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The Dopey-est Girl: Q&A about Dopey Challenge 2020
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The Dopey-est Girl: Q&A about Dopey Challenge 2020

If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you know that I love Disney! If you’re new here…Hi! I’m Amy and I’m obsessed with all things Disney! One thing in particular, runDisney. It’s like two of my favorite things – running and Disney – got together and had a baby. I ran my first runDisney race in 2011 and I’ve run at least one race every year since. (You can check out all of my race recaps in my RACES tab!) But next year will be the biggest race of them all; I’m diving in head first into The Dopey Challenge! I thought it would be fun to answer some runDisney Dopey Challenge questions you may have about what exactly I’ve gotten myself into and how I’m going to actually do it.

Rachael and I during the 2018 Princess Half Marathon

What is the runDisney Dopey Challenge?

What is the Dopey Challenge you ask? It’s pretty much the craziest thing I’ve decided to do to date, and you may remember, I’ve done a Tough Mudder, Spartan and took adult gymnastics classes. For this challenge, over the course of 4 days, you run one race a day.

Thursday: 5K
Friday: 10K
Saturday: Half marathon (13.1 miles)
Sunday: Full marathon (26.2 miles)
That’s 48.6 miles in just four days.

Are you crazy?

Yes. Like the post title says, I’m the Dopey-est girl around! But get this, I’m not alone in this adventure. My friend Rachael is in it with me! It’s amazing the things you can get yourself into when you have a friend by your side.

Will you share your journey and training with us?

I’m so glad that you asked! The answer is YES! I’ve been posting about running and races on this blog since it originated as an online journal for me back in 2011. I don’t plan on stopping now especially if I can help encourage someone to get out there and run or educate on the awesomeness of running and runDisney.

I’m planning to share a post a month about my training journey, what races I’m doing and how I’m feeling about this crazy adventure.

When does training start?

Oh it already has! Technically, the Jeff Galloway training program for Dopey started the first week of July for 6 months of training. The picture above shows the first 6 weeks of the training plan. It’s a nice, easy ramp up into mileage.

Rachael and I have taken this plan and tweaked it to fit our training needs. Since Rachael is running a half marathon in September, we’re already up to 10 miles. While I’m not running a half until October, I decided to get on the same schedule as her. It certainly can’t hurt to run longer distances now plus that means we’re at the same conditioning level. When we get together each month to run, we’ll be on the same plan and ready to rock it!

How is training going so far?

So far, so good! I ran 10 miles on Saturday and felt like a champ which is a big deal for me in the summer heat and humidity. It definitely gets to me. This coming weekend, Rachael and I are running 11 miles together downtown. The rough plan for each week is to get in two shorter runs on Tuesday and Thursday and a long run on Saturday or Sunday. We try to do speed work on Tuesday, but my calf has been acting up, so I have to lay off of it for a little while. I’m working with an Airrosti to stretch, strengthen and heal my left calf issues!

Come August, every other week we’ll add on an extra day of running. We’ll keep Tuesday/Thursday speed and short runs then add in a Friday or Saturday easy run followed by our weekly long run on Saturday or Sunday. The whole idea is to work up to running 4 days in a row!

Related Post: RunDisney Dopey Challenge

Is there somewhere we can follow your journey?

If you’re interested in more than just a monthly update, you can follow Rachael and my training on our Instagram account: twodopeygirls. This is where we share our running stories, training tips and all things Dopey 2020 training! I’m also posting occasionally on my amysbalancingact account, but I didn’t want to inundate everyone with all of my running posts!

What races are you planning to run the rest of this year?

Here’s what’s tentatively on my race calendar:
October 12: Memorial Hermann 10 for Texas
October 27: Houston Half Marathon
November 11: Cypress Half Marathon
December 15: FLS Fort Bend Kia 30K
January 9-12: Dopey Challenge

I’m definitely on the lookout for other races that will fit into our training schedule!

I hope this answered some of your runDisney Dopey Challenge questions, and that you’ll follow along on my journey as I train for my biggest challenge yet. I can’t wait to see where this training takes me and how I grow from it.

Don’t forget to check out all of my Dopey training posts and my Dopey race recaps over on my Dopey Challenge Page!

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