There's A First Time For Everything...

...and with that, my mom is officially registered for her first half marathon!! Sunday evening my mom and I registered for the Jazz Half in New Orleans.

So how exactly did I come across this race? This past January I was reading in my Runner's World magazine about the year's best half marathons, and the Jazz Half was listed as one. Ironically, my mom had just been saying a few days earlier that she wanted to visit New Orleans, so this presented the perfect opportunity! I mentioned the race to her, and she seemed open to the idea. We waited a bit before registering to give her a little more time to decide, and also more recently because of my hands. After my doctors appointment we officially decided we were going to run it.

Source

I'm really excited to be doing a half marathon with my mom, and in New Orleans no less! We've done a handful of 5K's together, and I always enjoy them. We usually separate during our 5K's, but we will most definitely be sticking together for this race. It's always nice to have someone to pass the miles with (believe me, I know), and this way we'll be able to encourage each other, and even stop for photo opportunities. The race is on Saturday, November 1st, so mom and I are planning on flying down after work on Thursday evening. This also means we will be in New Orleans for Halloween, how exciting!! We obviously still have a lot of planning to do (hotel accommodations, restaurants, and other sightseeing), and I'll keep updating as we go along. Now we just need to stick to a training schedule, which we still have time to figure that out as well.

Speaking of training, last week marked the beginning of my Dumbo Double Dare training. For those of you not familiar, this race is during the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend held Labor Day weekend, and the Dumbo Double Dare consists of the Disneyland 10K and the Disneyland Half Marathon. I was the only one out of my group of friends crazy (or stupid) enough to do this one. However, my friend, Mel is running the 10K, and my friend, Nita is running the half. So I'll at least be waking up ungodly early and venturing to the start with a friend. Still, I'm so excited! This will be my first race on the west coast AND my first trip to Disneyland! OH, and did I mention the trip falls on my golden birthday? YEP! (I apparently have a lot to be excited about)

Images from runDisney

Back to Dumbo Training... I follow the Jeff Galloway training schedule that runDisney posts on their site. I was able to download it directly into my calendar on my iPhone, so it tells me how much I have to run and on what days. I'll admit I did not do either of my 30 minute runs during the week last week. The first run would have fallen on Monday or Tuesday, which at that time I still had not seen my cardiologist. The second run would have fallen on Wednesday or Thursday which I honestly have no good excuse for not running (shame on me). I did go for a 3 mile run with my mom on Saturday. The run with my mom was actually my first in 3 weeks, and we had a great time. There is a nice walking/running trail back home that we've used a few times, and I quite like it. I really wish there was one close to where I live now, but I'm slowly scoping out new running areas around here. I'm just glad to be back running!

QOTD: Have you ever been to New Orleans? If so, what's your favorite thing to do while there? If not, what's the one thing you would do if you could visit?