2013 Walt Disney World Half Marathon! Miles 1-3
The con-duck-tor counts down to Corral C's start at about 5:47AM...3 2 1 GOOO!
(Apologies for the shakiness.
)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1EdOoWWVMc
And we were off! All through this race I tried really hard to pay attention to our pace...not because I had a specific goal time in mind, but because keeping the marathon in mind I didn't want us to run the race too fast (and trash our legs) or too slow (and be on our feet for longer than necessary). I wanted us to run it juuuuust right...
...okay, I lied. I wanted us to beat our time from the Princess Half (3:02ish).
Ugh...please note the humidity on the Mile Marker 1 sign. Yuck!
I remember the first mile being very narrow and crowded. It was hard to run.
Cool flags!
I think we were able to spread out a bit by Mile Marker 2, if not right after. After passing this mile marker we each ate 4 Gu chomps (strawberry flavor, yum!). Craig wasn't a huge fan because they got stuck in his teeth.
And then we came up to the first character meet of the race: the pirate ship I'd seen from the monorail earlier that morning. We passed it up since the line was pretty big and we already have a picture with the exact same set-up from 2011.
Yo ho yo ho
Next we passed the photo-op screen I'd also seen earlier (I never did stop for a picture in front of this thing) before reaching the MK Entrance gates! LOTS of room to run by now, and if I remember correctly, we saw the lead wheelchair racers and runners pass us by on the other side of the median...they were already 9ish miles in!
Wow.
The warning that plays over the speakers here was burned in my brain all weekend: "Caution runners. Road narrows, and speed bumps ahead." I bet despite the fact that I said it was burned in my brain I actually quoted it incorrectly just now.
Despite the warning I was distracted by taking a video and managed to trip over a speed bump. Luckily I caught myself.
Said video is linked below...not worth tripping for!
(This video is blurry and shaky and pretty awful in general...you've been warned!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnANSVVwF1o
Mile Marker 3 was just inside the gates.
At the 5K mark our first text/email alert was sent out: 5K in 38:18, a 12:19/mile pace. Estimated finish time of 2:41:35. Not bad, right?...
...then we came the first character meet we wanted to stop for. Bye-bye decent average pace!
By now we were outside the WDW Speedway and were both DRENCHED in sweat. Craig had to accept defeat, take off his long-sleeved pullover, and tie it around his waist. I voted for him wearing it around his shoulders Zack Morris-style but he vetoed that idea.
This line looked sort of long but only took 3-4 minutes...racing 'munks!
I must say, the bro was very good at spotting mile markers before I did (ahh, to be tall) and was all about the character pictures during this race. I don't know if it's because I've finally got him trained after our other race weekends, or if he was a fan of the more relaxed approach, or both. But it worked out well for me!
And it's a good thing too, because there was no way I was passing up the next photo-op. It was a long line (6-minute wait) but this is one of the rarer character meet-ups I've seen, so it was totally worth it.
.....how's that for a cliff-hanger??
Continued in Next Post