Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend- Half Marathon Part III

Race Day

Logistics

The race started at 5:30am. We were several miles from the start line and the shuttles were going to leave the hotel from 3:30-5.

 

After running several races I saw no reason to get to the course early and just stand around. So you can imagine my surprise when I strolled up to the bus at 4:45 and no on was standing outside with me. I knocked on the bus's door and asked the driver what was going on and where the other runners were. She looked at me with worry, and said she thought I was going to miss the race because the cops were already closing down the roads.

Now this is my own fault as I assumed the last bus left at 5 where it was more like the party ended at 5. 

 

I sat there on the bus with my husband alone. I wont lie I was really nervous our entire trip was centered around the race and I would just die (being dramatic of course) if we missed it because of my silly assumption. I asked, not sarcastically but in all seriousness how far we were from the start and how to get there because I would just run there. Ha. I think the bus driver felt bad for me and few minutes later she said lets go. So we road  in a coach bus just the two of us and what do you know, as we were pulling up they were barricading the roads. The driver kindly opened her window to let the police know she had the last of the runners and they let us through. woah...

 

The walk from the bus to the course was about a mile. It wasn't bad.

I literally walked right up to the corral and not even two minutes later began the race.

 

The Atmosphere

Disney made the start for each corral a really big deal with a count down and fireworks. I definitely wasn't expecting such a great send off.

 

You started on a road that took you through the park's gates. For some reason I found this really exciting. I suppose I reminisced about all the times I drove through there as a child with my parents. Being that it was 6am it was still really dark and the entrance just glowed angelically.

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You ran along the main road to the park for awhile and looped on the Main Street USA where the streets were packed with spectators. As the holiday season just ended all of the Christmas lights were still up and everything was gorgeous. After taking in the crowd and main street USA you headed straight for the castle then took a slight right and looped around to go through the castle.

 

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Lots of hooting and hollering as you ran through Cinderella's Castle. It was pretty exciting again, I though of alllllll the times I went there with my family and who would have thought I would be running a half marathon through it.

Right after you ran through the castle you could veer left and take photos in front of the castle. There was maybe six photographers and they were fast. Strike a pose and go on your merry way.

You finished running through the Magic Kingdom then headed towards epcot. You were back on the road but that was fine since there was none stop entertainment from marching bands, to characters so there was always something to look at and there was always music playing.

It was rather hard to decide to stop and take photos with some of the characters or just keep running. Literally, they had floats from the parades out with characters. In particular I remember a huge pirate ship with Jack Sparrow.

I decided to keep going but I was tempted!

Support

One thing I read about before the race was you could use the parks bathrooms. I was thrilled when I heard this since I hate porta potties. I thought this was a definite perk! But even if they didn't have the park restrooms open they had porta potties everywhere and they had anti bacterial soap dispensers everywhere. I didn't see one line at any of the bathrooms which you just don't see at races! (impressive)

They also had aide stations around every two miles and we aren't talking about just water and Gatorade they had people holding tongue depressors with bio freeze, and had lounge chairs and tents for people that needed to sit.

Although I didn't use any of these amenities I think they were wonderful attributes and would make a first timers run really comfortable.

 

The Finish

You finished at Epcot and the end of the race did not disappoint. First off the food. They gave you a sweet box filled with cheese, crackers and protein. It was the bomb and hit the spot after the race. I also double fisted some Gatorade and water. No one was going to be leave hungry!

 

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They also had an ice tent! How nice! I again, didn't use it but I thought that was a great thing to have for first timers that probably were already achy or over heated.

 

Then the medal. I originally thought it was hideous when I saw it online. But seriously its the bomb and its one my favorite medals.

 

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Ok, the ribbon is really thick and its soooo blue, its really impressive in person! Also, notice how the medal is connected to the ribbon so it lays nice and flat on your chest or where ever you hang it post race. I have many medals that have some cheap circular hook that bounds them together and the ribbon never lays nicely on your chest. Another nice thing is the ribbons are connected by a thick piece of Velcro. I had no idea why at first but its so the volunteers can put the medal around your neck regardless if you are wearing a hat, huge mouse ears etc. Smart move huh?

 

I thought the race was wonderfully planned out. I think its an awesome race for any runner but particularly for first timers. I would totally run this bad boy again!

 

 

 

 

Have you ever ran a Disney race?

 

Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend- Half Marathon Part II

The Bad

The Shoes
For the half I purchased a new pair of shoes. I never wore Asics before but they had a nice bounce to them and were suppose to help with my shin splints. The problem with them was they were too narrow. Although professionally sized this was not something the shoe guy nor I noticed till after the fact. My feet are very narrow then get really wide. Well, once I walked around in them you could actually see where the side of my foot was hanging over the shoe. Of course this problem wasn't to noticalbe when I wore them for an hour or two every other day but when I was on my feet for 6 hours plus there were some problems...

