Despite the injury, I felt reasonably well running wise for the first 10 miles or so. I intentionally kept a conservative pace, but even this pace was not easy to manage as the flow of runners around me wanted to go much slower. Had to go off-road a number of times. Rolled my right foot during the process and this then added to my woes. My quads which never cramp up when running both started to give me trouble between miles 8-10 I attribute this to the bitter cold conditions. I know, you think of Disney you think its going to be warm, right? Wrong it was the coldest on record for Orlando.

At nearly every water stop I took in power ade. I also chewed on power bar blasts, salt packets in order to stay away fro cramping. Each water station was slick with ice. Some spilled on my gloves which then turned to ice. Something like mile 14 I realized there was no way I could achieve a PR. I was frozen, beat up, my injuries were killing me. and I was tired. I got a banana (frozen mind you) ate it then used a port-o-let on course. Then ran some more. A bit later I was reduced to run/walking.

More power ade, another frozen banana, another port-o-let stop. A few more miles where I tried to mostly run and somehow maintain my pride. It was then that a runner in a full costume passed me. (He was dressed as "Stitch") That was enough to finally do me in and I mostly walked the remainder of the race. Occasionally I would run, essentially I was runnign to keep my time below 5 hours. I don't know why that ended up mattering to me. I also wanted to FINISH the race. I've never dropped out of a race before, I had spent a small fortune to make this a combo family vacation/ Marathon (another not so good plan) So there was no way I was not going to finish and receive my medal.

In the end the whole thing was horrible for me. I'll use this as experience points. But honestly I depressed over it.

Drop out if injured.
Maintain weight.
Understand that if I could not run in the weeks before a Marathon that it will be a bad day.

Got back to hotel room via bus as fast as I could. I was freezing....


Let me first say that as of 3.5 weeks before this race, I fully expected to shatter my PR! Then Achilles Tendinitis came calling. Immediately I shut all running down. I had my long runs in. My weekly run volume was good. My Bike/swim training time was also maintained before injury. After the injury I only biked/swim. For the three weeks before the Marathon I ran only 8 miles. I ratcheted down expectations to just beating my PR.

I remember thinking that the marathon while obviously run dependent, was also a function of "Fitness" I was going to test this out.

The Achilles tendinitis had not gone away during this time. So I was going to run with it. In addition, I had put on at least 5 pounds over the 3 week period leading up to race day. Running really is my main driver for weight maintenance. PLUS I was at freaking WDW for days leading up to the race. I normally eat very healthy. Well since I arrived at WDW I've only had crap to eat. So I fueled wrong.


This is not a race to expect to PR in. Many areas lack running room. LOT"S of slow people to have to zig zag around. And keep in mind I was in Corral B so there really should not have been so many people running slow paces. Course they all could have had issues/excuses like I did heh