IamTrike
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2010
- Messages
- 4,447
I first heard about the Disney races from a friend who was training for the full this year, and while I've never enjoyed running I do like Disney. Since my wedding anniversary falls a few days before the race and this was going to be our 13 year anniversary a trip to Disney and running a half marathon seemed like a great way to celebrate. My dear wife wasn't up for the running portion but was more than happy to go to the parks.
I started training in August with the goal of finishing the race in less than 2 hours. Based on some advice from Firedancer on this board I found a 10k in October to run in order, to get better corral placement. I found a training plan online and started following it….
About a week before the race I started getting very anxious. I had hurt my knee during my longest training run and so I had stopped running about 3 weeks prior in the hopes that my knee would heal before the race. Based on advice of people on this board I tried switching to cycling and the elliptical for my training, but I wasn't pushing myself very hard. I was worried about making my knee worse. As our time to leave for Florida approached I got more excited and found myself speeding a large portion of my free time reading these boards and looking around in local running shops. (I got really tired of hearing "you don't look like a runner"). I guess I was looking for some magical device that would give me confidence that I was going to be able to do this.
Friday:
We landed and Florida and after a much longer trip than we expected finally made it to the Expo. I picked up my packet and about passed out when I saw "Corral A" on it. My wife and I wandered the expo for a bit, but other than KT tape, I didn't by anything. I was afraid to buy any "I did it" merchandise before the run because I was afraid I wouldn't finish. I used the KT tape I bought to practice tape my shins and knees and then we went and walked around MK for a while.
Saturday:
The 3 different alarm clocks and wake up call I scheduled for the morning, were successful in getting me up ready and to the monorail by about 3:20. As I boarded the monorail someone cheerily quipped that its probably not often that most of the hotel is up and active by 3 am. As we left the monorail and started walking through the parking lot I was amazed by the long snake of people stretching out into the darkness of the parking lot. As a Disney staff member used their signature two finger point and said "marathon", I responded that I was actually there to get in-line for Soarin. ( Humor standards degrade when you haven't slept much). I managed to get through bag check and found a large throng of people standing around and long row of porta-potties with long lines in front of each one. Since I didn't have much else to do I stood in-line and people watched. I was surprised by the number of people wearing five-fingers in the line. It wasn't long before they opened the gates and we could weave our way to our corrals. On the way out we passed several more sets of porta-potties and none of these had lines. Next year I'll wait and use one of these.
When I got to my corral, I realized right away that I did not fit in. There were groups of people running around in circles inside the corral and others that had jumped the fence and were running back and forth outside the corral. Here was a group of people that looked like runners. We watched the festivities pre-start and heard the touching stories of the blind special forces guy that was running with his chaplain and the story of the woman who was running here as her husband ran simultaneously in Iraq. I thought it was neat that they were wearing Garmin's and had ghost runners set with their significant other's pace. I must have been a little out of it because it took me a little while to realize I was watching someone on stage and not something on a monitor. It was just a couple minutes later and the fireworks went off. The blast of heat from the flamethrowers offered a nice burst of heat and then it was time to run.
The first couple miles were really a blur for me. My focus was divided between avoiding people who were running slower than me and not getting in the way of people that were running faster. It was dark and I think around mile 4 I tried to drink some powerade. I'm not good at drinking and running so I took a sip and chucked the rest. I found a nice gentleman in a bright yellow jersey with the disney logo on the back. I liked his pace so I settled in behind him and just focused on that logo and not letting it get out of my sight. As we started to near he magic kingdom I got really excited and my pace picked up a bit. As we passed under tunnel before the Contemporary I was excited to see the cast member with big mickey hands waving. My wife was waiting outside the Contemporary and there was another little boost from seeing her. At this point she realized a flaw in my choice of running wear. Wearing all black when you are being photographed in the near dark while running makes you invisible.
As we turned the corner into the MK I was really surprised how dark the path was. I was concerned that i might trip or that someone might run into me. That all dissipated as soon as we turned onto main street. The cheering of the crowd and the sights here were unbelievable. As we turned towards the castle I saw Cinderella and her prince and the wicked step mother and step sisters. As I ran through the castle I thought, wow getting a picture here with Cinderella would be great. My DD would love it. Unfortunately by the time I worked through that whole process in my mind I was a good ways past the castle and there was no way I was gonna go backwards.
