Walt Disney World Marathon - RunMarathon

Even tho it was 6 degrees warmer at the start than yesterday, I had gloves and kept my jacket on for the first couple of miles. Much easier to run in the crowd today--everyone seemed the same pace, no walkers, no dodging around. Took my coat off when I started to sweat and tied it around my waist, but kept the gloves on my fingertips--actually worked for wiping sweat! Considered putting the coat back on a few times when in the swamps--it was truly about 10 degrees cooler--but just put the gloves on all the way and was fine. Once the sun was up it started to heat up, figured even if I ended up walking I'd still be warm enough so ditched the coat in Magic Kingdom just before Cinderella castle. Quads were screaming the whole way, this was truly a race of mind over matter to keep going and to maintain a decent pace. My initial goal was to finish, my secret goal was to beat 5 hours. Pretty happy with results in light of lack of training!

Uh, train! Was sick most of December with Strep throat and sinus/cold so did very little training other than my fall half marathons and a single 15-mile training run over a month ago. Did nothing over an hour. Truly should have DNS both races d/t lack of training, but since the air, hotel, car, and race were already paid for...I just went for it. Fortunately I did not get injured. The smarter thing would have been to make these fun runs and just jogged and took photos of the characters.

After crossing the finish line, I went over to 'self medical' and put on some more biofreeze then had them tape bags of ice to my quads. Got my water, my medal, and since there was no line for the Goofy photo, had that taken. Skipped the food line completely--the thought of another banana made me want to puke, and the only other nutritional item was an unpeeled orange which I didn't want to deal with. I had Chocolate milk, V8, hummus, and a healthy choice ravioli meal in the room when I got back. Took a hot shower and tried to stretch, but that was very painful, so did ice bath with 4 buckets of ice. Took a 1 hour nap, packed, went to airport, and took 3-hr flight home. Stuck in the middle seat! Was able to get up once though when the aisle guy went to the BR.


Lack of training. It was stupid of me to do this with no training and I was very lucky I didn't injure myself. Sore muscles--worst ever after any race including Ironman. What I did learn about myself, though, is that I have been being a wus on the marathon part of the Ironman and walking way too much. Now I know I can push it to the extreme on the run and still be able to finish. This will take significant time off my IM this fall!


The medals are amazing, volunteers are great. Surprised that there were fewer water stops for this than the half--they were spaced out farther. Nice that they had medical every few miles. Post-race food is terrible, they need to have something natural...who wants sugar snacks after living on that for the last 4 hours?!