2018 Disney World Marathon recap

This is a hard recap to write.  This was supposed to be my first marathon, I had been working toward it for 6 months with building my base in the Summer and officially starting training in September, and it was such a let down getting swept a bit past mile 20.  But overall, it was a great experience.  I enjoyed the training, had fun with it, and enjoyed the race until I started having problems with my knee.  In fact, it was so much fun that a lot of the miles seemed to just fly by, even the miles on the highways!

But let's start at the beginning.  A lot of the talk of this marathon weekend was about how cold it was.  Thankfully for me, the weather warmed up as the weekend went on and the marathon was the warmest day of the weekend.  But the morning still started out cold.  I took everyone's advice and went with layers I could throw away.  I had on capris, calf sleeves, a short sleeved tech shirt, arm sleeves and a buff as my main race gear.  On top of that I had throw away sweat pants, a hoodie and gloves as well as a mylar heat sheet.

That seemed like the right level of clothes.  While I wouldn't say I was warm at the beginning, I wasn't too uncomfortably cold.  But the problem was the amount of time we had to wait in the cold.  We got to the starting area around 3:30 am.  We went straight to wait by the corrals and entered as soon as we were allowed so we could get toward the front of our corrals.  The race was using mini waves within each corral and we wanted to be in the first wave of our corral.  So I think we were in our corral around 4:30, the race started at 5:30, and we started around 6:15 or so.  So that was a long wait in the cold, a long time between race start and breakfast, and a long time between the last portapotty availability and the time we started. Since this was the 25th anniversary of the marathon, they had 25 waves and each wave started with fireworks and the hit Disney song from that year.

The start of the race was still pretty cold.  I had gotten rid of the throw away pants at the official race start at 5:30 but didn't get rid of the hoodie and gloves until almost 20 minutes after I started.  I didn't regret getting rid of the hoodie but I probably should have kept the gloves a bit longer.

Miles 1 - 5: 15:15, 15:14, 15:23, 15:31, 15:21
The first mile was pretty crowded but it spread out a bit once we were on the highway and headed to the magic kingdom.  (Course Map) I have to admit that the first several miles are all a blur and it seemed like we were at the Magic Kingdom gates before I knew it.  But based on my photos, there was a character stop with Launchpad and Scrooge McDuck.  I didn't stop for any actual character stops as I knew I couldn't afford to waste time in lines.  I only took photos if it was a character I particularly liked and just took the photo as I was going past so they're not very good.

Miles 6 - 12:  17:09, 14:51, 14:36, 15:02, 15:38, 16:11, 16:07
And then we were heading into the Magic Kingdom, which was amazing!  I thought this area would be really crowded but it wasn't too bad.  And it wasn't even that crowded when I went through the castle, I had to slow down a bit but didn't have to stop running.  I did have to make a bathroom stop here, which you can see in the mile 6 split of 17:09.  Each bathroom stop was 3-4 minutes due to the lines but I tried to pick ones with short lines.  I wasn't surprised I had to go so early in the race because we had to wait so long in the corral.

The Magic Kingdom was running up Main Street, then making a right into Tomorrow Land, then running through Fantasy Land, out through the castle, and a right to go through Frontier Land and out of the park through a back stage area.

After that was "cone alley." I had heard that this area was crowded and it was.  But somehow those seemed like my fastest splits of the race.  After that it was back on the highway to Animal Kingdom and then an out and back on a random road for miles 11 and 12.  I actually liked this out and back section because it was cool to see the other runners and they had some good DJs in this section.  Though this was also the section with a waste processing plant and it did not smell good at all.

Miles 13 - 18:  17:14, 16:55, 16:05, 18:05, 18:34, 21:37
A bit past mile 12 we entered the Animal Kingdom.  The park was open by the time we got there but it wasn't too bad because most people went to the Pandora section and we did not run in that area.  I loved that right before entering Animal Kingdom, they had cast members with real animals that you could pet and take photos with.

Mile 13 was my second bathroom stop (again reflected in the 17 minute split and it took 3-4 minutes) as I really had to go again and I saw a bathroom with short lines.  I have no idea why I had to go to the bathroom so much other than I must have been overhydrating.  We ran through Animal Kingdom, I saw several people peel off to ride Everest but I knew I didn't have time for roller coasters during the race.

