Walt Disney World Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I didn't have high expectations for this race - it was really for fun. I was running with my best friend who had never run a race before so my only goal was to stay with her and make sure she finished. We hadn't trained like we should have so we knew we'd be going pretty slowly.

As we waited in the corral all of a sudden I heard loud voices. I don't remember what I heard them say, but something made me turn around and there were Adam (ROBIT79) and Jess (Tri Take Me Away) right behind me! I was hoping to find them, but once I saw how many people were at the start I figured it was a lost cause. It was nice to stand with them while we waited for the start - as you can imagine they kept us laughing. Oh - and Adam taught me how to use my lap timer on my watch - thank you!! It was great to have while we ran, but now I think I lost all the information somehow. :)

The race started with fireworks and we were off. The first few miles were OK. I didn't have mush energy since I had been sick all week. We were keeping about a 12 minute pace which seemed good for us. My friend stopped to use the porta-potty once. I peed in the bushes - much faster!

We finally got to the Magic Kingdom which is so much fun. We stopped to take pictures with about 8 or 9 characters. Mary Poppins & Bert, Toy Story people, Dopey, Peter Pan & Wendy. I guess I'll remember the rest when I get my pictures back!

I had been taking water at every station and Power Aid at every other station. At the end of the Magic Kingdom I had two bites of a banana. This was a big deal - I've never eaten a banana before! I don't like them but I was really losing my energy so I figured I should force it down.

Coming out of the park my friend started to feel a pain in her leg. We pulled to the side to stretch. A little bit later she realized her leg felt better but know her knee hurt. This was somewhere between mile 7-8 I think. From there on we stopped for her to stretch about every half a mile to a mile. We also stopped to get Biofreeze twice. My ITB started to hurt on my right knee. I hadn't felt this before but knew it wasn't good!

The last few miles were a mix of running, walking and stretching. My friend was really hurting. I told her we could walk more but she was so tough and ran as much as she could. I felt OK but not great. I loved running through the parks but I thought the rest of the race was SO boring so that was no help.

We finally got to Epcot and the mile 13 sign. I took a picture of her next to the sign and we kept going. In Epcot there was a bus with a bunch of characters. Ariel was on top of the bus. My kids love her the best and we hadn't seen her yet - I almost asked if I could climb up there for a picture but I settled for Chip (or Dale?) and got back to the race.

We got to the finish and crossed together. I was so proud of my friend and she had a great time despite the pain. She wants to sign up for next year!

The only problem we had was trying to get back to our hotel. We couldn't find any signs for the busses back to the resorts so we walked back to the area where they dropped us off in the morning. Turns out that was the wrong place. To make a long story short - due to bad signs and bad advice from Disney people we ended up taking a monorail, a ferry and a bus to get home. We were so furious! We heard tons of people complaining so apparantly it wasn't just us who had problems getting home.

When we did get back I took a 5 minute shower and rushed to the Magic Kingdom for my daughter's birthday lunch at Cinderella's castle.

Train more

Walking from race to monorail to ferry to bus....


Didn't train enough (this is a theme in most of my RR's)


The only problem I had with the organization was at the end when there were no clear signs for the busses.