The "I can't believe what I'm doing to get a trip to WDW!" Pre-Trip Report

[Sarah_Rose]

Pre-Trip Report: Marathon Weekend Jan 7 to

It was back in February that I uttered that fateful phrase, "Do you know what I've always thought would be neat..."

Just to set the stage, I am not a runner. In any situation. I don't run to catch a bus, I don't run for fun. I think that high school gym class scarred me for life. That's not to say that I'm not an active person - I commute by bike to work, can hike for days on end, and take part in any winter sport that I can possibly get myself into. So when I got my February Mousesavers newsletter that had a blurb about marathon and half marathon registration and mentioned to my fiance that I've always wanted to do the WDW Marathon, I meant, like, walk it.

My fiance, on the other hand, loves to race. He was a competitive cross country skier when he was younger, and ran track and cross country through college. He also is not a Disney fan. His family visited Disneyland once when he was a child, "just so the kids can see it." Since he has known me, he has tripled the number of times he has set foot in a Disney park, and is not yet thrilled about it.

So, when I mentioned the marathon, we both got very different ideas in our heads: I imagined a nice trip, a nice resort, a few days in the parks, some good ADRs, and a coincidental 5 hours of walking in the middle. My fiance suddenly saw the chance to have a running partner for the next year. Ouch. After a little bit of feverish discussion we came to a compromise: we would run, but it would only be the half marathon, and it could only be a 4 night trip. Ok, I can work with that.

This is my first pre-trip report, and actually my first of any WDW activities in quite awhile. My last trip was a mother-daughter trip back in spring of 2002, before my life was taken over by things like grad school and a career. However, I've gotten to the point where there's nothing left to do but pack and train for the race, and I need something to fill the time with. So, here we are:

The Crew: Me (Sarah) - 25 years old and an obsessive Disney fan since my first trip to the World at age 11
My Fiance (James) - 27 years old - going for the race, and tolerating the Disney (however, little does he know that this will be the trip where he is converted )

Our only trip to WDW together was back in February of 2006 when we (along with my roommate and future-maid-of-honor) got into my car in Toronto at 4:00 on a Tuesday and started driving south and didn't stop for anything but gas until we hit WDW. We stayed in a rather gross HoJo on 192 that we found a $20 a night coupon for at a rest stop, and spent an evening in DtD and a day in Epcot before driving down to Miami, where we had free accomodations. Oh, to be a grad student again.

Here we are in Epcot after 24 hours of driving.

Nearly a year later, we found ourselves working as teachers in England and by Christmas I needed a good dose of magic. Homesick and sad that we weren't going to be able to go home for Christmas, I instead decided (and didn't tell James until after they already had my credit card info) that we would spend Dec 21-24 at Disneyland Resort Paris. We stayed at one of the onsite but non-Disney hotels and had a lovely time, although it wasn't quite the WDW experience that I was craving.

I did however have a wonderly unexpected magic moment with Pluto at the Disneyland Hotel on our last day, however. It might have involved hand-holding and skipping.

One more member of the family that won't be accompanying us on the trip, but must be mentioned is our German Shepherd, Jack. He's a wonderful running buddy and a great motivator to get up and run!

Who can resist that smile?

The Planning

Several days after registering for the Half Marathon, I made a three day reservation at WL. James can't get much time off at work, and so we decided to just take Alaska Airlines' red-eye flight from Seattle on Jan 7 and stay at WL from Jan 8-11. Our plans changed a few days later when my brother (who lives in Calgary (Canada) and that I don't get to see much) registered for the full marathon and booked POP for Jan 8-12. We made plans to extend our trip by an extra day to see him run, but everything fell through when my brother's girlfriend accepted a job in Arizona and he now spends most of his extra cash flying between Calgary and Tuscon. Oh well, back to the original plan. We'll do a family trip to WDW eventually.

Our plans changed again when Alaska Airlines got rid of its red-eye between Seattle and Orlando. We decided to fly SW the day before and book one night at POP before moving on to WL. We also added 3 day park hopper tickets and the basic DDP to our WL reservation. I was very excited to get a 40% off PIN for our dates and we managed to get 3 nights WL woods view with bunk beds (not that we need the bunk beds) with 3 days park hopping and DDP for $1521.

I also made my ADRs and happily got all the restaurants and times that I wanted. I even convinced James to have dinner at Chef Mickeys, on the condition that I tell Pluto how much that little moment we shared in Paris meant to me. We also have dinner at Boma and Ohana, both of which I've never been to but always wanted to try.

Here's now it looks:

Jan 7: Get up early and drop Jack off at the Barking Lounge dog kennel, which is right down the street from us. Take Seattle metro bus to Seatac for our 12:40 flight with Southwest. Arrive at MCO at 10:30 pm and take DME to POP.

Jan 8: Another early morning. Taxi to WL to check in so that our tickets and dining plan are activated. DHS for a couple hours, leaving around 11:00 to get a bus to Disney's Wide World of Sports. Pick up marathon packages and pins and head back to DHS to finish anything we want to do and have lunch. Head over to MK, see what we can before 8:00 closing. ADR for Chef Mickey's at 8:40.

