Taking a Leap of Faith

This week, I did something absolutely insane. I still can’t believe I did this.

On Tuesday morning, I started hearing rumblings of something called “Dumbo Double Dare” on Twitter and the DIS Boards threads I’ve been frequenting ever since I registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon. Not gonna lie — I had no clue what it was.

So, of course, I Googled it…and found out it was related to the Disneyland Half Marathon coming up in August. I’d been entertaining the idea of registering for the half marathon for weeks, mainly because it would give me the opportunity to earn the coveted Coast to Coast medal awarded to runners who complete a race at both the Walt Disney World resort and the Disneyland resort in the same calendar year. And, plus…I’ve never been to Disneyland, and I figure it’s about time I change that!

However, I sort of planned to wait until after I ran the Princess Half next month to make any crazy decisions (read: I wanted to see if I would survive one half marathon before committing myself to another one).

As it turns out, this year, Run Disney decided to add a 10K option to the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend…and they were offering a special “Dumbo Double Dare” medal to finishers of both the 10K on Saturday followed by the half marathon on Sunday.

All of the runners I follow on Twitter were posting all morning about how quickly the Disneyland events were going to sell out…and what a hot ticket the Dumbo Double Dare was going to be — it was only open to 5,000 runners. Apparently, the majority of the spots had been filled with early registration during the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend earlier this month.

Suddenly, I had minutes to decide whether I would be taking a leap of faith and registering for a second half marathon before I had even finished my first.

AND…I couldn’t help but ignore the fact that I suddenly and desperately wanted to challenge myself to the Dumbo Double Dare. I’ve raced in a handful of 10Ks and I regularly complete 6-mile training runs, so I figured I should probably be able to handle following up a 6.1 mile race with a half marathon, right?

Who the hell knows? All I know is that at 12pm on the dot — the moment those registration spots opened to the general public — I sat there staring at the Active.com registration page, arguing with myself about whether or not I could do this. Aside from the fact that I had promised myself I’d pay down my Disney Visa before next month’s trip (YEAH, RIGHT), I am still wrestling with self-doubt on a daily basis that I’ll be able to finish one half marathon…let alone a 10K AND a half marathon over the course of just 48 hours.

I still sometimes have a hard time calling myself a “runner,” and yet there I was contemplating flying across the country to take on a total of 19.3 miles IN ONE WEEKEND.

I saw the minutes ticking by and was compulsively scrolling through Twitter updates about how the challenge was almost full, and decided it was time to stop doubting myself. I wanted to do this, and there was absolutely no reason that I shouldn’t.

Soooo…I DID IT!

I got in just minutes before the Dumbo Double Dare was officially declared sold out. The 10K sold out in a matter of hours, and the option to register for just the half marathon was gone by the next day.

It looks like I’m going to Disneyland! And, yes, that’s enormously exciting for a Disney freak like myself. Not to mention, it’s pretty awesome to think that I am among a very limited amount of runners who will be taking on this challenge.

However, the most exciting part of all is that if registering for this insane weekend of running doesn’t prove that I’m finally starting to believe in myself, then I don’t know what will.

And that might be even more thrilling than the FOUR (!) medals I’m going to receive that weekend.

Anyone else as insane as I am? Who else is doing Dumbo?