Disney World Marathon Weekend: Mickey's Marathon recap

With Buzz and Woody's Best Friends 5k and Donald's Half Marathon done, I had my sights set on the full marathon.  I had spent the last 16 weeks training to finish this race in a time that would qualify me for the Boston Marathon.  For me, that meant finishing any time under 3 hours and 11 minutes (3:10:59 or less).  My previous marathon PR was 4:17:49, so I would be trying to shave off over an hour.  I knew this would be tough, but I felt I had found a pretty good training plan, and followed it almost exactly.

My recovery after the half marathon went pretty much as planned.  We walked around Animal Kingdom for a couple of hours before we headed back to the hotel for dinner.  Again, we were planning on a spaghetti dinner.  I seemed to have over-done it just a bit with dinner for the half marathon, so I held myself to one plate this time.  I think I was asleep by about 8:00 pm.

Just like for the half marathon, I was up at 2:00 am, had my Marathon Energy Bar (only 1 today, to try and avoid the port-a-pottie during the race), cinnamon/raisin bagel and cup of coffee.

And unlike my wife, I always remember my race bib!

The race retreat was even more worth the price of admision before the marathon.  It was quite a bit colder out, I think around 42*F at the time the race started, so sitting in that tent was very, very nice.  As I said in the half marathon recap, I thought I would be getting another special lunch box, but no!  Instead, I got this water bottle:

It's actually a pretty nice water bottle, and has the Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge logo on it.  Is it worth the price of the tent?  Probably not.  But like I said, sitting in the warm tent was better than standing in the cold!

And as we did with the half marathon, we had to walk to the start line again.  This time, I brought this little guy to keep me warm...

This is a mylar blanket.  Surprisingly, they keep you warm quite well.  So this blanket, coupled with a pair of hand warmers kept me from being too cold while I was walking to the start line.  Once we got to the starting corrals, I decided to use the bathroom one more time, which I did not do for the half.  This ended up being one of the most pivotal decisions of my race.

As soon as I was done with the bathroom, I had about 10 minutes until race time.  I did a light jog up to corral A, followed by my routine stretch, and had about 2 minutes to stand around and be nervous.  Once those 2 minutes were over, it was game on.

The first 13 miles went almost exactly as planned.  My nutritional plan was to take a small drink at every aid station and eat one Power Gel every 4 miles.  I needed to average a 7:15/mile pace in order to achieve my goal.  My eyes pretty much stayed glued to my Garmin, which I had set to display my current pace and my average per mile pace.  After 13 miles, I knew I was right on track, but I was starting to feel a bit tired.

Once I got to mile 17, I started to have some real doubt on whether or not I could finish in time.  Through mile 17, I ran every mile at, or faster than, my goal pace, so I knew I had some time to spare.  But as I watch my average mile pace get slower and slower, more and more doubt began entering my mind.  I ran mile 18 in 7:30, as well as miles 19-22.  Mile 23, I somehow ran in 7:15.  Mile 24 is where I almost lost it.  It was somewhere around this point that the 3:10 pace-runner passed me with his group of runners.  This was quite a devastating blow.  I tried so hard to keep pace with them, but I almost pushed myself over the top.  I decided to draw back just a little, and aimed to keep them in my sights.  Mile 24 ended up being an 8:02 mile. 

Miles 25 and 26, I don't really know what happened.  I know I was running through Epcot at this point, but I was so focused on trying to stay upright that I was pretty oblivious to everything else that was going on.  Each time I saw a mile marker for the last 3-5 miles, I was trying to do the math in my head to see if I had enough time to finish under 3:11.  Once I got to the mile 25 marker, meaning I had 1.2 miles left, I decided to give it all I had left.  Now, I did have my Garmin, so I knew I was going to be very close on time.  I had set it so that I could push the lap button 27 times, once for each mile and then the last .2 miles would be the last lap.  When I reached mile 26, I accidentally pushed the lap button twice, which ended my workout.  I could no longer see how much time I actually had before I hit my goal. 

All I had was the actual race clock.  I knew my chip time was less than the clock time, but I wasn't sure by how much.  The time on the race clock, when I saw it at the mile 26 marker, said something like 3:08:37.  This put me in a panic, because at the time, I thought that there was no way that I could run .2 miles in a minute and a half.  Well, I didn't realize that I actually had two and a half minutes.  And I'm glad I didn't realize that.  I sprinted my butt off trying to make it to the finish line in time.  Here's a couple of photos, as well as a video of my "sprint" to the finish:

And my official finishing time...drum roll please....3:10:25!  I still can't quite figure out how I did it, but I finished in time to qualify for the Boston Marathon! 

I said earlier that using the bathroom just before the start of the race was possibly the most important decision I made that morning.  Well, had I not stopped and gone before the race, I almost certainly would have had to use the bathroom during the race.  And since I only qualified for Boston by :35, I may not have qualified.  So, somebody upstairs was definitely looking out for me on race morning!