Miles 15 to 18 was more time running on the highway.  Unfortunately, my right knee was beginning to hurt during this point and it shows in those splits.  I also had to go to the bathroom again!  I couldn't wait for the real bathrooms at Wide World of Sports and had to stop at a portapotty line, which is the 21 minute split.  My knee tightened up even more during that wait in line and I had a hard time recovering after that.  Getting up off the portapotty felt really hard on that bad knee.

Miles 19 to 21:  19:57, 19:14, 20:42

Clearly, this is the point at which I knew I was going to be swept.  I tried to pull things together and run when I could but bending that knee was just resulting in shooting pains.  I had to just start walking and the Balloon Ladies (Disney's visual signal of the 16 minute pace requirement) passed me around the mile 20 marker.  Which showed as mile 20.7 on my Garmin.  We had entered the Wide World of Sports around mile 18 and the exit was a bit past mile 20.  I kept walking the rest of the course in Wide World of Sports after the Balloon Ladies passed me and entered the parking lot a bit past mile 21 on my Garmin.  At that point, my race was over.

I was put on a van with a couple other runners and we were all shuttled to the finish line.  They did give us a medal and a commemorative 25 year anniversary Mickey ears hat.  We were also given a heat sheet, water, and food and then I went into the family reunion area to meet up with Mike.  We rested there a while, ate some food, and then took the bus back to our hotel.

I did have fun most of the race.  And seeing several people having to be put into wheelchairs definitely put things into perspective for me.  I didn't finish but I did what I could given my knee and the multiple bathroom stops.  My average pace was 16:53 according to my Garmin, and since I didn't pause it during the race, that includes all the bathroom stops.

I'll make a full post about my knee and my thoughts on that later.  But for those that have been reading a while, this is exactly the same thing that happened during RnR DC in March of 2017 that caused a DNF in that race.  Clearly, ignoring it since then was not the right thing to do.  I didn't have any problems at the other halfs I did last year but I did have pain in that knee during the 20 miler and during taper.  Both DNF races and the 20 miler were on the cold side but I can't control the weather so have to figure something else out.

Avenger's Half Marathon

Ugh, I've been home sick for a couple days and it's beginning to grate on my nerves.  Fingers crossed that I'm better by tomorrow!  In the meantime, I figured I'd go ahead and get up my review of the Avenger's half marathon at Disneyland. 

As mentioned earlier, Disneyland has announced they won't be doing races for a while so I'm just concentrating on my own race experience.  I'm sure that if this race comes back, it will have significant differences.

I was nervous about this race because this was the first challenge experience I was doing.  I usually rest up the day before a race.  But I had just done the Thor 10k the day before as well as had a lot of walking around the parks.  I wasn't sure how things were going to go with my tired legs and feet.  But I also had no time goals and my plans for this race were solely to have a good time, and I was pretty committed to that goal.

Unlike the 10k, this wasn't all on Disney property.  It started out going through California Adventure, then through Disneyland, and then we were running through the streets of Anaheim by mile 4.  Just like the 10k, the parts through Disney property were great!  It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of photographers along the way.  I was also in Disneyland earlier then during the 10k so I got the see the lights on the castle better.

The backstage areas were also a little bit different and I loved the part where we ran by the stables and the horses were out for runners to see.  Sadly I didn't get a good picture but they were beautiful.  I did get some cool photo pass photos in the parks. I also loved the Avenger's theme they wove through this part, with cast members dressed up as Shield Agents.

But then we were out into the streets of Anaheim.  This area was a little bare.  I had heard in the past that Disney had worked with community groups to have more entertainment in this area such as cosplayers, antique cars, etc. but there wasn't any of that this year.  I heard it's because Disney used to offer a free park ticket to people for coming out but they didn't do that this year.  There were a couple DJs along the way but that seemed to be it.

But there were a couple spots with great crowd support!  There was a group dressed in pajamas and then another group dressed in costumes.  They both had fun signs and candy they were handing out.  It was definitely much appreciated.

 I did meet another runner during one of these spots.  We chatted with each other during miles 7 and 8 and that really helped out during this particular stretch of the race.  She was dressed as Ms. Marvel which was my 10k costume so we chatted about her and the importance of representation in comics, other races, cosplay, etc.

