My race went pretty well. I was able to keep my HR down for the first few miles, then the monitor just stopped grabbing data consistently (I think it crumples under my chest and doesn't transmit properly). It was good for me to listen to my body (and it would happen during the marathon as well). I tried to drink every several minutes and take a gel sip from my flask every 15 minutes or so. I also grabbed water and powerade at the aid stations. I grabbed water for the first several, being wary of too much sugar affecting my stomach if I grabbed too much powerade early on.

Potty break at mile 7 ... that was about 3-4 minutes ... argh

At mile 8-9 at the cliff shot station, people are such slobs and idiots. Everyone and their brother grabbed the cliff shots, but left they all over the entire road and for a good mile afterward. There was no attempt to throw the packets to the side, so that entire mile I was running with my feet sticking to the ground on every single step.

At mile 9, I got an absolutely horrific pain in my back on the left side. I thought it was a cramp and tried alot of deep breathing, but kept running. The pain felt like someone was putting a knife in my back with every breath ... every breath was very painful. The deep breathing helped, but it was still painful, but I kept running. However, I started to worry if this continued if I could even start the marathon the next day. This had happened about 6-8 months ago and I ended up taking a few days off. This would worry me the next 12-18 hours and til the start of the marathon.

By mile 12 (after the overpass before epcot) I started to really push the last mile, thinking while I was doing it, this probably isn't a good idea since I had a marathon the next day ... Oh well

While I had a decent race, I spent the ENTIRE RACE weaving around walkers because of the corral I started in (last corral). Sometimes it was easy enough, sometimes I got stuck behind walkers of various paces, but I spent an additional 0.3 miles weaving ... this was VERY FRUSTRATING for the entire race, especially sitting at the race retreat in the morning with a self admitted 3:30 halfer and hopefully a 7 hr marathoner placed in the "C" corral because she had a common name ... I passed her in both races!

Drink more earlier and more consistently. The race wasn't bad, but I clearly didn't drink much, which was weird cuz I was sloshing towards the end, maybe trying to make up for early lack of hydration.

Also, run faster races to get in a better corral ...

Tried alot of stretching and turning to get the back pain to go away ... nothing seemed to be working. Every movement hurt ...


Drink more earlier and more consistently. The race wasn't bad, but I clearly didn't drink much, which was weird cuz I was sloshing towards the end, maybe trying to make up for early lack of hydration.

Also, run faster races to get in a better corral ...


I am rating this race a 4 for a couple of reasons ...
1. I was placed in the H corral (very last corral) and spent alot of time in both races running around walkers that were placed in corrals ahead of me. While walker etiquette was mentioned in the race instructions, it clearly was not followed, by anyone. There were many times where walkers were 2,3,4,5,6 across, on the entire road with no care in the world that others were still trying to run the race. I don't know what could be done about it, but it really made it frustrating for those trying to run the race. Maybe put a walker corral.
2. The number of walkers was increased because many people placed in more forward corrals moved back to "H" to join friends.
3. It was Disney World, so cool to begin with, but really the amount of time spent running on highways, road and backroads was significant. While you ran through parks, you really didn't spend much time in the parks. Maybe 5% of your time in the races was spent in the parks where you could see stuff. I also could never figure out when we when through the Animal Kingdom, the park I was most excited to see... I apparently missed it entirely.
4. Race started 15 minutes late for my corral ... ugh
5. The AWESOME medals and number of volunteers and fans along the course made the race more fun.