(That's me on the bottom left with my hands on my head.  I knew right then that I had definitely qualified for Boston because the clock time was under 3:11, and my chip time was some 30 seconds less than that!)

(From left to right, all the hardware I earned.  5k, half marathon, marathon, Goofy Challenge)

 I knew my training would bring me pretty close to my goal time, but I didn't realize I would have been that close.  There's a couple reasons why I think I came so close to the cut-off.  First, the obvious.  I ran a half marathon the day before the marathon, which caused me to fatigue faster than if I had been fresh for the marathon.  My rebuttal is that I trained this way every week.  The other reason is that there is almost no way to run exactly 26.2 miles during an actual race.  Why?  Because race courses are measured at the shortest distance on the course.  The don't have the official measurement take wide corners, or weave around people.  That's all added mileage.  My Garmin says that I ran 26.45 miles, which would put me at a whole quarter mile farther than I needed to go!  Did I actually run that far?  Who knows.  All I know, and all I care, is that I came in under the Boston Qualifying time!

One thing I probably won't do again immediately after a race is put on BioFreeze.  I rubbed this stuff on my legs, thinking it would maybe help my recovery.  It pretty much only made me freeze.  I could not warm up.  At one point, I was sitting in the race retreat tent, wrapped up in a mylar blanket and shivering.  Some lady came up and gave me some warm soup because I must have looked terrible!  I even went an put back on my morning clothes, including a sweatshirt, and couldn't get warm.  Once the BioFreeze wore off, I was fine.  I won't make that mistake twice!

Now that this is over, and before I start focusing on my next goal (finishing under 12 hours at this year's Ironman Arizona), I'm going to look at how much work I put into this race.  I started training specifically for this race on September 20th, 2010.  So this includes all workouts from that date through the marathon.

(This is what I have recorded on my Garmin, so I may have missed one or two workouts...)

Number of runs: 67
Number of miles: 579.47 miles
Amount of time running: 89 hours, 12 minutes, 39 seconds
Number of calories burned: 52,669 calories

Those are some crazy numbers.  I can't even begin to imagine what they are going to look like for the Ironman!

Disney World Marathon Weekend: Donald's Half Marathon recap

The first event in my three-day event had come and gone (you can read about Buzz and Woody's Best Friends 5k here), and now I was getting ready for the real meat and potatoes of my weekend.  To get ready, I planned on having a home-cooked spaghetti dinner the night before.  We ate dinner at about 6:00 pm, and I was in bed by about 8:00 pm.  The plan for the morning was to wake up at 2:00 am, and be out to the bus by 2:45 to leave at 3:00.  My parents were both running the half marathon, as well as a my pseudo-training partner and his wife, so I had some company in the morning.

We all had made the decision to pay for what Disney called the "Race Retreat Tent".  Due to the horror stories of 2010's marathon weekend (snow, sleet, hurt feelings, etc.) we decided to pay for the tent so we wouldn't have to worry about those things, whether they happened or not.  The tent opened at 3:00 am, and we could stay in it until whenever we wanted, but there was a 20 minute walk to the start line, and a 5:35 am starting time.  So needless to say, we all wanted to get there early to get our money's worth!  

The tent was actually pretty nice.  It was nice and warm inside, with breakfast and assorted beverages, a small stretching area, some port-a-potties that were only for "race retreat" use, and some Disney characters to take pictures with.  Now, I'm a pretty big fan of how well Disney usually does things.  This tent was not one of those things.  It was nice to be somewhere warm.  The rest of the "amenities" were pretty lame.  They said there would be a special race retreat merchandise section, which ended up including only one type of t-shirt.  The private bathrooms were just sectioned off port-a-potties.  But the lamest part was that the tent was in the farthest possible area from the starting line!  So even though we were paying to stay warm in this tent, we had to walk farther than everyone else that didn't pay!  However, I am glad that I paid for it.  It was extremely nice to be sitting in a warm area from 3-4:45 am and let my morning coffee do it's work, if you know what I mean.  Oh, and as an added bonus, those people who signed up for the Race Retreat were given a small cooler, towel, and first-aid kit:

At first I thought, this stuff is pretty cool.  Then I inspected it a bit.  The cooler is nice enough.  The towel is just some blue towel, no embroidery or anything.  And the first-aid kit is nothing special.  I figured that for the amount of money I paid for this thing, they could have taken the "free gift" a little further.  And then I realized that I had paid for 2 days in the tent, so I was possibly getting 2 coolers, which I thought would be only fair.  But on my second day in the tent, I was surprised with a different gift, which is pretty much just as lame.  I'll save that gift for the next post.