After we left the castle and the rest of Magic Kingdom behind things started to fall apart for me. I had been averaging about 8:20 a mile and I could tell that I wasn't going to be able to keep that up. I think it was a combination of a lack of training in the weeks before the race to prepare me mentally, and going out a little too fast. I started stopping at water stations to drink, I had a GU and my average pace began to rise.
When we passed the first overpass, I was excited thinking Ah-Ha I have conquered the fabled cloverleaf. Silly me, I should have spent more time reading course walk throughs. I would have known there were 2 more coming up and these hills were even bigger. Sarge's yelling was nice motivation though and I finally made it up and over all of them.
As we turned into Epcot I had a similar issue as Vertical Chaos. I thought I had ripped a toenail off. i thought to myself "loosing a toenail will show those running store guys that I am a runner." (Unfortunately, I checked my toes on the monorail later and all toenails were still there. It was just a blister. I think I'm the only person to be bummed to not have a body part fall off.) As we started through Epcot I heard some friends call my name and that gave me a nice little boost of speed. Pretty soon we turned a corner and saw Phineas and Ferb. I was worried about making my goal time but I had to stop and get my picture with them. If anyone would appreciate getting up at 3 am to run a half marathon through 2 amusement parks it would be them. Too bad they didn't have a Perry. As we headed further into Epcot we passed the giant fountain. I sped up thinking the sound of fountain was the cheering of the crowd at the end. It wasn't. I decided to try and push as hard as I could till the end though. As I crossed the finish line the announcer called my name. He mispronounced it and then tried again. He was wrong the second time too, but hey my name got announced twice!
My finish time was 1:58. I accomplished my goal. After a quick ice bath and a jump in the pool, I headed to Hollywood Studios with friends and then we went to Epcot for dinner in Italy. The 9 hour park walking warm-down seemed to work great except when I stopped moving. Anytime I had to stand up after sitting for a bit, it seemed to take a while to get going again.
Random Thoughts:
1. I am glad that I was able to achieve my time goal, but next time I'd like to take more time to get pictures with characters and enjoy the race.
2. A Donald medal is great, but now I really want a Mickey and Goofy medals.
3. I don't know that I would do the dining plan next time I'm there for a race. During the days before the race I was really watching what I ate and didn't really take advantage of my meal credits.
4. While it was fun in the parks after the race, next year I think I'll be there Thus-Sun rather than Fri-Mon. I would rather have more time at the expo.
5. The in room laundry bag is a great ice carrier for filling your tub up with ice.
6. Kinesio tape is magic.
I started training in August with the goal of finishing the race in less than 2 hours. Based on some advice from Firedancer on this board I found a 10k in October to run in order, to get better corral placement. I found a training plan online and started following it….
About a week before the race I started getting very anxious. I had hurt my knee during my longest training run and so I had stopped running about 3 weeks prior in the hopes that my knee would heal before the race. Based on advice of people on this board I tried switching to cycling and the elliptical for my training, but I wasn't pushing myself very hard. I was worried about making my knee worse. As our time to leave for Florida approached I got more excited and found myself speeding a large portion of my free time reading these boards and looking around in local running shops. (I got really tired of hearing "you don't look like a runner"). I guess I was looking for some magical device that would give me confidence that I was going to be able to do this.
Friday:
We landed and Florida and after a much longer trip than we expected finally made it to the Expo. I picked up my packet and about passed out when I saw "Corral A" on it. My wife and I wandered the expo for a bit, but other than KT tape, I didn't by anything. I was afraid to buy any "I did it" merchandise before the run because I was afraid I wouldn't finish. I used the KT tape I bought to practice tape my shins and knees and then we went and walked around MK for a while.
Saturday:
The 3 different alarm clocks and wake up call I scheduled for the morning, were successful in getting me up ready and to the monorail by about 3:20. As I boarded the monorail someone cheerily quipped that its probably not often that most of the hotel is up and active by 3 am. As we left the monorail and started walking through the parking lot I was amazed by the long snake of people stretching out into the darkness of the parking lot. As a Disney staff member used their signature two finger point and said "marathon", I responded that I was actually there to get in-line for Soarin. ( Humor standards degrade when you haven't slept much). I managed to get through bag check and found a large throng of people standing around and long row of porta-potties with long lines in front of each one. Since I didn't have much else to do I stood in-line and people watched. I was surprised by the number of people wearing five-fingers in the line. It wasn't long before they opened the gates and we could weave our way to our corrals. On the way out we passed several more sets of porta-potties and none of these had lines. Next year I'll wait and use one of these.
