48.6 Miles?!

Run Disney opened up the registration for the 2014 Marathon Weekend at Disney World.

273 days ahead of the race! While I very much enjoyed the Princess Half in February, I am not sure even I can plan that far ahead!

This year they are offering a new challenge. In years past marathoners could do the marathon and half in one weekend. For 2014 here is the lineup for the aptly named Dopey.

"Run 48.6 miles of fun in the Dopey Challenge!

Are you ready for the ultimate endurance challenge? Then take part in four days of fun for a total of 48.6 miles in the all-new Dopey Challenge! Participants will run the 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon, and if you complete all four races within the pacing requirements you will be awarded the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge medal and the brand new Dopey Challenge finisher medal for a total of six pieces of "bling."" Rundisney.com

And what does all this bling cost you? A cool $495.  

And what is even more crazy? By the end of the day it is 76% full! 

Now please take what I say with a grain of salt, because I know there are many folks that run 50 miles or even more in a day. One has to consider the perspective of these comments. It would take me almost over 12 hours to run these races. 

Clearly there are many folks who are excited about this prospect, just as there have been for for the Goofy (composed of the marathon and half marathon) before it. 

As with everything else, Disney has marketing gold. 

Are you running with Disney? Thinking about a destination race? 

Decisions, Decisions

I spent the second half of last week discussing my thoughts on the Spring/Summer with my husband.

First major decision was the Green Bay Marathon. I had thought very seriously about doing it and knew my run up to Disney was a good foundation to begin training for the May race. It is a flat course, hometown for my husband and has a very generous race time.



While I know the challenges at Disney were mostly out of my hands, the 16 minute per mile average threw me. Between that and all the transitions my son is currently going through, I knew this wasn't the time for me to take on the hours of training. So, we haven't told my mother in law yet, but I know she will understand.

The next decision I/we had to make was Disneyland. The race was selling out so fast in February, I impulsively signed up for it.  I knew there was a chance that vacation plans and travel wouldn't work out and I would have to forfeit the money. That wasn't a happy thought, but it is the Sunday before school starts for the kids, over the Labor Day weekend and what the family needs does come first.



Long story, short, I seem to have worked it out with everyone. We are going on our family vacation in early August and I will take the kids to my parents in CA the week before the race. I still need to decide if we are going to take a red eye back or come back on Monday. Looks like I will earn my coast to coast medal after all. Laura and Sandie are running too, so we will be back together again. :)

All in all I happy that we are getting closer to have a finished plan for the summer. I am looking forward to the races I am registered for, the Marine Corps 17.75 and the Nike Women's Half. After that I need to come up with a plan to keep up my momentum!

And We Are Off.....

The race started and it was packed. I was able to get moving at a pretty good pace. I knew I needed to take it slow as it was plenty warm and humid. I had my water bottle, skittles and phone on me.

It was dark!

The first thing I saw in the distance was a pirate ship and Jack Sparrow! I knew I wanted to stop and take pictures, but I also wanted to be smart about it. I have been running a 13:30 minute mile in training, but Disney is serious about the 16 minute mile limit. I didn't completely understand this when I headed out.

After the race there was all sorts of comments on the Run Disney page about walkers starting in earlier corrals to give them a buffer from the sweep bus. I was in Corral F, so I did have some buffer. Apparently the sweeper bus picked up many runners at mile 8, but I was unaware and apparently not close to that action - thankfully!

We then passed the princes. I didn't run with Laura, but she stopped at many places I didn't so I am going to  intermix our pictures so you get a good idea. Plus hers are so much clearer then mine!

Each mile marker was a cute little storybook page. At the 5k mile marker I was running a 13:31 minute mile. So right on pace. I had a lot of walkers in my corral, so it was hard to get around and through people. We were out on the road, so we had good space, but there are only so many ways around friends all walking together. I am by no means fast, so I am fully supportive of walkers. It does add on to the mileage though.

We ran past the speedway and I saw this sign. I wasn't considering it at this point, but I thought knowing where the exit was would be a good thing. I missed a picture of Lightening McQueen just outside the Speedway.

The first several miles there were DJs and these photo ops, but I only did drive by pictures. I wasn't ready to stop yet and didn't know what was ahead of me.
We headed toward the magic Kingdom. I made sure to watch my footing as we headed over the speed bumps entering the parking lot. I had heard about them at the expo and falling was not on my docket for the day.

We hit main street and everyone was clearly excited. I was still running nicely and had stopped at every water stop, alternating water and poweraide.

Yikes! Hot, Humid and excited to be here? 

This is more like it! 

We ran up Main Street, through Tomorrowland, around Fantesyland and then through the castle.

