Lazy Lobster 10 miler

The first real challenge I laid for myself was the Lazy Lobster 10 miler to be run on the South Shore on June 15. The Disney Marathon involves something like 15,000 runners who are released in stages; each stage is known as a "corral" (the images of cattle this encourages is appropriate given the herding that goes on with getting 15,000 people started in a race). Your corral placement is determined by a pacing time you submit to Disney. The faster times are placed in the first corrals and the further back you go the slower the pace. The idea is to group runners with similar pace so there isn't too much passing and jockeying for position going on in the initial stages of the race. When you get to the last corrals you are getting to the runners who are running in costume and will likely be walking large parts of the race. If you plan on running the entire race, it's a placement you'd like to avoid as you will find yourself trying to fight your way through crowds to find space.

Disney accepts pacing for the Marathon from races of 10 miles or longer. I wanted to run a 10 miler relatively early in my training to have something on record in case I got injured later and missed a pacing race. Thus the Lazy Lobster. An added benefit was that Ellen came along to run the associated 5 mile race.

This being the first serious race I had run in years, along with the fact that I had never run 10 miles competitively (my previous longest was 10k), I had no idea how things would go. I was hopeful as I had managed to break through the 200 lb weight barrier that I had long found insurmountable and weighed in at 197 for the race. I attributed the weight loss breakthrough to the combination of disciplined eating, increased running, and also weight lifting I was doing on the off-running days. This was the first time I had tried an "all-court press" like this in an effort to lose weight. The key for me is the prize at the end of the line, the Disney Marathon, which provides the motivation to forego the junk I want to eat. The motivation is not only positive, but negative as well: I've committed to the Marathon and paid for it, and those 26.2 miles are waiting for me whether I lose weight or not. Hauling 200 lbs, 190 lbs or even 185 lbs around for the marathon is a prospect that fills me with enough dread to push the food aside.

It turned out I ran the 10 miles in 1:26:40 for a mile pace of 8:40. Good enough to get me out of the back of the line at the Disney Marathon. Ellen ran a 44:41 for the 5 miler.