2013 WDW Marathon and Goofy Challenge Recap

The goal of my 4^th Goofy Challenge and 5^th Walt Disney World Marathon was to finish.  My goal of any marathon is always to finish in the upright position without injury.  However, I had in my head & heart that I wanted to finish this marathon with a time less than 5 hours (because I had done it twice before – Goofy 2011, 2012).  Unfortunately, the weather called for race temps to be in the 80’s and being from the Northeast, I was not accustomed to running in such hot weather in January.  The last four Walt Disney World Marathon Weekends we had seen all types of weather from temps in the 70’s (2009) to 30’s with sleet and snow (miserable 2010) and then perfect running weather in 2011 & 2012.

We were beginning the Marathon journey with my running gals, Alison & Janice, and their daughters Becca and Dani - both running their very first marathons.  Janice was running her first Goofy and Alison and I were the Disney veterans.  You can tell from our faces that we knew it was going to be a tough day.

Our games plans were set.  Alison was going to stay and run with Dani and Janice with Becca.  I was going to ditch them at the start and focus on Goofy to finish with a time of under 5 hours.  I was going to follow Jeff Galloway’s run 2 minutes and walk 30 seconds race plan, but I was going to slow my pace down by 30 seconds and run a 11:30 min/mile pace the first 10 miles of the race.  At the 5M Split I was a little over goal with a 11:36 min/mile pace and an Estimated Finish Time of 5:04:02.  This was good news and totally doable to knock off 4 minutes on my time with another 21.2 miles to go!

Apparently, I suffered from short-term memory loss and had learned NOTHING from the ½ marathon the day prior.  It was beginning to get hot and once I hit mile 10 and the sun was beginning to rise, I saw my 10M Split of 2:05:43 and a pace of 12:34 min/mile with an estimated finish time: 5:29:36 and threw “my race plan” out the window.  I decided that I was going to have fun.  Yes, that’s right - fun during a marathon.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but in the Magical World of Disney, yes, that actually can be a reality.  

I had run 4 previous WDW Marathons and I had never stopped for photos with the characters.  I had never really experienced a Disney race the way it is supposed to be experienced!  What a shame.  As soon as I began standing in the lines for the characters is when I really began to have fun!  This was one of my personal worst finishes for a marathon (only 1 other was worst and at that one it was 90’s degrees and we were running up mountains), but it was the most enjoyable Marathon experiences that I’ve ever had!

Once I realized that I was not going to finish under 5-hrs I loosened up and lived in the moment!  I stood in lines of 10+ runners at the character stops - ALL THE CHARACTER STOPS!

 

I rode a roller-coaster during a marathon!!!  Expedition Everest was set to open in 5 minutes when I ran through Animal Kingdom.  Why not wait and ride it?!!  What’s another 5 minutes to your time when you can enjoy one of the best rides on property!

Adding all those stops slowed my time down, but then I caught back up with my friends Alison and Dani at mile 14!!  

So what I learned from 2013’s WDW Marathon and Goofy’s Challenge is that maybe you really shouldn't think about earning a PR during a runDisney race.  Maybe you should just focus on the runDisney fun and save "racing" for a non-Disney event.

I will have to keep that in mind when I run the Princess Half Marathon February 24^th!

2013 Walt Disney World ½ Marathon Recap!

2013 proved to be a very special WDW Marathon weekend.  It was the 20^th anniversary of the WDW Marathon and I would be sharing the weekend with my good running friends – some of which were running their first ½ marathon EVER and first full marathon EVER and their first GOOFY Challenge EVER!  

See below for my video Recap of the 2013 WDW Half Marathon.

Unfortunately, my family did not accompany me on this Marathon weekend trip since they were a little Disney’ed out (WHAT?!!!!  HOW?!!!!) from spending three full vacation weeks in the World in 2012 and the last trip in November, for a Disney Wedding, so it was just the girls!

During WDW Marathon Weekends I choose to stay at Disney’s Old Key West villas so I can “sleep in” until 4am and walk the ½ mile to the corrals. 

The weather for Marathon Weekend was going to be beautiful with highs in the 80’s!  This would be fabulous if you were just park touring, but bad, very bad, if you are running Goofy Challenge!  Running in the heat is something not taken lightly and Disney had issued weather alerts for the races.  

Since I was running the Goofy, I planned on going for a PR at the half since I can normally finish the distance using Galloway’s 3:1 (run 3 minutes and then walk for 1 minute) at 2:16.  For this weekend, I had trained and planned to run 2 minutes and walk 30 seconds and decided to try and break 2:15 for the half to set a new PR.  Since I had run the course 3 consecutive years I knew that I would have to race sunrise if I were going to have a chance of making my goal.

We woke to temps in the 60’s and humidity at 100%.  YUCK!  Actually it was pleasant since all the humidity in the air felt like a cool mist, however, you can see from my photos and video that it was really affecting my body.  

 At the 5K split my pace was 10:18 with an ETA of 2:15:07 – AWESOME!  I felt good although I was really sweating!  At the 10K split my pace had dropped to 10:35 and I knew it was time to pick up the pace and I decided to turn it on…….however, the sun was coming up and this coupled with the high humidity proved to be too much.  I finished with a disappointing pace of 2:19:30.  This was disappointing since I FELT that I was flying and I was really working – HARD!  But unfortunately the weather did not help my cause and a PR was not meant to be.

Once through the finish the sweat continued to pour down my face so much that I was unable to see since it was stinging my eyes!  The Disney volunteers quickly came to my aid with a towel!  Much love goes out to these wonderful volunteers!!!  

Janice was right behind me and we celebrated our first race to Goofy together!  We then got massages at the Massage Tent and then went up into the stands to watch the rest of our group and Joey Fatone cross the finish of the 2013 Walt Disney World ½ Marathon!

2013 WDW Family Fun 5K Recap

The runDisney Family Fun 5K’s are some of my favorite events.  It is not timed and is promoted as a fun accessible distance for everyone!  Whether you have family member in a stroller or wheelchair or running with your small children or less active family members, the 5K really IS worth getting up at 5am!

This year, my family was left at home while I enjoyed the 2013 Walt Disney World Marathon weekend with my running buddies.  However, the only buddy running the 5K was Rob!

 

New this year – corrals!  Disney lined us up by corrals and there was a waved start.   

The weather called for temps in the 80’s with high humidity.  You can tell from our photos that we felt the heat even at 3.1 miles!   

 The theme of the course was the 20^th anniversary of the Family Fun Run 5K.  The swag features the fab-5. 
 


 The 5K course runs from the Epcot parking lot to the back of Test Track through World Showcase into Future World and finally out into the parking lot once again to the finish.