I had to stop for Tiana, even though this was the same one I had pictures with on Friday night.

Wish I had stopped for Mickey and Minnie

At the 10k mark my time was 1:30:02, 14:29 minute miles. Not sure what caused the slowdown as I was feeling good still. The course did narrow quite a bit, so that could explain some of it. 

They had a vote for the song of the race before and at the halfway mark it was playing. So fun and got me moving.

Things were still going well at mile 8. I was tired and hot, but still moving forward. I was walking some, but not too worried about my time or stamina. At mile 9 they had a gu station, but I haven't had one yet and I didn't think that I wanted to experiment. Maybe I should have grabbed one for later to try it. My time at the 15k was 2:18:21 a 14:51 minute mile pace. Still within a decent range, but a little slow for me.
And then I hit Mile 10, or thereabouts. I can't be sure as the memories are fuzzy. I decided that I needed to stop and go to the bathroom. Kicking myself for not doing so in the park, but we were through it on our way back to Epcot by this point. So I stopped as the line wasn't very long. Soon after stopping I started to feel a little woozy. I stopped and sat down on a guardrail. A nice runner stopped and asked if I needed something to eat. I declined as I had a good breakfast and had been drinking and eating my skittles. I know it sounds low tech, but I wasn't going to change things up in the middle of a race. I decided to keep going. Soon I decided I needed to look for some help. I wasn't sure what was ahead, so I stopped at a security SUV.

I stopped and took a breather hanging over the hood of the SUV. I eventually sat down and caught a cool breeze from the side of the route. I am not sure how long I sat there, maybe 10 minutes, but eventually I decided I should try to keep going. I didn't really think about much there, just trying to listen to my body. After my stop, I slowly started gaining my energy back again.

I don't look like I almost passed out, do I? 

We had to go through a clover leaf pattern so we could see the folks on the overpass above us. Then it was a nice hill to get up there ourselves. Some folks were talking about sweepers, but I wasn't worried. There were so many people behind us that I didn't think it was possible to get into trouble.

I hit mile 12 and knew I could finish the race. I just pushing forward at that point and not paying too much attention to others. It was still crowded and in many places there were runners darting through the crowd. I can't figure out how they got behind me if they were so fast, but I can only assume they have great character pictures!
Coming into Epcot I saw a woman walking that clearly was going to pass out. She kept talking about how she had missed her time goal and how she had to finish. We were still at least 3/4 of a mile away from the finish line. I ended up moving on to alert the medics.

Finally we saw Epcot. The race takes you in the park a little ways and then you turn around and head right out into the parking lot. As we exited through the employee gate there was a gospel choir. So cool!

Finally the finish line was in sight! I didn't get my camera out until too late, but this is what it looked like to me.

Mickey and Minnie were there, and so were the medals!

The Volunteers were awesome! 

I finished in 3:31:51. Not anywhere close to my half in October, but I wasn't going for time, so it was all ok with me. A tough, but super fun race.

No Matter How You Slice It, 3:15 is Early!

We set various phone alarms and requested a wake up call for 3:05-3:15 AM. I anticipated being able to wake up due to the excitement of the race. I was more worried about later. We turned off the light at 9:30, but I didn't fall asleep until closer to 10:30.  True to form I woke up at 2:30 AM, I was able to snooze a little bit until the alarms started ringing. Laura jumped out of bed and started getting ready. I was a little slower on the draw, but pulled together my Tiana outfit. I had everything laid out, so it was easy to get ready.  Somehow in the space of 3 feet I lost my hairband. Figured it would show up afterwards, but it never did. :(

Soon we were in line for the bus and ready to go! It was crazy once we got off the bus. People everywhere.

We passed over what felt like a red carpet and between panes of stained glass. I am sure they would have made for cute pictures, but it was DARK and crowded. There were several team tents and a series of tents labeled with letters for post race meet ups. Almost immediately after we went through the reception area they were calling for corrals to line up.

I walked through the tents to the corral line up with Laura and Sandie. Laura was in corral B and Sandie in E, I was alone in F. I walked with Laura for quite awhile and then the road split. I knew I would see them at the finish, but we still had quite a bit of time to wait.

There was lots of time to sit, but it was plenty warm and so much more comfortable then so many races I have been at. There were corrals A-H. A-E were in the first lane of the road and then the 2nd lane held F and beyond. They had big screens playing the live broadcast from the start line. The folks did a great job keeping things upbeat.

I got teary listening to some of the interviews, including one from the woman who crossed the finish line last at the Tinkerbell Half. She was back to run this race and was clearly a little nervous, but confident. We sang the national anthem, and the Fairy Godmother started the celebration.

