Disney World Marathon
Before the Race
Now, this was no Mickey Mouse marathon! No… wait, it was, and Minney was there, too. But don’t let me get ahead of myself here. This trip started out on a questionable note, with projections for some serious freezing rain, sleet, and snow the evening of my flight. I left work a bit early to go home and shovel my driveway, and decided to just go ahead and leave then, arriving at the airport and hour and a half early (that must be record for me) – I was afraid that if I waited any longer, I might not be able to get out of my neighborhood as the streets were already icing up from the rain.
The agents at the gate were very busy helping customers whose flights had been canceled, so I waited until around 45 minutes before my flight (which was originally delayed about 30 minutes, but was at least on it’s way from Charlotte, so there was no doubt that it would come in) before approaching them to get my seat assignment. Even still, they seemed shocked to find that I was just trying to check in for my scheduled flight. Anyway, other than leaving about an hour late, things went pretty smoothly – certainly a lot better than I’d expected. Everyone I spoke with was just thrilled to be on their way to Florida, regardless of the time.
Since I didn’t get into Orlando until about 11pm and still had pick up the rental car and drive to my sister’s house, it was just after midnight when I arrived, so we just chatted briefly and then everyone was off to bed.
The next day, my sister had some errands to run, and I needed to go back to the Disney Wide World of Sports complex to pick up my race number, etc. I was a bit anxious, since I never had received confirmation of my entry (but they had charged my credit card). Fortunately, the only inconvenience that caused was the need to stand in an extra line to get proof of my entry before proceeding to get my race number. They assigned numbers corresponding to your “corral”, which was based on your projected finishing time. Excluding the (few) elite numbers, I was somewhat surprised, but pleased, to find that I had a number in the first block, so I’d be starting very close to the start line – even though it really didn’t matter as much since this race also used the “Champion Chip” to record actual start-to-finish times automatically. This being my third marathon expo in three months (for those of you who have been paying attention, you already know that this is the last marathon of a “triad” that I’d managed to talk myself into), I wasn’t surprised to not find anything at the expo that I really needed, so I headed back to my sister’s house for some rest and visit with family.
My sister had been held up somewhere along her travels, so the TV became our primary form of entertainment. I do have to confess, though, that I was also treated to some nice massaging from two of my nieces, including some great foot rubs! The family had planned to go to some friends house in Kissimmee (back near Disney), but by the time everyone got home, it was clearly going to be too late for me, since I needed to get up at 3am (!) to leave for the race. Instead, my sister took the time to cook dinner for Jeremiah and I before leaving with the rest of the kids. While the logistics never did seem to work out very well on this trip, it was probably best that I ended up in a vacant (i.e. quiet) house that night. I was in bed around 9pm and surprised myself by actually sleeping pretty well.
I woke up about 2am, but I was sound asleep, however, when my watch alarm went off at 3am. My first thought was “do I really have to get up now?” but as soon as I sat up I was instantly wide awake – it was quite amazing (to me, anyway, since I am not a morning person). Still, it also took me 45 minutes to get ready and leave, when I can get ready for work at home in less than 30 minutes – something didn’t seem quite right about that. The drive to Epcot was uneventful, if a bit stressful since I sped the whole way as I had already been pushing the window by planning to leave at 3:30am. I further complicated things by unknowingly getting stuck in the wrong lane of bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into Epcot (again, I think I was handicapped by not receiving the pre-race information) and so I got to go around and sit in the big traffic jam over again.
After parking, since it was still pretty dark at 5am, all you had to do was head for the lights to find the staging area. I dropped off my bag and followed the crowd to the far end of what I believed to be the staging area and arrived just as they began the walk to the start line. Despite there having been more toilets around the staging area than I’ve ever seen, many people were amused by the number of runners who lined up along this one stretch of woods on the way to the start line – more than a football field’s length of “last minute relief”. Not me, though. I never did hear what the actual temperature was, but it was projected to be 51 and overcast, and that seemed about right.
