Orlando Bound

I started packing last night for our vacation that starts Thursday morning at 5am when we head to Orlando Florida, meet some friends from Texas and New York to run the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. Following the race we will make our way to Port Canaveral to board Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas for a 7 day cruise of the Western Caribbean.

With this week's cold snap hitting the south, it forces me to rethink what to bring and wear for the race since at the start the temperature should be around 30 degrees. This will not be a PR race for me as I want to enjoy the scenery and hang out with our friends during the race. I will try and tweet from the race as well as shooting video on my Flip digital video camera. By doing this race and the Disneyland Half Marathon in September, my wife and I will receive the coveted "Coast to Coast" medal, a nice addition to our collection.

I am 16 weeks into my Higdon marathon training plan and it is not going as well as I had hoped. I am still getting in my quality workouts on Thursday's and my long run on Saturday's, but I am trading some of the shorter runs for 30-40 min swims in the pool. Over the next 10 days, it will be tough to stay on schedule. I will spend sometime each morning either running on deck or on the dreadmill in the gym. If I can get a longer run in somewhere in one of the ports we will visit, I will. I will also be doing some open water ocean swimming at least 2 of the days.

I hope to do some posting either on twitter or facebook as we will have wifi (dialup) service in the cabin. In any case, I should have a great race report with video when we return.