 

After two days of smooshed feet I got blisters, bad.

I have decided to not post the foot photos as I don't want them up on some fetish site or something weird. Anyway, I literally had a blister on both pinky toes that raised up over an inch followed by several other small blisters. They were unbelievable. I mean it when I say that.

 

 

 By day three it pained me to walk. We ended up buying moleskin and soaked my feet each night but it didn't really help. They were there and there wasn't anything I could do.

The Expo

The expo was straight up cray. We took a shuttle to it and we literally sat in traffic for an hour. I want to say our hotel was ten miles from the expo if that gives you an idea of the madness. The half marathon and marathon were combined in to one at the expo. I think that was a big mistake. They just couldn't handle that many people.

Registration and bibb pick up was located on the opposite side of the property where the actual expo was held. Bibb pick up wasn't bad but the expo...it was packed. The swag bags were all the way in the back. You couldn't even stop and look at the vendors tables because there were so many people.

 

 We spent at least 4 hours at the expo just getting there and picking up my bibb. I felt like the day was a wash and we went around noon on Friday.

 

My recommendation go early in the morning, go Thursday if you can!

 

Track Club Group Run

10 miles

11:28 per mile

This week on our amazing 13 week half marathon training adventure we ran ten miles through the hills of the ATL. You had the option of running with a pace group which I wasn't to sure about. After all I'm new to this distance thing and I don't really know what my "realistic" or "goal" time is. Like I said in my last post I ran 10:30 splits the week before but this course was far from flat so I took that into consideration and decided to go with a 2:30 pace group.

Since my running buddy wasnt there I tried to actually not talk to anyone, just run. I didnt bring my water bottle or anything. I wanted to make it as close to a mock race as possible for myself. I stayed in the front of the pack the entire time. There was little huffing and puffing. After about 5 miles I did exchange banter with the coaches. Being an awesome facebook stalker I saw that one of them ran the Tower of Terror in Disney and I just had to ask how it went. He then went on about his upcoming races like running in Norway at night where after the race a bus takes you to see the Northern Lights. Um can you say amazing? I love running stories!

The talking slowed down after awhile because we all started moving at slightly different paces. No biggy I just took it in. The hills were a bitch to say the least. But I jogged up every single one of them. One of the coaches (who is running Boston) told me I would conserve energy by power walking up the hills but I don't know about you power walking is much harder then jogging up a hill. My legs get really tight when I power walk so despite her advise (which she told me twice) I tip toed to the top.

Over all I felt great. Never once did I feel out of breath (minus climbing some hills). I honestly think I can run a faster pace BUT I don't think I'm exactly strong enough for that yet. The past two days everything is popping when I walk. Yay!

Heres an 8 mile view of the elevation. For some reason I had a hard time capturing the last two miles. Whatever, you get the picture.

Oh and heres a picture of me getting my stretch on. I thought I hid from the Papz but apparently not well enough. Is it just me or does anyone else find stretching time to be a "private time" kinda thing? Notice how I triedddd to get away from the crowd.

Fail on my part.

 

Cue in Salt N Peppa's Push It

Double Digits Bitches

I did it. On October 14th I ran 10 freakin miles by myself (well, mostly by myself.) Uh, can I get an amen? I started my run with my husband who ran 2 miles with me (remember hes not a runner) after 2 he tapered off and started walking. I kept going on. It was an awesome fall day, there must have been a race else where because Team Spandex were few so I was able to just zone out without hearing TO YOUR LEFT.

 

The run was perfect. I guzzled my water bottle down and it was empty by mile 5. Right around 5.5 miles I felt a-mazing. Like all the stress and tension in my body disappeared. It was truly amazing. I felt soooo good. Its one of those moments that makes all the shin splints and cramps totally worth it.

 

Around mile 8 my legs started getting tight. They didn't hurt. But they were sure tight. I pushed through. Honestly, my goal for that day was to run ten miles and I was so giddy by the idea of hitting double digits I just ran through it.

 

I ended up running a 10:30 pace. Mind you, this is a FLAT course. Flat or not though I did it.

I ran ten miles . 

(INSERT GIRLY SHRIEK)

 





See that face up there, yeah that's the face of one ridiculously happy girl. Cheesy? Probably to a lot of people but for me a big ol' milestone.

Chastain Recap

Looped around Chastain Park
8 mi
01:38

So Saturday I woke up at 5:45 and struggled to get out of bed to head to the ATL for my 8 mile group run. We met at our new sponsor's store- Road Runners (It was pretty impressive). Anyway, I ate a half a slice of bread before I got there and slowly chowd down on some sports beans. (All within 30 minutes before the run).

