The Running Thread - 2016

[Barca33Runner]

RunDisney needs to look at their pricing, their a-la-cart pricing of everything, and offering better vacation packages to compete with other races in my opinion.

I am interested to see what changes rD could make going forward and how they will react to the decrease in demand toward their races. I don't know exactly how rD and Disney operate in terms of being separate entities, so I am a bit concerned that the answer is going to be not much. I don't believe that Disney, as a whole, has much interest in decreasing prices for anything; so if rD isn't really a separate entity I imagine the answer is simply going to be to eliminate anything that isn't popular enough rather than taking a critical view of why it has lost popularity. Maybe I'm just a cynic and hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[roxymama]

Maybe all the running boom people from 2013 & 2014 have injured themselves? (I'm not joking, it's bound to happen with all distance runners at some point right...and if you get a boom of new distance runners...you probably get a boom of people with minor to major things nagging at them that decide to take a while off?) Just a theory that's probably totally wrong

 

[rteetz]

QOTD: I was just looking at the runDisney site and noticed that the marathon, Dopey, and Goofy are still open for registration. Assuming that is current, what do you think the reason is for the race not being sold out yet?

The marathon and goofy always take a while to sell out. Dopey on the other hand usually sells out fairly quickly. I'm guessing they either added some more spots to dopey which is less likely or we have a slow down in the dopey craze before the big 2018 5th anniversary and 25th anniversary of the full.

 

[IamTrike]

I am interested to see what changes rD could make going forward and how they will react to the decrease in demand toward their races. I don't know exactly how rD and Disney operate in terms of being separate entities, so I am a bit concerned that the answer is going to be not much. I don't believe that Disney, as a whole, has much interest in decreasing prices for anything; so if rD isn't really a separate entity I imagine the answer is simply going to be to eliminate anything that isn't popular enough rather than taking a critical view of why it has lost popularity. Maybe I'm just a cynic and hopefully I'm wrong.

I am not really sure what demand RunDisney expects for these events. I did my first Marathon weekend in 2011. I think I signed up for the half that year in September and at that point they had fewer registrations available. So while certain events have sold out in hours or days, I don't know that that's runDisney's expectation for every event.

 

[LSUlakes]

Now thinking about all the people (not just me), do you think the Star Wars new races have taken away WDW weekend people? Since it is something new and lots of people seem to like Star Wars?

Forgot about the additional races. That's got to play a part into it as well. On you most recent post, I doubt there is a injury boom. I would say its more likely that a lot of folks where motivated from the Boston Marathon Bombings, and wanted to run Boston. That helps explain the big increase, and a lot of them kept with it for a year or so. As time went on people decided that running Boston was much more difficult than they thought and started to give up on it. This year may be the first year since the 2014 Boston Marathon that a BQ could simply be enough to get you in. Where as it was around BQ-2min almost two years ago.

 

[LSUlakes]

Looking for some marathon advice. Lets say I miss my marathon goal by 5 minutes or less and want to give it another try. How long would you wait to attempt again? Current situation would be goal race of 1/15/17 with the second one coming on 3/12/17? That's around 8 weeks I would have:
1 week recovery
1 week taper
Maybe time for two 20 milers? Wk 3 & 6

 

[GreatLakes]

I am interested to see what changes rD could make going forward and how they will react to the decrease in demand toward their races. I don't know exactly how rD and Disney operate in terms of being separate entities, so I am a bit concerned that the answer is going to be not much. I don't believe that Disney, as a whole, has much interest in decreasing prices for anything; so if rD isn't really a separate entity I imagine the answer is simply going to be to eliminate anything that isn't popular enough rather than taking a critical view of why it has lost popularity. Maybe I'm just a cynic and hopefully I'm wrong.

I would hope someone in RunDisney is smart enough to realize that lowering the prices of the RunDisney events or including with registration some of the extra cost add ins now will most likely increase the demand. The races don't really need to be a big money maker on their own IMO. They are an event that gets people onto property and those people spend money on food and in the parks. I'm confident knocking $100 off of a race will result in enough extra people signing up that that $100 will be made up many times over in other areas.

If RunDisney is siloed off from the rest of the parks and resorts division someone isn't very good at their job.

 

[Barca33Runner]

I am not really sure what demand RunDisney expects for these events. I did my first Marathon weekend in 2011. I think I signed up for the half that year in September and at that point they had fewer registrations available. So while certain events have sold out in hours or days, I don't know that that's runDisney's expectation for every event.

That's true, I'm not sure what their expectations are either. They seem to have increased their number of race weekends, number of races per weekend, and pricing pretty quickly to stay with demand; it will just be interesting to see what they do with demand on the other side of the curve. I guess my main point of skepticism was about whether decreasing prices would ever be a serious consideration.

 

[Barca33Runner]

I would hope someone in RunDisney is smart enough to realize that lowering the prices of the RunDisney events or including with registration some of the extra cost add ins now will most likely increase the demand. The races don't really need to be a big money maker on their own IMO. They are an event that gets people onto property and those people spend money on food and in the parks. I'm confident knocking $100 off of a race will result in enough extra people signing up that that $100 will be made up many times over in other areas.