When I got to my corral, I realized right away that I did not fit in. There were groups of people running around in circles inside the corral and others that had jumped the fence and were running back and forth outside the corral. Here was a group of people that looked like runners. We watched the festivities pre-start and heard the touching stories of the blind special forces guy that was running with his chaplain and the story of the woman who was running here as her husband ran simultaneously in Iraq. I thought it was neat that they were wearing Garmin's and had ghost runners set with their significant other's pace. I must have been a little out of it because it took me a little while to realize I was watching someone on stage and not something on a monitor. It was just a couple minutes later and the fireworks went off. The blast of heat from the flamethrowers offered a nice burst of heat and then it was time to run.
The first couple miles were really a blur for me. My focus was divided between avoiding people who were running slower than me and not getting in the way of people that were running faster. It was dark and I think around mile 4 I tried to drink some powerade. I'm not good at drinking and running so I took a sip and chucked the rest. I found a nice gentleman in a bright yellow jersey with the disney logo on the back. I liked his pace so I settled in behind him and just focused on that logo and not letting it get out of my sight. As we started to near he magic kingdom I got really excited and my pace picked up a bit. As we passed under tunnel before the Contemporary I was excited to see the cast member with big mickey hands waving. My wife was waiting outside the Contemporary and there was another little boost from seeing her. At this point she realized a flaw in my choice of running wear. Wearing all black when you are being photographed in the near dark while running makes you invisible.
As we turned the corner into the MK I was really surprised how dark the path was. I was concerned that i might trip or that someone might run into me. That all dissipated as soon as we turned onto main street. The cheering of the crowd and the sights here were unbelievable. As we turned towards the castle I saw Cinderella and her prince and the wicked step mother and step sisters. As I ran through the castle I thought, wow getting a picture here with Cinderella would be great. My DD would love it. Unfortunately by the time I worked through that whole process in my mind I was a good ways past the castle and there was no way I was gonna go backwards.
After we left the castle and the rest of Magic Kingdom behind things started to fall apart for me. I had been averaging about 8:20 a mile and I could tell that I wasn't going to be able to keep that up. I think it was a combination of a lack of training in the weeks before the race to prepare me mentally, and going out a little too fast. I started stopping at water stations to drink, I had a GU and my average pace began to rise.
When we passed the first overpass, I was excited thinking Ah-Ha I have conquered the fabled cloverleaf. Silly me, I should have spent more time reading course walk throughs. I would have known there were 2 more coming up and these hills were even bigger. Sarge's yelling was nice motivation though and I finally made it up and over all of them.
As we turned into Epcot I had a similar issue as Vertical Chaos. I thought I had ripped a toenail off. i thought to myself "loosing a toenail will show those running store guys that I am a runner." (Unfortunately, I checked my toes on the monorail later and all toenails were still there. It was just a blister. I think I'm the only person to be bummed to not have a body part fall off.) As we started through Epcot I heard some friends call my name and that gave me a nice little boost of speed. Pretty soon we turned a corner and saw Phineas and Ferb. I was worried about making my goal time but I had to stop and get my picture with them. If anyone would appreciate getting up at 3 am to run a half marathon through 2 amusement parks it would be them. Too bad they didn't have a Perry. As we headed further into Epcot we passed the giant fountain. I sped up thinking the sound of fountain was the cheering of the crowd at the end. It wasn't. I decided to try and push as hard as I could till the end though. As I crossed the finish line the announcer called my name. He mispronounced it and then tried again. He was wrong the second time too, but hey my name got announced twice!
My finish time was 1:58. I accomplished my goal. After a quick ice bath and a jump in the pool, I headed to Hollywood Studios with friends and then we went to Epcot for dinner in Italy. The 9 hour park walking warm-down seemed to work great except when I stopped moving. Anytime I had to stand up after sitting for a bit, it seemed to take a while to get going again.
Random Thoughts:
1. I am glad that I was able to achieve my time goal, but next time I'd like to take more time to get pictures with characters and enjoy the race.
2. A Donald medal is great, but now I really want a Mickey and Goofy medals.
3. I don't know that I would do the dining plan next time I'm there for a race. During the days before the race I was really watching what I ate and didn't really take advantage of my meal credits.
4. While it was fun in the parks after the race, next year I think I'll be there Thus-Sun rather than Fri-Mon. I would rather have more time at the expo.
5. The in room laundry bag is a great ice carrier for filling your tub up with ice.
6. Kinesio tape is magic.
and Happy Anniversary!!!!