My ATC running buddy Nicole and I had a great pace we were actually passing more people rather then being passed. We were in no way running faster but I think we just found our grove. It took a while to really get warmed up and enjoy the run. But in the mean time it was interesting to see people doing yoga randomly on the outskirts of the parks. Around 3 miles I realized I NEEDED to find a bathroom. Of course there were none in site, my body filled with fear. Luckily, there was a random porta potty hiding behind a building that Nicole and I dared to enter. I do hate those things but in times of need... well, I don't take chances.

The run became much easier after that. Although we realized we didn't see anyone from our group once we got back in route. This is pretty strange since there are at least 50 runners at a time and we didn't take but a 5 minute break and there was a heard behind us. Anyways, we jogged on. Once we hit mile 7 we started scratching our heads, we were about to loop the park again, there were no runners, no signs and we didn't take a map. Luckily my water bottle had a t least a quarter of left and Nicole had about 3 sports beans left so if we had to ration... we could have survived. We actually stopped and asked a random lady how to get back onto whatever road the shoe store was on. (I got there at like 6:30 people you think I remember anything?) She gave us the directions and there it was one of our signs. However, it was an arrow pointing right and it was flipped upside to point left. I am guessing someone else had the same problem we did but ended up running further before discovering something wasn't right.

So the course was fine, a decent amount of hills nothing compared to Clinton however they were shorter and tons more. The only time we stopped at the aid stations and I gave gator aide a try. I typically stick to water but I figured I should start trying new things out. I don't know if it was the gator aide itself but I felt it swishing in my stomach. Typically I don't feel that way with water but I don't know maybe a I drank to much? 

Anyway, besides the aide stations I think we stopped twice for maybe a minute. We were never out of breath which I think is good. I wont lie part of me would like to push it and see how fast I could run it but I'm new to this mileage and I am trying to focus on gaining distance and maintaining a constant pace, I keep telling myself speed is later.

When I finished I was drenched head to toe in sweat. I ate a small luna bar and a bag of pretzels and hopped into my car. I blasted the AC and wow, got awful chills. Ill never do that again!

When I got home I ate a sandwich. Two hours later Mike and I went shopping and stopped somewhere and I had a soup. Around this time I typically crash. I felt the urge to go to sleep but I didn't "crash." I think eating definitely helped!

Over all it was a good run. I was a little stiff yesterday and more so today but really its nothing new! So yay!

Clinton Trail Run

I didn't bring my good ol' Nike faux garmin with me to track my time and mileage for the Clinton Preserve Trail Run. I figured it was trails, it would be hell and as long as I had an estimate of the mileage I just didn't care about my time. This was my first trail run since February when I first tried to run with the Rogues (the worst run of my life). At that time I just didn't have the endurance to run it. Now that Ive been training regularly i felt confident to take on a trail. I met with the Rogues on Tuesday at the Clinton Nature Preserve. It was rather cool as it had old houses and barns kind of sitting in the middle of no where falling a part. Being a (former) history buff it was visually stimulating. Ok, besides the view it was tough. Its started out nice, I think I had a good pace then BAM there was the hill from hell. Being a noob I went to run up that brat and of course was winded. Luckily my friend Miranda told me to slow my roll and kinda guided me up to the top. So the first hill was bearable but then there was a second and I won't lie I don't know if it was asthma or maybe my lungs just aren't built for it yet but I couldn't catch my breath. Once we got to the top I HAD to walk. Man, I wish I had a camera to take a photo of those hills. Anyway, I told Miranda to go on and hung back for another runner who was not to far behind me. Let me tell you she was an interesting lady! She started out slow when I met up with her but gradually went into what I call ass kicking mode. What I found intriguing is she ran some many Marathons that she just doesn't know how many she ran anymore. WOW. At this point, I can tell you how many miles I have ran to the day. Right there I felt like you could tell she was is in it for her, the race didn't matter but the experience. Pretty impressive I must say. So I ended up jogging back with her. I felt like we were running supper fast on our way back and I don't recall running down those hills from hell. But wow did it get dark fast. It was so interesting to be running and all of a sudden you run through a thick patch of woods and it was super dark then you come out and there is dusk. (Remember I'm new to this!) The run over all was OK. I wont lie I was super tense doing it I was so afraid of twisting my ankle more then anything. But once we finished I felt great and again was not out of breath. I actually thought of doing some laps around the small track outside of the trail but figured I would be cautious since Lord knows how my body would react to such a different type of run. I wont lie it wasn't my thing BUT I think I am going to try to do a trail run ie Trib or Clinton at least twice a month to start conditioning my body. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience and when I woke up I had a hard time walking AND my abs were on fire. I personally consider that good training and now I know I need to work on my core and some other spots to make the next trail run more enjoyable.

Oh I dont want to froget to mention I may not have been that sweaty or out of breath at the END of the run but O-M-G I was starving when I got home. I mean I ate almost half a staufers lasagna. Yikes!