Slow Down to Speed Up – Fuzzy runDisney Math

Shout out to my dear friend Lauralee, who taught me the surprisingly accurate mantra,  “You’ve got to spend it to save it!” when it comes to vacationing at Disney.  Between the two of us and our fellow Disney travelers, we’ve made a fine art of budgeting our many Disney trips using Fuzzy Disney Math, or FDM.

FDM works like this, when applied to how long one has to wait for the next Disney vacation: current day, day of departure, weekends, national holidays, random days off from work and school, birthdays, anniversaries, dentist and doctor appointment days,  and pay days do not count.  Using this formula, our next runDisney event, the Expedition Everest Challenge on May 5, is only 24 days away… which is only 10 days more than 2 weeks, so it’s really like almost 2 weeks from now!

Applying FDM to our next Disney vacation budget: we’re staying on my Disney Vacation Club points, which are basically free because I’ve already paid for them and their annual dues and anything paid in the past is already gone and not part of the vacation budget.  Tickets are free, too, because we already have our Floridian annual passes.  Race registration’s been paid, so, again, free.  Food isn’t free… except that it is when I pay for it with my Disney Visa rewards!  The reward points won’t cover all of our food intake, but the rest will go on my Disney Visa, which I just converted to a Premiere card, which will earn 5% in new points with every dollar spent… which means free food on the next-next trip!  In conclusion, the total budget for our Everest Challenge weekend is $0 in FDM.

Okay, now that you’ve got a handle on how FDM works, let’s look at FrDM – Fuzzy runDisney Math.

Image: http://www.beautyinbalance.net/the-tortoise-and-the-hare/

I’ve been diligently trying to increase the amount of each run interval and reduce the amount of each walk interval in my training and the results have included injuries, low energy and diminished recovery. Not to mention an injured knee.  So this past week, I tried slowing down to go faster.  This isn’t my idea – I’m following Jeff Galloway’s training programs and his suggested bump-up from :30/:30 run/walk intervals is to 1:00/1:00, not the 1:00/:30 intervals I’d been pushing for.  With thoughts that a slower pace might be better for my knee, anyway, I gave it a try, doing 1:00/1:00 for my two mid-week training runs and my weekend long run…

WOWSA!  First, going “slower” really did make me “faster”: those longer walk breaks gave me better recovery, leading to much stronger – faster! – run intervals.  Second, because I was recovering better, I had a whole lot more to give in the last segment of each run; my pace there improved quite a bit.  Third, I finished strong and not feeling run-down.  Read: instead of an all-day nap, I followed my long run with lunch out with my boy, shopping and a little Frisbee in the backyard.

I’m sold.  I’ll stick with the 1:00/1:00 intervals for a while before bumping up to whatever Mr. Galloway suggests next.  For the record, I’m in no way being compensated to sing his praises… I’m just happy to have found a training method that keeps me pain-free!