Jan 9: May or may not be an early morning. The planner in me wants it to be early, but James may rebel. Either way, heading to AK for most of the day. We figure that as it's the day before the race, we should take it a bit easier, and I find that AK is perfect for that. ADR at Boma at 4:40. And then the taking it easy plan goes all pear shaped: evening EMH at Epcot. We'll stay as long as we feel comfortable with. Epcot is my favorite park, but we've decided to mostly leave it out this trip.

Jan 10: Get up sometime way before dawn to catch a 4:00 am bus to the half marathon starting point. Run for 2.5-ish hours. Hopefully survive. Head back to WL for shower/breakfast/relaxing for a bit. MK for the rest of the day to see what we didn't see on Thursday. ADR at 6:50 for Ohana. We'll play this day by ear - if we are really feeling the run, we'll head back to WL early and hang out by the pool and hot tub.

Jan 11: Check out and head to MCO for our 12:00 flight back to Seattle.

I really like to try to plan my days as much as possible, but I know that the half marathon will probably change that, so I'm leaving the flexibility to just veg on a bench with a Dole Whip for half the day if necessary. Just being in the parks will be nice, even if we don't get to do as much as I normally like. Like, oh, most of Epcot. That decision was based on the fact that I was last there a couple years ago and not that much has changed, whereas both AK and DHS have gotten new attractions since I last visited those parks in 2002.

The Training

Well, I guess you could say that the rest is all fluff, and the reason that we're really going is to run the half marathon. Even though 13 miles isn't a huge distance for me (I could walk it today and not feel anything tomorrow), the fact that I'm planning to run the whole thing is a huge accomplishment.

I spent March and April using Runner's World's 8 week Walk-Run program, where you gradually build up to being able to run for 30 minutes. When I first started, even doing the intervals of Walk 2 minutes, Run 1 minute was difficult for me, so getting up to 15, 20, and then 30 minutes of continuous running was a big deal. I had a bit of a set back in April with a sprained ankle - I also learned my lesson about running hills on gravel. lol.

I didn't get much running in during the summer, maybe jogging once or twice a week, but by September was back to running 4 times a week. In October I started using Hal Higdon's Novice Half Marathon plan. It starts with short 3 mile runs during the week and a 4 mile run on Sunday, and gradually builds up the distance. I am currently in week five of the program and will be running 6 miles this Sunday. I find that I really enjoy the Sunday long runs, but that the shorter weekday runs are a real challenge to get up for. I'll be honest that today is the first day of the program that the alarm has gone off and we decided to sleep in an extra hour and push the run back until after work. Oops. But, we were woken up at 3:00 am by a Jack "Oooops, I drank too much water before bed!" emergency, so we figure we had an excuse.

I'm feeling pretty good about the training. I bought a heart rate monitor early on and it's been satisfying to see my HR go down as my speed goes up. I have been having problems with shin pain in my left shin for the last few weeks, so I hope that improves - it seems to be more of a tense/growing muscle problem than a true injury, at least for now. I'll keep you posted.

As far as speed, I ran the Pumpkin Push 5k race a few weeks ago with a time of 32:20 (but I maintain I would have been a couple minutes faster if I hadn't have had to stop to let Jack poop. lol.) and a pace of 10:26 average minute miles.

We average about 57 minutes to an hour for a 5 mile run (with a pace of about 11:30) and that is the pace that I hope to keep up for the half marathon. James is significantly faster than me and we're unsure if we're going to run together or not for the actual race.

So, there we are. Hope you guys will follow me during the next 8 weeks as I continue to train for the Half Marathon. Will I finish? Definitely. Will my shins still be intact? Unclear.

Thanks for reading!

 

[addictedtothemouse]

So when I got my February Mousesavers newsletter that had a blurb about marathon and half marathon registration and mentioned to my fiance that I've always wanted to do the WDW Marathon, I meant, like, walk it.

Jan 10: Get up sometime way before dawn to catch a 4:00 am bus to the half marathon starting point. Run for 2.5-ish hours. Hopefully survive. Head back to WL for shower/breakfast/relaxing for a bit. MK for the rest of the day to see what we didn't see on Thursday. ADR at 6:50 for Ohana. We'll play this day by ear - if we are really feeling the run, we'll head back to WL early and hang out by the pool and hot tub.

How about a quick nap!

 

[Sarah_Rose]

How about a quick nap!

You see, you would think that that was a good idea, but I've read other trip reports from WDW marathon-ers and half-marathon-ers and it turns out that if you fall into the trap of napping afterwards, there is a good chance that your legs will stiffen up and you won't move for several days. Safer to just keep going and hope for the best.

 

[Sarah_Rose]

Here I am 44 days out from our half marathon trip, and I haven't run in almost a week now.