Then around mile 10, we hid Angels Stadium.  This was another fun part of the course since we got to run on the field and an announcer was calling out our names.  That part was also fun since it signified the last section of the course and heading back to the parks.

As you can see from my splits, I took it easy and had a good time during the race.  You can see that the slowest miles were 7 and 8 (where I was chatting with a new friend) and 10 (Angel Stadium).  I was happy to see that after mile 10, every mile was faster than the last! 

The lead up toward the finish was great.  There was a lot of cheering at this point.  There were various cheer leader groups from local schools, a DJ, a band, and crowds.  It was exciting and definitely pumped me up for the finish line.  I tried to jump at the finish line and got a super dorky photo :)

It was super organized afterwards.  We got our medals, the food box, water, a banana and there was a special diversion for people who were getting the challenge medal and coast to coast.  It was all very clear and well run.  There was also a separate line for people who wanted photos but the line seemed pretty long so I skipped that and went into the family area to meet up with Mike.

We hung out a bit while I ate some snacks from the box and then we went over to Downtown Disney for some breakfast.  After that, we went back to the hotel to clean up and nap.  We head back to the parks around noon or so I think.  And had a lot more fun!  I love that the two parks are close enough to each other that it's easy to go back and forth during the day. 

Thor 10k

I figure I better start my posts about our vacation if I want to avoid forgetting things!  The vacation started out with a flight to California for the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge at Disneyland.  That included the Thor 10k and the Avenger's Half Marathon.  A quick note that RunDisney has announced that there will not be races at Disneyland for the next couple years.  I would usually include information on logistics in my review in case it would be helpful to people considering doing the race in the future.  But I assume that if/when the race comes back, there will be lots of changes.  So I'm just going to stick to my experience :)

The weekend started out with us taking an early flight to Los Angeles on Friday morning.  We got to LAX with no problem and called a Lyft to take us to Anaheim.  It was around a 45 minute drive until we got to our hotel.  The room wasn't ready so we dropped off our bags with the front desk and headed off to the expo. The expo was at the Disneyland Hotel so we had to walk through the Disneyland esplanade area to get there.  It took a really long time to get through security but we were finally in after 20 minutes or so.  We then decided to stop for lunch in Downtown Disney on the way to the hotel and when we got there, it was about an hour or so after the expo opened.  There were no lines for bib pick up and it went really smoothly.  There didn't seem to be a lot of vendors or a lot of energy at the expo so we headed out after a little bit of browsing and some photo fun.

After the expo, we had to wait in another long line to get through security to get into the parks.  I think this one took more like 30 minutes.  Finally, we were in and rode the monorail to Disneyland.  W had a great time with rides and just wandering around the park.  Initially, I had thought about trying to stay up for World of Color at 9pm but given the early morning flight and the fact that I had to wake up at 3am for the 10k the next morning, we called it an early evening and went back to the hotel around 7pm or so.

Saturday morning, my alarm went off at 3am and I got ready in my Ms. Marvel gear.  It's all tech wear but I just used fabric paint to paint the design on the shirt.  I left the hotel room around 3:30 and happened to run into another runner walking to the start as well.  We had a nice conversation on the way over and thankfully security just took a couple minutes this time.  The way was marked pretty clearly to get to the starting area and it didn't take too long.  I think I was there 15 minutes after leaving my hotel room.  There was a lot of pre-race excitement going on and I took the opportunity to take some photos and admire all the cool costumes I saw.  Lots of costumes based on Thor Ragnarok since that had come out just the week before the race.

I went over to the corrals around 4:30am.  That got me right at the front of my corral and I sat on the ground to relax a bit before the start.  Before I knew it, it was go time!

 

I loved the 10k course.  There was a lot of park time between the two parks and even the back stage sections were a lot of fun.  There were fun holiday decorations up in the parks as well as a lot of superhero theming for the race.

  

The official character lines were pretty crowded by the time I got through so I didn't stop for any of them but there were cast members in various places around park icons offering to take photos as well and I stopped for several of them.

We had opted to buy max pass, which was a way to get fast passes for the rides over our phones.  An added benefit of this is that it included photo pass photos for free.  So here are some of the photo pass photos from the race that I liked.

