I’m at Walt Disney World in Orlando and I’m underwhelmed. Where shall I start?

• I’m here for a conference. It sucks to be alone in a place made for families.
• I screwed up my hotel reservation and flight info. I flew in the day before my reservation. The “cast member” at the airport was cool and got me into my room early.
• “Cast members.” Come on.
• The hotel shuttle isn’t called a shuttle. It’s called The Disney Magical Express. Not “magical express” or “express.” The Disney Magical Express. The “cast member” who directed me to The Disney Magical Express said the whole phrase several times: Me: “Is this the hotel shuttle?” Him: “Well, this is The Disney Magical Express.” Me: “Does it shuttle me to my hotel?” Him: “Well, yes, The Disney Magical Express will take you to your hotel if you have a reservation.” Me: “Thanks.” Him: “Enjoy The Disney Magical Express!”
• They’re totally serious when they say it’ll take 3 hours to get your luggage to your room. Exactly 3 hours.
• Two messages on the hotel phone. One intelligible, the other not so much. I thought it was the front desk telling me to come get my luggage. I went to the front desk where I had another barely intelligible conversation with a very nice lady who could tell me that they didn’t have my luggage. And why do I ask, am I missing some? I tell her, I don’t know if I’m missing some. If you don’t have my luggage, then it’s quite possible that I am missing some luggage. We go around a little bit until she finally calls and listens to my voicemail and tells me that it’s a message about turning off the power at three am. That was the intelligible message. She never listened to the second one, which when I listened to it again, sounded kinda like it was for the previous occupants of my room. Who had kids. They left some drawings here. Anyway, the luggage showed up in my room about 45 minutes later. Whew, I’m not missing any luggage.
• Not much food today: Black Tiger Mocha from Coffee People in the Portland Airport at 5am. Also a donut that I didn’t finish. Three bottles of water. Two chocolate chip cookies in Houston. Another bottle of water, a beer and a can of Pringles in my hotel room when I wasn’t patient enough to wait in a massive food line full of screaming kids. No room service available here. I’m planning on going running in the morning if I have any energy left by then. Early breakfast, though. Oh yes.
• A curtain serves as my bathroom door. Charming.
• Tomorrow I will sit in the sun with my iPod and grade papers until it’s time to go meet/greet other conference attendees in the evening.

Today’s run felt tough. I kept a 9.49 pace, but it seemed really labored. Sometimes it’s like that I guess. I came home, collapsed on the couch and fell asleep!

Did sprints this morning. Tru ran with me, so that was fun. We ran much later than I usually do: 9am as opposed to 5am. So I already had breakfast and coffee in my stomach which probably throws off the measurements, unfortunately. But I’m posting them anyway.

Got some serious metatarsalgia going on my right foot. I grabbed some Superfeet (orange) today at REI, so I’m hoping those’ll help a bit. I’m also really considering getting some kind of pad to help relieve the pressure. I end up walking on the inside or outside of my foot just to stay off the ball of my foot. Oddly, it doesn’t hurt much when running…mostly when I’m just walking around.

In keeping with the “est” trend, today I ran the longest yet: a 5 mile loop. I took it easy and maintained a perfect 10 minute mile pace. Nice and easy. I listened to an audiobook during the run and it felt like I could’ve kept on going. But it was nice to stop.

I’m not quite sprinting around the 3.2 loop yet,  in fact I occasionally feel like I’m going to pass out and I always argue with myself about whether I  should stop and walk. But today’s time was the best yet: 9.06 minute miles. I basically ran the loop two minutes faster than usual today. Cool.

Ran sprints this morning. I’ve been running right out front of our house, but I realized that I might be waking up the neighbors at 5:30 in the morning. So I’ve gone one block down where there are neighbors on one side of the street and soccer fields on the other side. I run on the soccer field side.

Ran the 1.5 mile loop today, but pushed a little harder and ended up with an 8.12 pace. That’s good. I wish I could keep that pace on the longer runs. I’ll have to work up to it, I guess.

I’m also starting to pay closer attention to what and how much I eat. I notice sooner when I eat more than I really need, and I’m doing little mental calculations in my head when I snag a snack during the day. Not so much the caloric calculations (I still don’t pay attention to calories), but rather the balance of “healthy” vs “unhealthy” food. I try to end the day with a heavier balance of “healthy.” My stomach often objects, though, and tries to make me think I’m hungry when I’m not. Or tries to get me to eat a burger instead of a salad. Long road ahead, I guess. I’m motivated every morning when I take my weight/bodyfat measurements, but somehow it starts to wear off around 2pm.

Ran sprints this morning. 60 meters x 8. The 7th rep made my left quad feel weird…like almost pull a muscle weird. Then the 8th rep did the same thing for my right quad. I didn’t pull anything, just felt like they were strongly objecting to the workout.