Last Thursday during our 4 mile run, the nagging pain in my left shin suddenly turned into full blown tingling and throbbing from knee to ankle. Ooops. We finished our run (mostly out of necessity - if I stopped running, it hurt more!) and decided since Friday was a rest day and Saturday minor crosstraining, I would just take it easy and we'd see what Sunday brought. No dice. Still was in pain on Sunday and so we had to give up our long run. It was really hard to do, but I figured that it was better in the long run to take it easy and not further injure myself.

Today is another 4 mile run and I'm going to do it, despite some lingering pain and stiffness, but hopefully it'll be alright. I have an icepack on the ready just in case.

We also ordered a couple of goodies for our trip last week. I've been looking for a hat/visor to wear while running (I'd argue that it's to keep the sun off, but since we live in Seattle it's really for the rain ) and decided to order one from Disney Shopping. I ordered from the Design Your Own line and chose a white visor with my name on the side and a Cutie Eeyore on the front. The reason for the Eeyore was that James picked me up a Cutie Eeyore keychain in Disneyland Paris a couple years ago - no real reason for it, just said it reminded him of me. I attached it to my backpack and for the next year or so it became the object that I would blame everything on. While hiking: "Little Eeyore doesn't like heights..." "Little Eeyore is getting tired..." "Little Eeyore is cold and wet and hates you right now..." Alas, I lost Little Eeyore this summer while shepherding around 25 small children at the museum I work at's summer camp. It seemed appropriate to have a new Little Eeyore for the half marathon. "Little Eeyore is tired and thinks that this was a stupid idea."

My dear fiance also decided that he wanted a hat as a souvenir, but went a bit more traditional: back hat with red Mickey silhouette. Oh well, at least we'll both be showing our spirit.

No other news to report. We are getting closer, though!

 

[addictedtothemouse]

So sorry to hear about your leg. It's not a shin splint is it? Take care and go to a DR if needed to stay healthy. (maybe Little Eeyore won't want to run?

 

[Sarah_Rose]

Not shin splints... that was my first thought, but the pain is not quite right. I had problems with a shin splint in my right leg and this feels entirely different. It turns out that I've over-used the muscle in the inner front of my leg that lifts your foot up and down. From what I've read, it's one of the most commonly injured muscles in beginner runners. It wasn't too bad yesterday during my run, but I'm going to bike today and tomorrow instead of running to give it a break so that I can hopefully get my long run in Sunday!

Thanks for the encouragement!

 

[Sarah_Rose]

Ran our first 6 mile run last night. It took 1:09 to complete, which puts me at 11:30 minute miles.... seems to be a trend. Well, I wanted to do the half marathon at 12:00 minute miles, but it looks like I should be closer to 11 minutes, which is awesome. It also felt really good. My shin only bothered me while I was warming up (and it was really cold and damp yesterday), and then was fine for the rest of the run. We tried out some Cliff Shot Blocks and found that they really helped with keeping our energy up, and were very easy to take. We had previously tried the Cliff Shot energy gels, but found that they were just too disgusting to swallow. The Blocks are like chewing a block of fruit-flavored gummy candy, which is much nicer.

I guess I should mention all my favorite running paraphernalia right now:

1) Shoes: I retired my Saucony Grid Methods last month and picked up a pair of Nike Air Moto Max 6 shoes. I previously had been kind of anti-Nike, but the shoes are perfect for my under pronating feet and seem to be holding up nicely to the puddles.

2) Clothing: I bought a pair of lululemon running capris a few weeks ago as a reward to myself for running 5 miles with no walking. I hated paying the lululemon prices, but I'll admit that they were the most comfortable running capris I'd tried (and I tried a lot) and they do make running in the rainy Seattle weather much more bearable. I also have a pair of Thorlos running socks, that, well, rock my socks. I also run the longer runs (more than 4 miles) with my Camelbak hydration belt. It's super-comfy (I don't even notice it's there) and has pockets to hold things like doggy poop bags, keys, and my head lamp that I carry with me for dark patches.

3) Gadgets: I always run with my Polar T60 heart rate monitor, set to beep if I'm running too fast or too slow. It's done a lot for teaching me how to pace myself and how to know how hard I should be pushing. I also use the CardioTrack app on my iPod Touch to track all my running. I map my runs before-hand, using mapmyrun.com. I had been using the website to keep track of my distances, but I found it was just too much work and the iPod app is much more convienient.

Anyway, that's my stuff. I could probably do without most of it, but it all makes running much more comfortable.

Also, our Disney hats should be arriving today, so hooray!

And, as a last point, I think we're the only ones who are happy about the early Friday Epcot closings for 2009. We had planned to do the EMH at Epcot the night before the half marathon.... now they'll start an hour earlier so that we can go back to WL to sleep an hour earlier! Yay!

Well, it's a rest day in the training schedule, so I'm off to take the German Shepherd to a dog park to run off his energy. I don't know how he can run 6 miles with us the night before, and be bouncing off the walls the next day! I'm a bit envious, to be honest.