I knew that my plan was to take it easy and have fun during this race.  I took a lot of photos and just really enjoyed the atmosphere of the race.  They had great Thor elements.  A lot of the cast members were dressed like citizens of Azgard.  There were places where they had people dressed like Valkyrie or a fighter from Azgard encouraging us along.  And there was a lot of crowd support in Disneyland itself.

I'm happy to say I was successful with my goal of having fun!  It was a great race, a fun course, and I enjoyed taking it all in. And I felt pretty good after the race, which was important for purposes of heading to Disneyland for more rides!  The race started so early that I was finished in time for us to walk back through Downtown Disney (we did not have to go through security again) and get in line at Disneyland in time for their early opening.  Mike had brought me clothes to change into and we went forward for some more rides and characters.  I also ate some of the snacks from the post-race food box to tide me over until we got something more substantial.

So that's it for the first part of the challenge.  I'll be back soon to talk about the half marathon and our last day at the park.

Weekend RunDisney Trip

I wanted to go ahead and talk a little bit about our trip to Disney World for the Star Wars Dark Side race since my race recap just talked about the race itself.  When we planned this trip, we knew the main purpose was the race itself and the rest of the trip would just be a whirlwind.  We weren't even sure if we would have any park time at all.

The way it worked out, we took the first flight to Orlando Saturday morning and took the last flight back on Monday.  This meant maximizing our time with only having to take one day off work and only having to pay for two hotel nights.  The race was Sunday morning, so right in the middle of our time in Orlando.

We stayed at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort.  This is part of their time share, Disney Vacation Club.  We were able to rent points to stay there from an online broker, which is a bit more cost effective then booking it as a hotel room directly with Disney.  This worked out really well for us but you have to read the fine print going in.  There is no cancelling so you have to be pretty sure of your dates. But we knew our dates were set because of the race and we knew we wanted to stay onsite given how short our trip was going to be.

We really liked the resort.  It's beautiful and felt really peaceful.  It's across the river from Disney Springs so you can walk there (a long walk depending on where your room is) or you can take a quick boat ride.  It's really spread out but we lucked out with a pretty good room so things weren't too long of a walk.  It also seems to be pretty well organized with bus stops, pools, and food outlets throughout the resort so it shouldn't be too long a walk from anywhere.  It also has a golf course on site in case that's a bonus for anyone.  I know my dad and brother would have loved it for that!

The other handy perk of staying at a Disney resort for a quick trip is the Magical Express from the airport.  Once we landed, we were able to walk down to the Disney bus location and get in line for a bus.  We didn't even have to pick up our bags from the carousel, Disney picked them up and delivered them to our room later.  That can take a couple hours so make sure you have everything you need right away with you.

 

View of Disney Springs during the sunset

Once we got to the hotel, we checked in but our room wasn't ready yet.  So we checked our carry-on bags and walked over to the bus stop to go to the expo.  Another perk of staying onsite is that they have bus transportation to all the race events.  When we got to the bus stop, the employee working there mentioned that the buses had been a bit messed up that morning and it could be a long wait.  We were contemplating calling a Lyft when the employee said wait, there's the bus right there!  So we got lucky with hardly a wait at all.  The bus took us right to the expo and in we went.

The lines weren't too bad at all.  I think that's probably because it was around 11am on the last day of the expo so a lot of people had already been through.  I was surprised at how crowded it was still, but I didn't have to wait too long in line for anything.  I ended up buying an extra Star Wars shirt, a Yoda headband, and a mini body glide I could carry in my flip belt, which I was really happy for on race day!

 

After wandering around for about an hour, we were pretty hungry.  We hadn't got a text saying that our room was ready yet so we decided to just get in a taxi to go to Disney Springs for lunch instead of taking a bus back to our hotel.  It was a quick ride and we headed straight to a restaurant Mike wanted to try, the Polite Pig.  It's a barbecue place which might be a weird choice for a vegetarian.  But they had a lot of vegetarian sides that ended up being delicious, so I was happy to go along with the choice :)  I had mac and cheese, brussel sprouts, a broccoli salad, and we shared sweet potato tots.

