message back with not only tips on the Disney race itself but also words of encouragement. When he started running, he said the first mile was awful, and then the first was OK but the second was torture, but if you get through that, you'll improve and running will be really beneficial in a lot of ways. Now he really likes running and has done several races. Long races, too, not just 5Ks. Honestly, it's nice to hear someone say that it sucks at first but gets better. Based on past experience, I'm fully expecting to hate this at first.

I have yet to find out when my benefits start. However, I did walk to the library during my lunch break (a crazy day involving someone else's poo all over the women's toilet seat had me clamoring to leave the office for a bit) and got a couple running/marathon books. One of them suggested starting with 8 days of walking for 20 and 30 minutes so your legs aren't completely shocked when you start moving them at a far faster pace than that to which they are accustomed. I can do that. I can even do that in the middle of the day for my lunch hour and eat lunch at my desk while I work, which is what I usually do. In John's message, he stressed making sure you take enough time to do the beginning stages in order to avoid injury.  Actually, everything I've seen so far has stressed that. I have over 10 months, so I can definitely afford to take the needed time at the beginning.

That's about it for today. I kind of like my research phase. I feel like Hermione Granger - when in doubt, go to the library. I bet she'd be a Google queen if Hogwarts had the internet.