If RunDisney is siloed off from the rest of the parks and resorts division someone isn't very good at their job.

I agree, hopefully they realize this rather than being too stubborn to consider price decreases. I would certainly welcome paying less for my yearly Marathon Weekend trip.

 

[IamTrike]

Looking for some marathon advice. Lets say I miss my marathon goal by 5 minutes or less and want to give it another try. How long would you wait to attempt again? Current situation would be goal race of 1/15/17 with the second one coming on 3/12/17? That's around 8 weeks I would have:
1 week recovery
1 week taper
Maybe time for two 20 milers? Wk 3 & 6

I'm guessing this is for your 3:30 PR? My guess is that if you wound up with a 3:35 if you weren't hurt you'd probably still be pretty tired but you'd be in good shape. I would probably gradually increase my weekly milage back up to close to where it was over the first 3 weeks. I'd probably do a 16 miler in week 3 and a 20 miler in week 6.

My reasoning is that you probably won't get much more out of those extra miles and your body is still recovering. I'm basing this on my Chicago run last year. Our goal was low 3:30's. We held 8:00 or less for about the first 20 miles then someone in our groups legs started acting up. We stuck together but our paced dropped so we wound up coming in at 3:41. So while it wasn't a completely max effort for me it was close. I was able to run a trail marathon the following weekend, but it wasn't pleasant and I could tell my legs weren't back to normal for the next couple weeks. If you come within 5 minutes of your goal, my guess is that you'll be more tired than I was post marathon that's why I am suggesting a longer recovery period to ease back into running.

 

[croach]

I am interested to see what changes rD could make going forward and how they will react to the decrease in demand toward their races. I don't know exactly how rD and Disney operate in terms of being separate entities, so I am a bit concerned that the answer is going to be not much. I don't believe that Disney, as a whole, has much interest in decreasing prices for anything; so if rD isn't really a separate entity I imagine the answer is simply going to be to eliminate anything that isn't popular enough rather than taking a critical view of why it has lost popularity. Maybe I'm just a cynic and hopefully I'm wrong.

I believe they lowered the prices for the Star Wars half at Disneyland land this year so maybe that start to flow through to other races that aren't filling up. They'll probably start splitting out the Goofy races into 10k and half spots like they did last year.

 

[Barca33Runner]

I believe they lowered the prices for the Star Wars half at Disneyland land this year so maybe that start to flow through to other races that aren't filling up. They'll probably start splitting out the Goofy races into 10k and half spots like they did last year.

I'm probably too Marathon Weekend-centric in my viewpoint. I have only signed up for races during Marathon Weekend and the events that I have signed up for have always had a price increase over the previous year. I haven't really paid much attention to other race weekends and their pricing. I'm encouraged if they have been willing to reconsider pricing to keep a race weekend going rather than just eliminating it.

I imagine there may come a point when they split Goofy to open up a few more Half Marathon spots, but unfortunately it can't create any extra 10K spots (not nit-picking, I think you meant marathon spots). I am a little concerned that just as there is a looming increase in Dopey interest for 2018 (anniversaries) they could be considering paring back the # of Dopey entries next year to open up a few more individual 5K, 10K and Half slots because of the lightning quick sell-outs this year and relatively slow (possible) sell-out of Dopey.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Looking for some marathon advice. Lets say I miss my marathon goal by 5 minutes or less and want to give it another try. How long would you wait to attempt again? Current situation would be goal race of 1/15/17 with the second one coming on 3/12/17? That's around 8 weeks I would have:
1 week recovery
1 week taper
Maybe time for two 20 milers? Wk 3 & 6

Honestly, if you're marathon goal is an all out effort you're likely to need more than 8 weeks before you're ready for another all out effort. From my understanding, it takes about 4 weeks to recover from an all out marathon effort. And then another 2ish weeks to get back to previous fitness levels. Then another 8-12 weeks to maximize training to improve so your 5 minutes or less can be made up. So, I'd say from max effort to max effort you'd need at least 14-18 weeks between marathons, minimum. Just rebuilding your mitochondria base takes 8-12 weeks of running and that doesn't include your recovery from the other race. The only way I could see less than 14-18 weeks, say 10-12 weeks, is if you miss on your goal because of circumstances outside of your control not related to your fitness level (like a super hot race, or a super windy day, or bad digestion). If you put the marathons too close together you'll likely severely hamper your attempts in the 2nd race.

But with that being said, the closest I put two marathons was 9 weeks. I ran a then PR of 4:20:34 in November 2014, and then a Dopey marathon of 4:27:23. That was back when I ran 3x/week and then added in two mock Dopey training weeks. I took no week off. Ran a half marathon 4 weeks after the marathon and PR'd with a 1:53:18. This was what I did...



