Sacrebleu! A Castle to Chateau training journal (updated 09/25)

dancingtodisney

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Sacrebleu! Castle to Chateau Training Journal


Hello and welcome to my training journal.. Thanks for stopping by!


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I'm Karen, an Irish girl in her late twenties with a LOVE for all things Disney including Rundisney events!

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This year I will be training towards my second Castle to Chateau challenge which comprises of the Disneyland Paris Half Marathon in September and the Wine & Dine Half Marathon in Walt Disney World in November.

All comments/questions are welcome... Let's get started!



 
My RunDisney Background

I'm very lucky that my sister is like my best friend and also shares my obsession with Disney. Rachel has been with me for every Rundisney event so far.

2014 - Walt Disney World Wine & Dine Half Marathon
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We were not very well prepared for this run! Rachel was even less trained than I was and we did a LOT of walking. You can read about our run as well as the rest of our 17night vacation HERE

2016 Dopey Challenge
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The biggest challenge I've ever set myself was to complete the Dopey Challenge. When I signed up I had never run a marathon never mind 48.6 miles in 4 days! We actually signed up to this challenge as a family to raise money for a local cancer support centre that had taken great care of my Mam during her time of need. We booked a 2 week vacation and my Dad joined us for the challenge and Mam cheered us on from the crowd.

Read about that trip HERE

2016 Inaugural Disneyland Paris Half Marathon
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Both myself and Rachel also completed the first ever Disneyland Paris Half Marathon in 2016. This was also the first year of the Castle to Chateau challenge. TR coming soon!



 
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I HAVE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!!!
I started a YouTube channel with my sister Rachel so that we could not only write trip reports about our Disney adventures but also make video diaries (vlogs)!

Some things are just better captured in a video! We started our first ever 'series' of vlogs for our Dopey trip in January 2016. We have videos from every day of the trip including footage from each of our runs as part of the Dopey challenge. We also have a series of vlogs uploaded for our Disneyland Paris Half Marathon weekend.

If you like vlogs please do subscribe to our channel and keep in touch!

https://www.youtube.com/c/doublethedisney
 
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Training Plan

I've not completely finalised my training plan but what I have decided on is the first stage. I've suffered a lot with injuries and I've not been running at all for the last few months. For this reason I've decided to go completely back to basics and back to where my training originally started with the couch to 5k plan.

I don't feel like I have a great base anymore so I want to build it back up from scratch.

When this is completed I'll move to a 10k training plan (most likely Hal Higdon) to train for the 10k that I'll use for POT for the Wine&Dine Half Marathon and after that a half marathon plan.



 
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2016 Inaugural Disneyland Paris Half Marathon
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Both myself and Rachel also completed the first ever Disneyland Paris Half Marathon in 2016. This was also the first year of the Castle to Chateau challenge. TR coming soon!



I was gonna say...WHERE IS THE TR, KAREN??? :surfweb: (Also, OMG those ears you two are wearing are so cute!!)

Looking forward to following along with your training!!
raw
 
I was gonna say...WHERE IS THE TR, KAREN??? :surfweb: (Also, OMG those ears you two are wearing are so cute!!)

Looking forward to following along with your training!!
raw

I'm starting it now! PROMISE!

Oh ye, I got them from an etsy store and then I surprised Rachel with them when she arrived. We had so many compliments over the weekend!

THANK YOU!!
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Subscribed!
I have a 6 mile tempo run tonight so guess what I'll be attempting to watch (if I don't fall off my treadmill attempting to watch them.
Get ready for some thumbs ups later today :)
 
Subscribed!
I have a 6 mile tempo run tonight so guess what I'll be attempting to watch (if I don't fall off my treadmill attempting to watch them.
Get ready for some thumbs ups later today :)

YAH!
Oh haha hope you didn't fall! Thanks for watching the vlogs!
 
YAH!
Oh haha hope you didn't fall! Thanks for watching the vlogs!

It ended up being too hard to watch and run because the ledge is so low near my waist (boo), maybe when I'm doing an easy run! But I did end up watching a whole video while stationary in my chair this morning, haha. This is gonna sound weird but I love that your accent is just like my grandmas (not saying you sound old!!!) She was from County Cork.
 
It ended up being too hard to watch and run because the ledge is so low near my waist (boo), maybe when I'm doing an easy run! But I did end up watching a whole video while stationary in my chair this morning, haha. This is gonna sound weird but I love that your accent is just like my grandmas (not saying you sound old!!!) She was from County Cork.

It can be hard to watch things on your phone on the threadmil! I've had a few accidents! Haha that's funny, I'm guessing your grandma had a very soft Cork accent, a strong Cork accent is very high pitched and not much at all like ours!
 
It can be hard to watch things on your phone on the threadmil! I've had a few accidents! Haha that's funny, I'm guessing your grandma had a very soft Cork accent, a strong Cork accent is very high pitched and not much at all like ours!

She's been in New York for just about forever now so I think whatever the accent is now is very different from what it used to be. Also I probably am one of those annoying americans who can't tell the difference :)
 
She's been in New York for just about forever now so I think whatever the accent is now is very different from what it used to be. Also I probably am one of those annoying americans who can't tell the difference :)

Oh no... believe me... you would be able to tell the difference.
I was once in a bar in Turkey and there was a couple from Cork beside us with a thick Cork accent, after about 10mins the barman came over to me and said 'what language are they speaking, is that Irish?' They have been speaking English the WHOLE time lol!
There are parts of Cork (the less rural areas) that have a much softer accent..
 
Going to watch this because I'm going to be trying to run my first half next year and I'm training from someone that hasn't run in over 20 years.
 
Training Recap

Week 1 - Couch to 5K


For the runs in Week 1, you will begin with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then you will alternate 60 seconds of running, with 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes.


