Disney Marathon Race Report

It’s been a while since I ran, trained, raced or blogged. So this week I attempted to remedy all of that.

Waaaaaaaay back in April (I think) I registered for the Disney Marathon. Other than making travel and dinner reservations, that was probably the last time I thought about the race.

I was really excited for it, but had no motivation to train. My longest run all year was maybe 7 miles, and that was in the summer. I put on a lot of weight, skipped any type of race prep and just didn’t care.

That is until the race came around.

I had low expectations. Lots of walking was the plan, and according to Disney’s athlete guide, I needed a 16 minute mile to finish the race. That sounded easy enough… Right?

The only nutrition I brought on race day was a package of gummi worms. I was really hoping there would still be some Clif Shots available on course by the time I got that far.

Weather-wise it was perfect. It was about 50 degrees when I got to Epcot and the high was expected to be in the low 70’s. There was an hour+ wait from the race start until my corral started. When the fireworks went off I started at a slow jog.

I forgot my Garmin, so I was relying on Strava for iPhone to track my run. Essentially I ran nude, since I didn’t really monitor my pace though out the race.

I felt good jogging and kept pushing my “walk” mile back. I was going to run 3 miles and walk one. Instead I ran 11 miles (slowly) until I took a walk break.

Between miles 12 and 13 as the course ran through Disney’s Animal Kingdom, I stopped for a bathroom break. As I exited I noticed several runners jogging into the line for The Expedition Everest. After a quick time check and realizing I was well ahead of my schedule, resting my legs on a roller coaster sounded like a great idea.

I partied my way through the next few miles, singing and dancing with the on course entertainment. 

Then the course headed into Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports and it sucked all the momentum out of the run.

Maybe it was the little rain shower, or that running through an empty sports campus and around a mostly empty baseball field just wasn’t any fun. But what ever the reason, miles 17-20 were painful.

There was 6 miles and 2 more parks ahead of me and I felt great. I ran another couple of miles before the traffic jams set in. I remember the last few miles of Disney’s Wine & Dine 1/2 being the same way. 25,000 runners are sharing a very narrow walking path through the Disney Resorts and into Epcot. It was frustrating.

Eventually the course opened up on Disney’s Boardwalk and into Epcot’s World Showcase. It was torture to smell all of the food cooking in each country as I ran to the finish. The only answer was to pickup the pace and finish.

The crowds were great leading up to the finish and running around the iconic Spaceship Earth ball. Then before I knew it thr race was over. With a time of 6:21 I finished another marathon.

It was such a fun day and time to celebrate all of our accomplishments.

My kids ran a 100 & 200 yard dash, my wife & her sister did the 1/2 marathon, so everyone had something to be proud of!

And what a better way to celebrate than with fried food and beer

After finishing the race I thought about how well I could have done had I actually trained. Oceanside 70.3 is in 10 weeks, so I have a lot of work to do!

This weekend I’m putting my half Ironman training plan together, and I’ll post about it later.