Early AM Logistics for Marathon Weekend

[champ1380]

Hi everyone!

I am considering doing the 2020 Dopey Challenge. One of the things that is holding me back is the logistics of the whole thing (ie combining a Disney trip with a marathon). This would be my 5th marathon, but my first runDisney event. So I decided to take it one question at a time and go from there. I'm thanking any and all help in advanced!

So my first batch of question has to go with the early start times. I've got some health issues that can be exacerbated by lack of sleep, so managing it is important. So here they go.

1. What's the latest shuttle time people take? Is there a hotel that gets you a shorter ride and therefore a later time?
2. What is the difference in start times between the different corrals? And anyone who's done it before with around these submitted times want to let me know what corral they were in? Not sure which one I'd submit but in the last two years I've got a 51 minute 10K, 1:51 minute half, and a 4:19 full.
3. About how long does it take to get your bag and back to the shuttles after the race?
4. I ran my first marathon at 7AM on the east coast while living on the west coast, so I slowly woke up earlier and earlier in the week before until I was waking up at 3:30, and I'd probably plan on doing something similar so it wasn't a total shock to the system. And naps, definitely naps. Does anyone else do something similar? Or any other tips for managing the early mornings.

Thanks again, and happy running everyone!

 

[FFigawi]

Some hopefully helpful answers for you....

1. The last bus normally leaves the hotel at 4am. Sometimes there’s a line waiting to board and there will be buses after that, but I’d plan on a 4am bus being the latest. They don’t alter the bus times based on the hotel.
2. First corral starts at 530. Each subsequent corral starts about 6 minutes later.
3. It’s about 15 minutes to walk through the finish area, get your medal, and get to bag check. Add in another 5-15 minutes waiting in line, and you can be on a bus about 20-30 minutes after finishing.
4. I manage with naps, walks, and beer.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

I ran my first marathon at 7AM on the east coast while living on the west coast, so I slowly woke up earlier and earlier in the week before until I was waking up at 3:30, and I'd probably plan on doing something similar so it wasn't a total shock to the system. And naps, definitely naps. Does anyone else do something similar? Or any other tips for managing the early mornings.

Random thoughts from me about how to handle the early mornings of Dopey as a west coaster.

If possible, take a red eye and suffer it out on little to no sleep on arrival day before going to bed early (around 7:00pm) on arrival day. I cannot sleep on planes at all, but did this in 2017 and 2018 for Dark Side and found that jet lag was not an issue.

For marathon weekend 2019, I could not find a red eye that worked. My solution wound up being "attempting" to go to bed early on my first full day and hoped that the other early mornings would take care of my challenges to fall asleep at the end of the day. It worked.

I always visit the parks during race weekends, but I will absolutely cut my park hours short in order to go to bed early the night before a race. While I tour the parks, I also make sure to spend massive amounts of time off my feet on race days. This year after the half, I watched all the shows in DHS and visited Muppet Vision many times to help keep off my feet. I also don't worry about spending 20 minutes at a time on a bench just because. It is possible to still enjoy a day in the parks without wiping out your body even after a race.

I also always go to bed early the night before a race because I have learned through doing many runDisney 10K/Half marathon challenges that I always sleep better the night before a race if I woke up early that morning. That's actually partially why I chose Dopey as part of my first marathon. While I was nervous the night before my first marathon, I did sleep better because I was tired from early mornings.

One thing that helped me mentally with the 4 early mornings of Dopey was knowing that I had ran 5 multi race challenge weekends before Dopey. While this is your first runDisney event, you can still prepare for what this feels like by doing some back to back very early morning training runs. Yes, it's difficult. But it helps.

One final thought. Use whatever Jedi mind tricks as @OldSlowGoofyGuy calls them to trick your mind about why the early mornings are not as difficult as it would seem. I suppose they're similar to what I told myself when the wall tried to defeat me during the marathon, but they did work.

 

[DopeyBadger]

What is the difference in start times between the different corrals? And anyone who's done it before with around these submitted times want to let me know what corral they were in? Not sure which one I'd submit but in the last two years I've got a 51 minute 10K, 1:51 minute half, and a 4:19 full.

At this moment in time, I would predict you being in Corral B for the HM/M and Corral A for the 5k/10k. You'll want to submit the 1:51 HM as it is far better than the 4:19 full from a race equivalency standpoint. Since you're running Dopey, you can't submit the 10k.