Now on to the race.  For breakfast, I woke up and had 2 Marathon Energy Bars and 1 cinnamon/raisin bagel.  This combo proved very trusty when I ran the Disneyland half marathon back in September, so I decided to go with it again.  Following that, I had a single cup of coffee.  Everything seemed to be going just fine.  

When we walked outside, it actually wasn't too cold.  I think the temperature was around 52*F, which is pretty perfect running conditions.  What helped even more was that we were being herded like a bunch of cow to the starting corrals.  It was pretty warm walking with that huge group of people.  As we started walking, I ended up separating from the others, because I was to be starting in corral A and they were all in various other corrals.  

Once in my corral, I did my routine stretch (and I think I was the only person stretching!) and got ready for the gun to go off.  My plan for this race was to run anywhere between 9:00-10:00/mile pace.  The course was pretty fun, and didn't really have any surprises in the forms of hills or obstacles.  There was actually a fair amount of entertainment on the course.  I didn't really have any nutritional plan for this race, as I was taking it fairly easy.  I found out quickly, however, that I would need to change my morning strategy for the marathon.  Why?  Well, by mile 4, I had to make a "natural" stop (as they call it in the Tour de France)  This was alright today, but tomorrow it could ruin my race.  Besides that short stop, I took a drink at each aid station and ate a Power Gel at mile 9 (or whenever they were handed out).  All in all, it went great.  I finished in a time of 2:03:15, which is nowhere near my PR, but it was a 9:24/mile pace and was exactly what I was aiming for.  Here's a little clip of my finish:

Like I said earlier, I am a pretty big fan of how Disney does things.  Minus some of the lame parts of the Race Retreat tent, Saturday's half marathon was great.  Not only was it really fun for the runners, but I think it was really fun for the spectators.  I mean really, where else can your kids do this while you're off running a half marathon?

Dopey/Goofy Challege Race Recaps!!!! First up, the 5k.

Well it's been a little while since I've posted anything.  I got pretty caught up in the new year, and getting my final little bit of training in for the big event.  I'd like to think that I was just extremely focused on the upcoming race, and that's why I didn't do any posts, but that's not completely the case.  Anyways, the race is over, and it was so much fun!  Rather than doing one big summary of the whole weekend, I'll do each race separately.  So here's the 5k recap.

BUZZ AND WOODY'S BEST FRIENDS 5K

I signed up to run this race mainly because I was doing the Goofy Challenge (a half marathon and marathon on a Saturday/Sunday), and I noticed that there were some people online talking about a "Dopey" challenge.  The "Dopey" consisted of doing the Goofy Challenge, plus the 5k on Friday.  So the weekend would look like this: Friday - 5k, Saturday - half marathon, Sunday - marathon.  It was an unofficial thing, but I figured, if I'm gonna go do this thing, I might as well do it all!  So I signed up, and kinda forced my wife to sign up for the 5k with me.  It was her first 5k, and I think she actually enjoyed it (though she won't tell you that she did!).

The day started off to a bang when we woke up and found out the it was pretty stinkin' cold outside.  We had been watching the weather forecasts, but they were basically changing every hour.  Then once we get to the race site, we found out that my wife had made a little mistake.  Here's a video to explain...

Which explains this picture:

And here's my bib (which I did not forget, I'd like to point out):

It started in the parking lot of Epcot (at Disney World), and sort of went around the parking lot before entering into the park and running around the big lake and exiting the park to the finish line.  I think there was around 5,000 people that did this race.

There were a couple funny moments during the race.  First, both my wife and I didn't get a chance to use the beautiful port-o-lets before the race.  So unfortunately, as soon as the race started, my wife needed to make a pit stop.  The problem was, every bathroom we came to, the other women who were in the same situation were coming out saying, "There's no toilet paper!"  It took us until the 4th stop to finally find a port-o-potty that had the required sanitary wipes.  Second, there were these guys that were dressed like pink flamingos, and were running around trying to make pink flamingo noises.  They had pink tutus and all.  Pretty funny.  Next up were these three little kids that were in full costume.  There were running around like crazy, weaving in and out of everyone.  If you blinked, they were gone.  Here's a short clip of them:

Finally, there was a group of girls that were wearing the exact same outfit as my wife!  Here's a short clip of how I almost lost her in the race...

 

What are the odds of that!?

So with that, the 5k was over.  And here's a picture of me and the wife holding up our fabulous finisher medals.

Oh, I almost forgot!  My 2 year old daughter ran a race that same day!  She ran a 100m dash!

It was pretty entertaining watching, and running with, all these little kids.  I took video of the whole thing if you wanna watch it.  Never mind the lady at the very end of the video who is yelling about her child.  It is not really a funny story as to why she's yelling, but the way she handled the situation was pretty funny.  So, here's Alli in her 100m race!

 

Now that's all for Friday's excitement!