 

Fun RunDisney banners all over Disney Springs

We wandered around and checked out some stores, and then decided to walk back to the hotel since we had gotten us the text telling us where our room was.  This was a mistake since I wanted to stay off my feet for the race the next day.  It ended up being a long walk, and it took us around 30 minutes to get back to the lobby to pick up our carry-on bags.  Thankfully, they offered us a ride in a golf cart from there to our room.  Once we got to our room, our checked bags were already there as well.

We decided to check out the main pool after that.  It was a really fun pool area with lots of games going on for the kids, a poolside bar for the adults, and a nice water slide.  It was also conveniently close to the cafeteria style restaurant so we had an early dinner there after we dried off.  They had a runner box with a special deal for runners but I decided to just stick with a veggie flatbread.  It wasn't anything special, but it served it's purpose of fueling for the race the next morning.  And then, it was an early bed time for me.  I was asleep by 8pm but Mike went back to Disney Springs to explore a bit.

 

I woke up at 2:30 or so for the race the next morning and you can read more about my race experience here.  After the race, I had scheduled a brunch for us at the California Grill.  I was super excited about this brunch as I had read a lot of great reviews about it.  It's in Disney's Contemporary Resort and it has a wonderful view of the Magic Kingdom.  We got up to the restaurant and were greeted with mimosas (included in the price) as we were escorted to our table.  It felt really decadent to have drinks in hand before we were even seated!  They also had a non alcoholic offering of juice with a really pretty grape garnish.

 

A photo of the view since I was somehow so hungry I forgot to take photos of the food

Next, our waiter came and explained the brunch set up to us.  There was a buffet for the appetizers (which really could have been a meal on it's own) and you ordered an entree from the menu.  I'm happy to report that they were pretty accommodating to vegetarians.  For example, they had sushi on the buffet but made me special veggie sushi.  And they had deviled eggs with bacon on top, but offered to make me some without the bacon if I wanted.  The buffet also had a yogurt bar, fruit, several different salads, pastries, cheese and charcuterie, etc.  There were several choices of entrees and I asked if they could make me the frittata without meat, the answer was yes!  And for those that wanted, you could get bacon or sausage with your entree.  Our waiter also came by and offered us more mimosas as they were unlimited!  It was all soooo delicious but it was definitely a lot of food.  It was all included in the price, except if you wanted alcoholic drinks other than the mimosas.  Mike's eyes did get a bit wide when he saw the bill.  Oops, I guess I forgot to mention the price to him.  It was $80 per person ($48 for kids) so not a cheap meal, but worth it in my opinion.

 

A fun Star Wars Easter Egg display at the Contemporary Resort

We went outside to check out the view from their balcony and walked around the resort a bit to walk off some of the food.  Then we got a lyft back to our hotel for a nap.  After the nap, there was more pool time.  This time, we checked out the quiet pool that was right by our room and that was perfect.  There weren't a lot of people there so it felt pretty relaxing.  Afterward, we got ready and went back to Disney Springs for dinner at another new restaurant, Frontera Cocina.  We had some delicious Mexican food and also wandered around exploring more stores.  I love the art galleries they have down there.  We also stopped for drinks at the Indiana Jones themed Hangar Bar and grabbed cupcakes from sprinkles to eat back at the hotel.

 

 Monday was our departure day and also the only day we had to spend time at the park.  We chose the Magic Kingdom and were up bright and early so we could be there right at opening to maximize our time.  We went to the lobby to check out and drop off our bags and then went to the bus stop.  We had to wait around 15 minutes for a bus but we were the only ones on there, which was kind of nice.  We got to the park about 30 minutes before opening and they were letting people in but not letting people further than the castle.  So we waited there a while and then right at opening time, we were all let in to start hopping on rides.  We made pretty good use of our time and had pre-booked three fast passes so we got on a good amount of rides without having to wait too long for anything.  We had lunch at the Jungle Cruise themed Skipper's Cantina.  The food was really good with some nice veggie options.  We split the noodle salad to start and then I had the veggie curry as my entree.  I would definitely recommend this place to vegetarians looking for somewhere to eat in the Magic Kingdom, though Mike thought it was overpriced.  We hit a couple more rides, saw the parade, and then headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the airport.

 

So that was our whirlwind RunDisney weekend.  I wasn't sure at first if it made sense to just go down for a long weekend for a race but we made pretty good use of our time and had a lot of fun!