Walt Disney World Marathon - RunMarathon

This was my first marathon and I'll call it a small success. Alot of folks are happy just to finish their first in an upright, standing position, however I still had set myself a time goal, originally 4:22, 10 minute miles. However, I seem to have ramped up my mileage a little too quick during training and started having overuse issues with my knees and lower left leg which caused me to miss all of my training runs over 16 miles, and many of the midweek medium length runs. I reset my goals and decided I'd go out with the 4:30 pace group and see what happened. Well, what happened was I was right on track to come in around 4:25-4:30 until mile 16 when the wheels fell of and I ran/walked the rest of the race in 12 and a half minute miles. Still managed to come in under 5:00, which was on my mind for the last 6-7 miles of the race as I contemplated how much running vs. walking I was doing. So I guess the bottom line is I would have liked to have done better, but considering my training (and lack thereof) I'm happy with the end result.

The only thing I'm not happy about is that I'm going to lose both my big toenails. One is totally black, the other is only hanging on by the root, it's pretty fricken disgusting yet I'm tempted to post photos...

Oh yeah, for some reason my left knee started bothering me around mile 3 until the end. Not sure what the deal was with that but I had no choice except to live with it and keep running.

I need to go back to square one and get my joints and bones better able to deal with high run volumes associated with marathons.

I ended up right at the ice area, and had ice bags shrink wrapped to both knees and one ankle. I'm sure the bus driver back to the hotel room wasn't too happy to see me dripping ice water all over his bus.

And here's the best part: After a shower I drove over to Universal with my 8 year old for the rest of the day and hit up Harry Potter and everything else there. I wasn't going to let him miss out on any fun down there due to my discomfort from the race!

According to my Garmin, I walked an additional 7 miles around Universal, a little over 12 the next day at Magic Kingdom, and about 11 the following day at Epcot. I gotta get those in my training log!


Undertraining.


I think this race is just unlike any others. No one should go to a Disney event with the mindset that they're going to race hard. There's just too many distractions and the race is more geared towards having fun. I'd actually consider doing the Goofy challenge now, since I don't think I'd go to this event trying to set a PR. Speaking of the Goofy challenge, I felt like too much emphasis was put on it, and it diminished the accomplishment of those who "just" did the marathon. I can't tell you how many times a Disney employee saw my shirt or medal and asked if I just did the marathon or if I did both races.