I stopped about ten yards from the start line in my corral and sat down, since there was still over 30 minutes to the start. Note: the ground was wet – next time bring a garbage bag – if you don’t need to wear it, you can sit on it. There were a couple of animated characters on top of the scaffolding above the start line trying to entertain us, but I was mostly concentrating on trying to relax. Also, presumably because of the blaring speakers, there was very little talking among the runners – unusual, to say the least. I forget the full metaphor that the announcer kept repeating, but I do know that if I heard him say one more time that “when you hear the fireworks blast and the lions roar, let your journey begin” I was liable to climb the scaffolding and try to strangle him.
The Race
Finally, the start! Since the half-marathon runners were also included (they ran the same course for the first half), there were almost 14,000 people starting at the same time, but because I was so close to the front, it only took me 13 seconds to reach the start and not very long before I was able to run a relaxed pace without being crushed. Since I had only run one 12-mile run since Cal International, I wasn’t sure what pace I could manage, but I had set my watch for 7:30 miles (what, you didn’t know it was that easy to set a pace – just set your watch?) and pretty early on I seemed to settle in at about a 7:15 pace.
For the first half of the race, I was among the leaders of the 3:10 pace group (Runner’s World had organized pace groups for this race), but I doubted that I would be with them at the end. Still, I felt pretty good for quite a while. My doubts grew at about the half-way point, where the half-marathoners finished. I’ve never been fond of marathons that have the 1/2 marathon field run the same course at the same time – mentally, it can be a challenge to watch them finish when you have only covered half of your race. Even though I was still running at less than a 7:20 pace, the mental battle began early in this race.
About mile 15-16, it became evident that I was getting some substantial blisters on my right foot, as the whole forefoot was a “hot spot” and I felt it with each step. I’d been through this once before, so I tried to rationalize it away, but those of you that have run long distances will understand how even a slight change in your gate can have a big impact over the course of a race. Around mile 18, the bulk of the 3:10 pace group passed me and by 20 I was starting to feel that I wouldn’t make my “secret” target of 3:15. It took all of my concentration and energy just to keep running, whatever the pace.
One of the knocks against this race is the high number of turns, which slows you down, but most of those turns occur in and because of the Disney parks that you run through, and I have to say that they were what made the race interesting. I didn’t mind running outside the parks, but it was the anticipation of the next park, and the sights and crowds inside, that made this race most enjoyable. I was surprised that they were taking race photographs as you ran towards the castle in Disney World, rather than as you emerged from running through it, but I didn’t get my picture taken at that checkpoint anyway because the photographer had to change cameras just after taken the picture of the person ahead of me. Anyway, back to the final miles.
I really don’t remember a whole lot about miles 20-26, other than the usual stark realization of how slow those miles seem to go in most marathons – you are working so hard, and yet progress seems to be excruciatingly slow. In addition to my right foot, I now also felt a blister on the outside/top of my left big toe (which had also happened at CIM, but I’d blamed it on the downhills; now, I have to believe that it’s the shoe) and I was feeling far too much of a muscle at the top/inside of my knee. After mile 22, my pace fell to above 8:10 and I just tried hard to find Epcot off in the distance, since I knew that was the finish.
Finally, as we ran through Epcot, I knew that I’d make it without walking, which by itself is a big lift. And when we made that final turn towards the finish line, I actually managed to surge and felt incredibly good as I crossed at 3:16:28 – not quite as good as I’d hoped, but right on my 7:30 pace (although certainly nowhere near an “even” pace). The finisher’s medal is large (shaped like a Mickey Mouse head) and heavy, but it sure felt good around my neck. I did get someone to take my picture after the finish, so you can see for yourself how good (?) I looked.
After the Race
Well, I could tell you about the rest of my visit, and my uneventful flight home (well, it was a bit exciting since I arrived at the airport at the last minute for a flight I was trying to get on standby), but I think you’ve suffered enough already. You deserve a finishers medal yourself if you’ve stuck it out this long, especially if you also withstood the previous two marathon trip reports. So, until next time, happy trails to you…
Tim