Here’s what I would have expected myself to be like about running races: Nervous each time, not fussed about doing them often but keen to see if I have made progress in terms of distance or time every now and again, totally indifferent about medals, t-shirts and other goodies you might get and totally non-competitive.

Well, I got myself wrong – on all of those issues. I am not nervous with each race  – nervous is not a strong enough word or emotion to describe what I go through before a race. Excited and absolutely, totally petrified comes closer to capturing it. There isn’t anything (apart from maybe spiders) as terrifying as lining up for a race. At the same time though I do want to do them – every now and again is fine but I’m not doing them to see my progress, I’m doing them because I actually want to race. Me, little ploddy fat slow me wants to race. Yep, weird. Freaky in fact. I am not competitive. I’m really not. I like it when other people are successful at whatever, I am genuinely happy when people beat me at stuff (as long as they are genuinely better than I am) and I just never thought I could possibly ever be competitive at sports of any kind. I just don’t have it in me!  Oh but I do!

In my first ever half marathon I refused, just refused to be overtaken by a woman in a tinker bell costume swearing “I won’t be beaten by an f-ing fairy’ as I hurled myself towards the finish line. In a 10k run there was a couple behind us and they were gaining all the time and I was desperate for them not to come past but they did and I was peed off to say the least, in another 10k I set my sights on a girl a little way in front and I was so going to get her and get past her… At the London Marathon we were just behind a lovely lady from the Clubhouse and her husband and I wanted to finish before them (Sorry Sarah!) which didn’t look likely until they veered off to see friends/family just before the finish. The Dopey Challenge races were the least competitive and most collaborative races I’ve ever done and even there being overtaken once the finish line was in sight just wasn’t an option. It turns out I am competitive – I need to win my little races within races. Who knew.

So what does this all have to do with me going a bit Disney Crazy. Well, medals, t-shirts, the usual stuff you get for doing a race. I really didn’t think I was bothered and for a long time I wasn’t really. I didn’t keep the medals from the early runs I did and even the 2013 half marathon medal doesn’t really mean much to me – my cap from that race means more. Something changed. Not only do I love my Dopey medals and the Challenge one in particular (I pick it up and look at it several times a week) and the London Marathon medal, I want more. I like medals. Maybe I’m making up for never winning anything other than the odd horse-riding rosette when I was younger. So the wanting to run and race together with my slightly (ok very) bizarre obsession with collecting bling has led to this:

1. Disneyland Paris half marathon (and 5 km) in September which also gives us the Castle to Chateau medal for a US and Paris Disney run
2. The crazy idea that we could also get our Coast to Coast Disney medal… and booking a trip to California for November and the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge (10km and half marathon) at the Super Heroes Half Marathon weekend.
3. And just to keep us going over the summer the RunDisney virtual runs (the first one of which is coming up at the weekend).

So I have gone Disney mad and I can’t really explain what is going on there. I have decided not to over think it and just go with it. While I really hope that running will stay with me, I suspect that the medal obsession and the runDisney obsession will come to an end eventually. For now though I really want the coast to coast and castle to chateau double whammy! Best stop falling over and start training!