For the 5k/10k, it will depend on where you line up in the corral as to when roughly you'd start. I believe for the 2019 Marathon Weekend there were only 3 corrals for the 5k. And I think I remember others saying they were around 5:50-6:00am for a 5k Corral B start. So somewhere between 5:30-5:50 is a reasonable guess for the 5k and probably 10k as well. The corrals usually open around 4:15am. So if you get on the last bus from the resort, then you'll probably be further back in the corral. Be aware that they usually close Corral A around 5am (of course that's when it was 6 corrals for the 5k so I can't say for sure since I wasn't at 2019 MW). So you may or may not be cutting it close between leaving the hotel and when your assigned corral would close. In my experience coming from several different hotel locations, the bus loading to being dropped off can vary from 15-45 min depending on traffic and such. So if you choose to board the final 4am bus, I'd be sure that your plan is to head straight to Corral A upon being dropped off if the timing is anywhere close to 5am (and it's probably a 10-15 min walk at least from where they've usually dropped the buses off to the 5k/10k corral location).

For the HM/M, Corral B usually starts around 5:35-5:37am. Be aware that they do close these corrals as well as it gets closer to race time. I think it's usually around 5:15-5:20am. The key difference between the HM/M and 5k/10k is the corral location is much further away. So I'd anticipate a good walk of 20-25 min to the corral location upon being dropped off by the bus.

That's all to say, if you want to guarantee your corral start time based on your POT, then you very well may want to be on an earlier bus than the last 4am one. If you're fine with the possibility that you don't end up in your corral with other runners of similar paces and an earlier start time, then taking the last bus should be ok.

 

[sandam1]

I know that it isn't a popular suggestion on the boards, but I would highly recommend getting a rental car. We stayed off-site for MW 2019 and there were some distinct advantages of having a car.

1. We got the parking lot per Disney's suggestions (i.e. stupid early, leaving plenty of extra time), but we could then rest/doze in the car until it was time to head to the start. Last year it was COLD the morning of the 5K and having a heated place to sit was great. Also, we left all of the post-race stuff in the car and didn't have to worry about dealing with bag drop-off or pick-up.

2. At least for the 5K (I only did the 5K and half), the fast runners were done well before the last corral had started. However, the buses can't leave until the last runner clears the area, which is about .5 miles (?) into the race. When we passed, there was a LONG line of runners waiting to get on their buses. The cars exit from a different area and don't have that issue. (Maybe someone can weigh in if it is the same for the 10K)

3. Naps are good, but sleep at night is better IMHO. Even doing just two races, I still struggled with sleep deprivation, which wasn't helped by the fact that my flight left at 'dark thirty on Wednesday morning so I was tired before I even got to Florida. I would plan on being in bed no later than 8 p.m. (or earlier) each night. That means dinner needs to be between 4-5 p.m. and then immediately back to the hotel. It was easy for me to try to add "one more thing." Not a good idea!

 

[DopeyBadger]

2. At least for the 5K (I only did the 5K and half), the fast runners were done well before the last corral had started. However, the buses can't leave until the last runner clears the area, which is about .5 miles (?) into the race. When we passed, there was a LONG line of runners waiting to get on their buses. The cars exit from a different area and don't have that issue. (Maybe someone can weigh in if it is the same for the 10K)

This is a good point. The estimated time the buses back to resorts begin to run again is at least after 6:30am on the morning of the 5k. Usually in the 6:45-7:00am range before they really get moving.

In the past, the 10k hasn't had the same issue because the route is different. However, in 2019 the event guide for the first time stated the buses wouldn't head back to resorts until starting at 7am. I wasn't at MW 2019 so I can't confirm if that was the actual experience. But in the years prior (2014-2018), I would get on the bus right after finishing the 10k and then we would head to the resorts within 5-10 min of me loading (or well before 7am).

 

[AggieDizzer]

This is my first runDisney event, and I am doing Dopey as well. I'm staying in CBR. I have NO idea how the corral system will work - I am a 19 min 5k'er, 38 min 10k'er, 1:28 half, 3:05 marathon. I turned in for my time the 26.2-mark in a road 50k for my qualifying time, 3:50-something, which was a little slower than my typical road marathon would have been due to the extra distance (I have been running trails for the last couple years and don't have a lot of road races to pull from). I'm just going to wing it and try not really worry too much about corrals though because I'm not really using this event to qualify for anything - it's purely for fun, and as far as I am concerned my times don't matter. I am a little curious about the buses & logistics as well but on my last trip to WDW I discovered the joys of ride-sharing and Minnie vans, so if push comes to shove, it'll be "Hello, Lyft!" for me! It'll be a few extra dollars, but I am sure it will be absolutely worth it to not have to stand in bus lines.