Each corral received a countdown and fireworks! We left 5-10 minutes after the one prior.

Photo courtesy of Run Disney

About 6:30 my corral was off. More tomorrow.

The Day We Played Like Kids

Saturday we woke up nice and early to head over to the Magic Kingdom.

We arrived just as they were opening the park. It was fun to be there when the doors opened and Sandie caught her first glimpse of her favorite character, Stitch.

We headed right for Space Mountain. Turns out we didn't need to be so concerned. The park was basically empty and we got onto every ride we wanted to ride in 5-10 minutes. I was a whirlwind of roller coasters and a few favorites such as It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean. We tried out the new Ariel ride and visited Buzz Lightyear. In the end we were there for 3.5 hours and had done everything we wanted! Its amazing how fast you can move without kids and lines.

As someone who grew up on Disneyland, it was a little disconcerting to have things in the "wrong" places.

Before we left the park we grabbed lunch in Tomorrowland within view of the castle. I insisted we eat outside in order to grab every minute of the warmth.

We decided to head back to the expo to actually get a chance to check out the vendors. We had fun walking around and checking out the merchandise. I headed over and met the Mother Runners Sarah and Dimity. Super sweet and I am sorry I missed their presentations on the stage. (pictures to come)

Found my name on the wall of runners

I picked up a mother runner shirt "Finishing=Winning" and a pretty necklace. No official merchandise for me though.

We headed back to the hotel to relax before heading down to Downtown Disney. Laura and I hung outside the room after dragging our desk chairs outside. It was nice and peaceful and fun to relax.

We ate at Wolfgang Puck's for dinner and headed home to get our sleep. I laid everything out took a quick shower and we were in bed by 9:30. Our alarms were set for 3:15 - Yikes!

Tomorrow - the big day.

What takes you back to your childhood?

Day 1 - Heading to Disney

Friday I went to boot camp as planned. I knew waking up early to work out would be good for me, but also would help me sleep Friday night. I knew we had an early wake up call on Sunday AM and I don't typically sleep well the night before a race. That made Friday night all that more important.

I headed up to BWI in the morning, tiara packed and ready to go. I managed to get in a work call despite all my excitement and arrived at the airport in perfect timing for my noon flight. Unfortunately, Airtran had other plans and we were delayed. I got some lunch and hung out at the terminal.

So fun to hang out in the rockers at BWI

I was bummed out about the delay, not just because I wanted to be someplace warm, but because we had a tight schedule to get to the hotel, the expo and then the Pasta in the Park dinner. Once the plane arrived, we loaded up quickly and were on our way.

Finally made it to Orlando. Mickey is ready to give me a high five. 

I ended up landing within minutes of Laura, my running buddy from Ohio. We found the Magic Express and made our way to the Pop Century hotel.

We had fun with all the cool things they had at the hotel representing the various decades. We were in the 70's building, which was perfect as we both have great memories of the toys. The hotel was really cute and we had a room at the end of a hall, which looked over a very pretty lake. So peaceful and it was WARM.

The first thing I did was change out of the long pants I had on. We gathered up Sandie, who had flown in from CA on Thursday and headed to the expo.

I was a little worried as I had been reading poor reviews of the expo on facebook during the afternoon. In the end the I thought it was pretty typical of an expo. The bib pick up was easy peasy and the tshirts as well. The rows of vendors were fairly packed and we only had 30 minutes before the expo closed. Plus we had a date with dinner, so only a quick run through was in the cards. Laura and I had bought tickets for the Pasta in the Park party. Sandie had hooked up with a runner in St. Louis who had an extra ticket. The runner was delayed due to the snow in the Midwest, but had the ticket transferred and waiting for Sandie at will call. Not the last time the weather would play a part in the weekend!

We headed to Epcot after a lot of walking, both to the buses and then to get into the park.

We arrived about 7:30 and there was plenty of food to go around. It was pretty typical hotel pasta, tasted fine after a long day of traveling, but nothing too exciting. The DJ had the dance floor going and there were lots of kids there with their running moms.

After dinner and a glass of wine, I caught sight of some princesses. We headed over and got pictures with Tiana and Aurora.

Then we headed outside for the Illumination show. It was ok. I would have preferred to walk around and see what Epcot had to offer, since I have never been there. After the show, we headed back to the hotel. We had plans for Magic Kingdom on Saturday, so wanted to get our sleep on.

Come back to hear more about our weekend and the race!

Back to Reality

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I promise. Getting back to being a mom and worker bee today.

Just a few pictures and I will be writing full recap posts in the coming days!

Shopping and Bib Pickup

Fun in the Sun - It was so warm!

And we are off!

The reward at the end. Isn't it pretty?