It's time for my first training recap! SLIGHTLY overdue as I've been super busy in work AND went on a wonderful trip to Disneyland Paris!! YAH! So this week my goal is to complete the three runs required as part of the couch to 5k programme. There are several variations of this around but I'm just using the free version from the NHS as I'm not a fan of using apps, I'd rather just programme my intervals into the treadmill or my Garmin. A plus of my new gym is that you can pre-programme your intervals into the treadmill so there is no need to change the speed but it does change very abruptly so you have to be ready for it! I also had a sort of secondary goal to increase my step count, mainly by walking to work more often so I've included my daily step count for reference. I live about 2.3miles from work which is amazing, I love being able to walk to work! I do however stay at my BF's place quite a bit and he lives a lot further out so I can't walk in those days. My step count excludes my runs as I run on the treadmill.

Let's get into my first week...
6th - 12th March 2017
Monday: RUN 1 & Tag Rugby (18,007)
Tuesday: REST (13,602)
Wednesday: Run 2 (15,074)
Thursday: REST (10,673)
Friday: Run 3 (12,333)

Saturday: REST (7,140)
Sunday: REST (1,778)


Week 1.JPG

Above is the detail I get from the website my gym uses that syncs to workouts completed, it's pretty handy! Note that I don't do the suggested 5min warm up as I get about that in on my walk to the gym. I'm so happy to see improvement from the first run to the last. The main reason for the improvement is the switch from manually changing the speed to using the programmed intervals. I think when I do it manually I'm a lot slower at getting the speed up when the run interval starts and as I like to watch something on my phone while I run I get a bit distracted and miss the interval changes!

I played Tag Rugby on Monday as a new season has started, it involves a lot of stop/starting and sprinting so I knew I'd be too tight to run Tuesday (which I was) so I got my run in at lunch beforehand. I walked to work Monday and Wednesday but realised I do almost as much walking on the days I travel in from my BF's flat as I've got my walk to the train station and from the station to work!

Saturday I met friends for lunch so got a few steps in then spent Saturday night & Sunday chilling. I don't tend to carry my phone with me when I'm having a chill day with my BF so although I don't do a tonne of walking anyway the steps are even more understated! We actually decided to take Monday off work as we've both got some annual leave to use up and we've both been SUPER busy so a down day was needed. The only thing we had to do over the weekend was find him a new car which we did on Sunday!


Also this week I'm LOVING the Disney Life app! I signed up to it for £5 per month and it has almost every Disney movie & TV Show on it! I can download them to watch while I'm running. This week I watched Brave & Alice in Wonderland (original animation) both of which I'd actually never seen before! I loved them both and it really helped keep me distracted during my runs!

Next week is going to be very different as Monday will be a rest day due to my day off and Thursday I head to Disneyland Paris! YAH! I am actually only aiming to get one or two runs in as I know I'll do a tonne of walking at Disney and I'll just repeat week 2 of the couch to 5k the week after. I've learned the hard way that I need to take this training at a slow a steady pace to avoid injury!

 
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Going to watch this because I'm going to be trying to run my first half next year and I'm training from someone that hasn't run in over 20 years.

That's great! We started from scratch originally with the couch to 5k, neither me nor my sister had ever run before. I find this programme is great for beginners. I'd recommend signing up to and training for a 5k race, then a 10k and then a half if you can. If you decide to follow the couch to 5k don't be afraid to a repeat a week until you feel comfortable to move on..
 
Training Recap

Week 2 (Part 1)- Couch to 5K


For the runs in Week 2, you will begin with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk then you will alternate 90 seconds of running, with 2 minutes of walking, for a total of 20 minutes.


So as I mentioned this week I've only penciled in one run due to a long weekend and a trip to Disneyland Paris!

13th - 20th March 2017
Monday: REST (1,322)
Tuesday: Run (10,922)
Wednesday: Walk to work (12,169)
Thursday: Travel to DLP (12,815)
Friday: DLP & St Patrick's Day(34,065)​
Saturday: REST (25,457)
Sunday: REST (23,361)

Total Steps: 120,111
Week 2 (1).JPG

My pace is down on last week and the proportion of running to walking is also down. I felt really comfortable during this run! I also started watching 101 Dalmatians.. OMG all the feels... I haven't watched this movie for YEARS but as soon as Rodger starting whistling that tune it all came back to me. I love how nostalgic Disney movies are!

I have been having some tightness in my right leg/knee again and it's been bothering me at night when I'm trying to get to sleep. I've made sure to take time to stretch properly after my runs now and I'm hoping that'll be enough. I know I'm not running a whole lot but I am also doing a lot of walking.

Thursday I got the Eurostar after work to Disneyland Paris, we were staying in Sequoia Lodge and it was so nice! We had an amazing weekend! There were special fireworks on St Patrick's Day too which was awesome. We decided to vlog only one day of this trip as I had friends with me but on Saturday my friends went to Paris central and Rachel and I stayed for more park action! We actually ended up meeting some other Disney youtubers that we'd been speaking to a lot on Twitter and they were so lovely! I love the Disney community!

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I arrived home Sunday evening absolutely SHATTERED.. WE WALKED SO MANY STEPS!! Not the most productive running week but a great week otherwise! Next week I'm repeating week 2 of the couch to 5k and will be aiming to get all three runs in.

See ya real soon!

 
GAH, so jealous that you can just hop a train to DLP! Awesome picture of you and Rachel, glad you had a fun weekend!

It is pretty handy! Rachel is actually going to fly to London for our next two trips and get the train with me from there. SO much more fun having a travel buddy for Disney trips!

Aw thank you! We actually didn't get many pics at all on this trip!

Hope you have a lovely weekend Shannon!
 

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