To Do or Not To Do, that is the Question!

To do or Not to do….what? Disney. Why, you may ask when I have thrown myself fully into TNT would I contemplate not doing Disney? Why when I have been passionate about the cause, the people and the training would I be in this debate?

Well, the experts have spoken, and I have heard them. My TNT walking coach, Barb, and the head NYC coach Ramon told me they were worried about my doing the 2 events so close together. Will, my brother and a professional-elite athlete agreed with a lot of what they said (also worth noting, almost everyone else who knows me thinks I can do both!) And, for a few reasons:

• It takes a long time to recover from a marathon (Ramon who finishes in the 3 hour time frame says it is about 4 weeks for him) which means I will spend around a month recovering, then I will only have a month to go until Disney to get fully ready.
• I am slow, we all know that, but Disney is one of the strictest about their time limits and do frequent sweeps. They do not want my Disney experience to be all about avoiding being swept.
• They are concerned about the overlap of the 2 training programs.
• They do not want me to burn out and want walking to be a life long passion.
• They want me to improve my overall fitness and lose weight.
• And, I may have missed some things.

I met everything they said with a “yeah-but…” statement. Yeah, but I am ONLY doing the Disney half...yeah, but I have already done a half...yeah, but I am incorporating the Disney training into the NYC training, etc. They came back with a reasonable argument, although they were not being argumentative, for each of my questions. Even though I was devastated (read as sobbing uncontrollably almost to the point of not being able to talk), I truly felt like they were looking out for me.

We left it that there were a few options, I could:
-drop out
-not do TNT
-postpone to the next season and truly train
-ignore them and keep doing what I was doing
-wait and see,
-transfer to the PF Chang Half marathon that same weekend, but with an extra half hour in their time limit

I took a couple of days to really mull it over, since I was clearly to emotional at first, to make a sound decision. The final outcome is that I am not sure whether I will do Disney or not. I really want to for so many reasons, not the least of which is the awesome Donald Duck Medal you get, ;-). But, I also really want to finish and do well. And, of equal importance, I want to raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. So, what to do, what to do???

I am waiting to make a final decision until 11/9. This is not some arbitrary date, but it is the “re-commitment” date for TNT. What does that mean? It means that you pay for any gap between what you've already raised and 25% of your goal and you're saying, “I am going to do this. If I do not raise all the money for my goal, I will personally fund it.” The other significance of this is that I will have completed the NYC marathon by then. I will be able to gauge my times, my initial recovery, etc.

So, the plan "du jour" is to go for it wholeheartedly, but to reevaluate honestly on November 9th!

Given I have only discussed this with a few of you and the same questions keep coming up, I developed a Frequently Asked Questions Section:

FAQs:
I donated to your NYC marathon, will that be impacted?
No, NYC is totally different. All of the money for Team For Kids will be applied to them! Thank you for donating to a charity that is inspiring. I see a group of the kids in Central Park running on Wednesday nights and feel honored to be raising money for them. THANK YOU for your support! I feel it every day.

I donated to TNT/LLS for you, what happens if you don't do Disney?
If I transfer to another season, the money transfers with me, so your money will count towards my new goal. You also have donated to an awesome cause and have given me support with my training for any/all events! THANK YOU!
If I decide to never do another TNT/LLS event, you donated to a fantastic cause, offered me support that I feel all the time. This is a cause close to my heart, so I am truly grateful. THANK YOU!

If you don't do Disney and stay with TNT what event will you do?
Most likely, I will transfer to the NJ marathon or half marathon (late April/early May). I will probably do the half because I also want to do the More Half in March (for no charity).

Do you think you can make the Disney time cutoff?
I do not know, but right now TNT is doing 2-5 miles each walk and I have done 2 miles a few times at the needed pace. I haven't tried 3 yet, but I will tomorrow. So, I am going for it and feeling optimistic. I hadn't done ANY work on my pace until last week and feel I am progressing nicely.

Have you lost any weight?
Okay, so this didn't come up because I have scared everyone off of asking me again...But, I have finally lost 2 pounds. Hey, it isn't much, but it is something. And, I must be redistributing because people who do not know about my training are asking how much I have lost.