So that's to say, I'd guess anything is possible, but if I were choosing to do this again I'd wait at least 14-18 weeks between max efforts to give myself the best chance possible.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

ATTQOTD: I believe that a different type of runner is interested in WDW races. I know a few "serious" runners who scoff at the idea of running in a rD event. The events are really not set up in such a way as to allow serious runners with a long background in the sport of even having a chance at a PR. The only serious runners who run at Disney are also fans of Disney and see it as a chance to combine 2 passions.

I also don't think that the rD marathon has sold out in quite a while. They used to post it as sold out when they hit the last day of availability, but it often went from 90-92% full to sold out on that day, so not really "sold out". If I had to guess, I would say that most rD runners really are not interested in the distance, and most will never run another marathon elsewhere.

Finally, I believe that most rD runners really are not consistent runners. This is a cool box to check off, then they move on with their lives.

 

[croach]

Looking for some marathon advice. Lets say I miss my marathon goal by 5 minutes or less and want to give it another try. How long would you wait to attempt again? Current situation would be goal race of 1/15/17 with the second one coming on 3/12/17? That's around 8 weeks I would have:
1 week recovery
1 week taper
Maybe time for two 20 milers? Wk 3 & 6

There is a lot of different theories as to the recovery periods. Some say a day for every mile, a day for every kilometer. One suggestion was do a reverse taper once soreness was gone. I guess one thing to ask yourself is what gains do you think you will make in that 8 week time frame. A lot of speed work wouldn't be recommended and that 20 miler in week 3 is probably only going to break you down more. Don't want to be a downer and say it can't be done but a max effort marathon will probably be hard to improve on in that time frame. But you could schedule out the 8 weeks and just monitor how you feel. You'd probably be able to get a pretty feel for it.

 

[Disneyland_emily]

To me rundis has hit the way to expensive/crowded/low perks category for me..

When i can get a 'themed' half with better swag & knowing the course will allow me to run my pace.. All for oh half ($70-90) price.. Medals are equal or better..

 

[RunDisneyDad]

I agree with others. If you go all out during the first marathon you might not have much left in the tank for the second one. But, if you do the first one and say, the weather is bad, you are feeling sick that day, minor injury, etc, I would think as long as you keep your training going between the two marathons you might be fine.

This past winter was the first time I did 2 marathons a month apart and between marathons I thought I was fine and recovering well, but in hindsight I was struggling more than I admitted and even though the weather was awful the morning of the DW Marathon I think my overall time was also affected by the fact I was still very much recovering.

 

[opusone]

Looking for some marathon advice. Lets say I miss my marathon goal by 5 minutes or less and want to give it another try. How long would you wait to attempt again? Current situation would be goal race of 1/15/17 with the second one coming on 3/12/17? That's around 8 weeks I would have:
1 week recovery
1 week taper
Maybe time for two 20 milers? Wk 3 & 6

Honestly, if you're marathon goal is an all out effort you're likely to need more than 8 weeks before you're ready for another all out effort.

I guess one thing to ask yourself is what gains do you think you will make in that 8 week time frame. A lot of speed work wouldn't be recommended and that 20 miler in week 3 is probably only going to break you down more. Don't want to be a downer and say it can't be done but a max effort marathon will probably be hard to improve on in that time frame.

I agree with @DopeyBadger and @croach; I think 8 weeks to too little time between two max efforts. I think your second effort will suffer a bit. I think you are better off giving it a full recovery and another near-full training cycle if you really want to hit a specific goal. In the grand scheme of things, waiting an additional 2-3 months won't be the end of the world (assuming you can find a marathon in the right climate conditions then).

I know you are talking a hypothetical, but if you miss your goal time by <5 minutes, why was that? Are you thinking it was it because of the weather conditions on race day? The terrain of the course? Because of congestion early in the race? Was it because you were slightly under-trained? With any of these issues, you sort of know before you start or right after you start the first marathon. If this is true, then you may want to decide the day before or day of to use the first marathon as a training run at your normal long run pace (this can actually be quite a bit of fun). Then, you can definitely be ready for max effort in 8 weeks.

----------------------------

I think @RunDisneyDad and I posted at the same time. I think he got to the same point (with many fewer words I might add).

 

[Baloo in MI]

QOTD: I was just looking at the runDisney site and noticed that the marathon, Dopey, and Goofy are still open for registration. Assuming that is current, what do you think the reason is for the race not being sold out yet?

I am not able to share anything new. I agree with many of you: the running boom is slowing, at least a little; the costs associated with the WDW Marathon Weekdnd are prohibitive, especially when you consider housing and food; and I think many people see the challenges and marathon as bucket list races to check off a list and move onto other races.

I know personally two years ago when I ran Goofy I had hoped to run Dopey. I got home early the first day of registration around 4:30 and Dopey was already sold out. A year later Dopey was available much longer, about a day? And now for 2017 it is still open. I sure it will bounce up for the 2018/anniversary year, but what about 2019? RunDisney better be making plans now, that could be a rough year!

 

[michigandergirl]

Does anyone know what the Marathon Weekend dates will be in 2018??? All this Dopey talk has me in planning mode...