 

[DopeyBadger]

I am a 19 min 5k'er, 38 min 10k'er, 1:28 half, 3:05 marathon. I turned in for my time the 26.2-mark in a road 50k for my qualifying time, 3:50-something, which was a little slower than my typical road marathon would have been due to the extra distance (I have been running trails for the last couple years and don't have a lot of road races to pull from).

If you have any races since January 2018 at 10 mile, HM or M that are under a 1:17, 1:44, or 3:40 respectively, then you'll be in corral A. You can find the other cutoffs in the below graphic which are close but by no means guaranteed. I'd be wary of submitting a 50k time using the 26.22 mile split. Because if they attempt to verify the POT and see your 50k time is 4:20 (making it up), then they may send you to the last corral for an invalid POT. They very well may not make the extra effort to see your 26.22 mile split is a 3:50 from that race. I wouldn't put the odds as very high that this happens, but just letting you know there is some risk involved in the plan unless you've gotten a email verification from runDisney that your plan is acceptable. In the past when people have had odd distances for POT (like a 15 miler instead of 13.11 mile), runDisney has suggested submitting the full longer distance time (like 15 miles) as the shorter distance (like 13.11 miler). This way the submission only hurts you from a time perspective and you gain no advantage on other participants.

 

[champ1380]

Thanks everyone for all your help! This is a lot of great information to process. I'm going to read through it more carefully to see if anything else comes up, but I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it first .

 

[PrincessV]

I've got some health issues that can be exacerbated by lack of sleep, so managing it is important.

I understand this completely, as I also have some health issues negatively impacted by lack of sleep. I've done Dopey twice and am going for a third, so here's what worked for me... EARLY bedtimes. Really - I'm in bed by 6pm and asleep by 7pm for a 2am wake-up, so I'm getting 7 hours of sleep each night. On top of that, I allow for napping, should I feel the need. I really just follow what my body says it needs and eat, sleep, rest while watching TV, etc. as my body dictates. Admittedly, this means I do very little park touring and it's not really a Disney Vacation, but during Dopey my focus is on running the races and feeling as good as I can to do so.

What's the latest shuttle time people take? Is there a hotel that gets you a shorter ride and therefore a later time?

Total crapshoot on how long buses take form any resort. Every race, there's at least one bus driver who gets lost and takes an hour or more to get to the race. I usually drive, but when I have taken a bus, I was on it within 15 minutes of when they start running: for me, it's worth getting up a bit earlier to not have the stress of wondering if I'll make it in time.

What is the difference in start times between the different corrals? And anyone who's done it before with around these submitted times want to let me know what corral they were in? Not sure which one I'd submit but in the last two years I've got a 51 minute 10K, 1:51 minute half, and a 4:19 full.

I don't have a PoT and start in the first corral that doesn't require one, so quite a few back from where I'd imagine you'll be. This year, I started at 6:01am for the marathon and 5:52am for the 10K (I didn't run the half and apparently didn't use my phone for the 5K so I don't have a time for that). Last year, I started at 5:58am for the 10K, 6:23am for the half, and 6:20am for the full. It used to take about an hour for all corrals to start, but they've sped things up recently and I think it was about 45 minutes this year.

About how long does it take to get your bag and back to the shuttles after the race?

Not long at all - maybe 5-10 minutes, tops, if you don't stop for photos, beer, food, etc.

I ran my first marathon at 7AM on the east coast while living on the west coast, so I slowly woke up earlier and earlier in the week before until I was waking up at 3:30, and I'd probably plan on doing something similar so it wasn't a total shock to the system. And naps, definitely naps. Does anyone else do something similar? Or any other tips for managing the early mornings.

I don't, mostly because I rarely have a hard time going to sleep earlier, and I want to go into the race weekend well rested, not already tired from practicing early wake-ups. My race mornings are kind of a fog until sunrise: I set everything out the night before - clothes, fuel, bag, etc. - so I don't have to think in the wee hours. I just get up, eat, dress, collect what's going with me, and get to the start early so I can sit and rest, and even nap a bit.