Walt Disney World Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Cool out, kept my sweats on until last minute--pants came off at the gun, but still had to walk to the start. Right at the start, threw my jacket to the side. Hands were cold--didn't think to bring gloves since I didn't use them for princess last year. Warmed up at mile 1.5. Very crowded, was dodging people left and right and there were a ton of walkers getting in the way, even ran on the grass a bit. I wanted to do an 11:30 pace to put me at a 2:30 finish, but the 10:30 felt slow so just stayed around there. Couldn't help but pick up the pace at the end, but that was not smart! Hands got really cold again around mile 7...d/t slow pace or just cuz the temp drops in the swamps outside the parks I'm not sure. Took a Shot Blox at mile 2, and realized at mile 4 I lost the packet! Luckily I had a Gu in my race belt, so I had that around mile 7 or 8. Was planning on taking in a bunch of calories so I wouldn't burn up my glycogen--need it for tomorrow! Oh well, gotta roll with it! Skipped a few water stops--not sweating too much and didn't want any sloshing or cramping. Love how they have characters at every mile--people were lined up 20 deep to get photos. Several bands playing as well. Did not use my iPod.

GO SLOWER!! Never thought that would be a problem, but this was way too fast knowing I have a marathon tomorrow. Plus, I would have actually trained! Looking at my log, I had my fall half marathons, then only did a lousy 15-miler over a month ago. NO LONG RUNS! How dumb is that? I was sick most of December with Strep throat and a cold/sinus thing, plus the holiday chaos, so didn't do anything worth anything the whole month--nothing over an hour long. So very poor conditioning going in to this. If I hadn't already paid for the race, airfare, hotel, rental car, etc, the smart thing would have been to bag the whole weekend. Or at least GO SLOW! Now I'm going to pay for it tomorrow...

After the finish line you are thrown into chaos. I got my bottle of water, my medal, skipped the photo line, and got into the food line. Still crappy like last year--you'd think that for all the money we spend on these Disney races they'd have decent food at the finish (although the medals are definitely better than any other races). They had Powerade, whole and bananas and oranges (please cut them up so I don't have to get all sticky peeling them), Nemo fruit snacks, mini power bars, white bagels, and Coke and Sprite. Because I knew about this, I had gone to Super Walmart the day before and stocked my hotel room with Chocolate milk, V8, hummus and wheat pretzels, etc so I just grabbed an orange and banana to eat in the room. Once you pass the food line and exit, you cannot go back in, so make sure you have an extra water if you will be waiting for others to finish.


Lack of training. Although I didn't want to be faster, I wanted to go slower. With a marathon tomorrow, I needed to save my legs, and I fear that I did not do a good job with that today..


It's a good race, especially if you want to get a PR since it's such a flat course. But submit a good time so you can be in corral A, otherwise you are stuck in the pack trying to get around a ton of people for basically the entire race. Good race just "for fun", esp if you're not going for time and want to take photos at all the mile markers. Disney definitely has the best medals--this year was the 15-year anniversary of Donald so that medal was pretty cool!