Walt Disney World Marathon 2013: The Mickey (and Goofy!)

Getting up in the middle of the night for the 3rd morning in a row was TOUGH, I'm not gonna lie. The alarm went off at 3:30 am and I went through the same routine as I had the day before but this time I had to try to not wake up Jeff. Headed to the bus at 3:50 and joined the throngs of runners waiting for the bus. I was tired. My legs felt like they had run their fastest half marathon the day before and I had my very first full marathon ahead of me. I forced myself not to think about it but to just take it one mile at a time. Got to Epcot and began the long walk to the start.

I was dragging. It felt lame to be all alone and the marathoners were kind of a different crowd that I had ever seen at a Disney race. I love when you show up for a half marathon at Disney and you see people of all shapes, sizes, and ages lining up with you. B corral for the full marathon was not the same demographic. Everyone was super-lean, and looked really fit. No one was dressed up and everyone was pretty serious. And then I looked next to me. And there was the hottest pregnant chick you've ever seen looking all incredibly cute and 0% body fat while pregnant with perfect make-up and adorable running shorts showcasing her perfect, non-jiggly thighs. And her bib said "Natasha". Of course it did. There was no way I was going sit looking at Natasha the uber-runner, James Bond girl while I waited for the race to start or I was going to pull out in a fit of depression. I took myself to the other side of the corral and found some other Goofy runners who all looked suitably tired from the day before and I felt much better.
  Pretty soon they called out the big guy to see us off.

And then it was time for the National Anthem and the start! I love how they re-did the starting line for every event!

My strategy to get through 26.2 miles was to just look at the whole race in small chunks. I DIDN'T have to run 26.2 miles, all I had to do was run about 4 miles to the Wilderness Lodge. And when I got there I had this waiting for me:

Felt soooo good to see Jeff and Mom, after being alone with my own thoughts in a big crowd for so many hours. I got a hug from each of them and then handed off the Goofy hat as it was WAY too hot to wear it. Then I had to just run a few miles more to the Magic Kingdom. It was awesome, as it always is and I consider those miles through the parks "free miles" because they just come so easy and your mind is totally occupied and it just rules. As we left the park I was at mile 6.5 and I checked in with myself. Only 20 miles to go and my legs really didn't feel any worse than when I started so that was good news. On to the speedway, my next milestone.
   When I got to the speedway, we had to run under the track which involved a steep down-ramp. I walked it because I didn't want to fall down it and the sharp incline made me change my gait and brought with it an ugly realization. My left knee was swelling up. WHAT?!? That's my GOOD knee! Not my IT band side, but a knee that I had never had a problem with before. I shook it out and walked up the ramp on the other side and sure enough, I could feel that it was off. Pulled over to the side to squat down to see what that felt like and it was definitely swelling. Not at ALL what you want to happen at mile 8 with 18 more miles to go. I ran around the speedway and out the other side. I wanted to get to 10 miles, then the halfway point and hoped I could get there before the knee started to affect my running but by the time I came out the other side of the speedway I could feel the knee while I ran and that was bad. Just outside the speedway there was a med tent so I stopped and put some biofreeze on it and popped a tylenol. Just then the 4:30 pace group went past me and I decided to race them to Animal Kingdom. So for the next 3-4 miles the game was to get far enough ahead of that pace group so that they couldn't pass me when I took my walk break. If they DID pass me I had to sprint past them and then widen the gap again. This game kept me pretty focused all the way to AK. When we hit Animal Kingdom, I was SO HAPPY! One because I have never run through that park before, and two because it seemed like the farthest point out in the race. So once I cleared the park I felt like I was running back toward the finish line instead of away from the starting line for the first time in the race.

And right after AK came the HALFWAY point!!! It felt sooo good to be on the backside of the race. This next section proved to be the hardest part of the whole race for me. Somewhere between mile 13-15 my knee got so bad that when I took my walk break I was having a really hard time getting the knee to start running again. It just wouldn't go into a running motion once it stopped. I had to jump on my good leg for a few yards and kind of stiff leg/drag my left knee behind me to jump-start it back into motion. My solution to this was no more walk breaks. If my leg couldn't start up again once it stopped then I just wouldn't stop. So I ran down Osceola and finally hit mile 16 (only single digits left!!) but then I hit a place where runners were coming back the other way. Words cannot describe how much you despise and envy runners on the other side of the road that are at mile 22 while you are still on mile 17. If I had seen Natasha in that crowd I would have sat on the shoulder and cried. But I didn't so I kept onto ESPN. This area was a never-ending maze of ball fields and tracks and walking paths. We got a banana though and that was awesome. Then we hit mile 20 and I thought that there was going to be a huge celebration/street party for the entire mile but there was nothing so we ran into a baseball field and all I could think was "great, now I'll have dirt in my shoes on top of everything else..." But then I saw Leslie and she threw me an orange and boosted my spirits big-time. So Leslie was pretty much my "mile 20 spectacular". It turns out that the real Mile 20 spectacular was only for the last 100m of that mile. And it was pretty cool. They had a slew of characters and mini-stages leading up to a big finish-line looking thing that you got to run under and it was a nice way to celebrate that part of the race. Only 6 more miles!!!

For the next 1.5 I got to be the runner at mile 22 while throngs of people we still heading into ESPN and man oh man did THAT feel good! Then we turned off Osceola toward the Studios. This is where Jeff Galloway running really pays off. There was about a mile before we entered the Studios where the entire field of people in front of me was walking and I was weaving through the crowd passing everyone. Taking those walk breaks early on in the race really pays off. And somewhere around here I decided that I didn't just want a sub-5 hour finish, but it had to be sub 4:50. Because the last 10 minutes of the 4 hour mark would just be tooo close to 5. I was hurting big-time, but there was still some juice in the old legs. I just had to get to the Studios....
Finally got there and we got candy and that's always nice but once I stopped to grab mine and eat it I had a huge problem getting up and running again. The left leg was DONE. Could not get it running again. I had to do a weird skip/jump for like 100 yards to get moving and I realized that I had to NOT STOP again in the race. We headed around the hat and out the front entrance of the Studios:

The lowest point of the race came for me between the Studios and Epcot. I knew I couldn't stop and walk but I did at a water stop because I was running out of water in my backpack. It was HOT! Then I couldn't run again. I wanted to, but I was literally dragging my left leg and hopping on the other and trying to get my left leg to bend by lifting the knee with both hands, and it was so sad and pathetic, that all the bystanders were like "ohhhh dear! poor thing!" and putting their hands over their mouths and gasping with pity. I was like Nooo! I can't be that runner! I am totally fine! It's just this leg that won't cooperate...  I dragged and skipped and dragged and finally got it going again but I was definitely running with a limp from that point on in the race. Meanwhile in Epcot my entire crew had come out to cheer me on!

They were looking and looking trying to spot me:

And then I finally came around the corner. They were split up in 2 groups when I saw them so I got to run past 2 clusters of family and it felt SO GOOD to see their faces. It was exactly what I needed to get to the end.

Finish line is just around the corner!!

What an incredible feeling - I had completed a Marathon!!

 I finished in 4:45!! Here's my finish line video. You can't really tell but I was in so much pain at this point!

The Mickey Medal was beautiful and I couldn't believe that I finally had it in my hand. I got some ice on my knee immediately and then they were forcing liquids on all of us before they would let you out. The day was so hot and they were really concerned. Medical was everywhere and there was someone with a bull-horn saying "if you want to get past me, then I need to see caps off bottles and drink people!!" I started chugging so I could get past her and get my Goofy medal. One race, 2 medals.... now that's what I'm talking about!

I headed out of the finish line area and found Bill and Leslie, and then the whole gang pulled up! They gave me big congrats and then we all headed into Epcot to watch and cheer on more runners and to get some food! After the Princess in 2011 we ate these Nachos in the Mexico pavilion that were AMAZING and I had it in my head that that's what I wanted after the race. This time though the nachos were kind of nasty. Just way too salty and not delish at all. So it just goes to show you that you should make your own experiences and not try to re-create old ones. The same could not be said however for the frozen Margarita.... Heaven!!! We sat and ate and watched more runners. They kept coming in for hours and my hat is off to the perseverance of those athletes running out there in the sun for so many long hours. The best was that towards the end runners were stopping at Epcot food booths to finish the race with a frozen margarita or a cold beer in hand. I thought that was hysterical! What a great way to finish! Finally we said good-bye to Bill and Leslie. It was time to shower for sure!

We headed back to the Wilderness Lodge and it felt great to shower off and get changed. I took a short nap and then it was back to Epcot, but first I had to get a shot with all 3 medals!

Not a bad haul for 2 day's work!

And I even got a 4th medal!! When I got back to the room there was a beautiful Disney Florist basket waiting for me from Jeff. It had a cool chocolate box with more chocolate inside, sparkling cider with 2 Mickey glasses, and this:

Epcot was beautiful and we took our time strolling around World Showcase. Got an awesome slush drink in France, and then headed to Germany for dinner.

Now that's what I call a beer!! Biergarten was awesome, the food was great and the entertainment was so fun. About half of the restaurant was runners and all the grandparents got the biggest kick out of all these young people limping their way up and down the stairs to the buffet!

And we got another opportunity to celebrate Mom's 70th!

What a great ending to a fantastic day! There was only one more thing to do and that was watch Illuminations, my favorite Disney night-time show. It's always so bittersweet to watch on your last night but we had such a good trip, I got to accomplish all I wanted to in my runs, and I knew I was coming back in February for the Princess half so I really couldn't be sad.