Walt Disney World Marathon
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Walt Disney World Marathon - Run
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Comments: It is 6am foggy and I am surrounded by 12000 other runners. K was concerned about getting seperated so she hung on to my arm for the first half mile or so until we were able to spread out a bit. It took nearly 3 minutes to get across the timing mats. We talked about what we would do if we got seperated. K did not want to do this by herself so she said we don't need a plan. We just need to stay together. We hadn't finished the first mile when K said she needed to stop at a port-a-potty (hereafter refered to as PP). Her bowels were complaining and she needed to stop. Our race goal was to shoot for 4 hours. We were planning to hold 9 minute miles or a little faster. (we are real comfortable at an 8:40 pace) The first couple miles were at an 8ish pace but we knew that would happen and were planning on settling down after a couple miles. The bowel complaining (for K) turned out to be a regular event. I think we stopped four times in the first half. The second half there were times when we stopped every mile or at least at every PP. The stops and starts really took their toll on me. It was getting harder and harder to get up to pace again. K seemed to be fresher in the 20 mile zone while I was feeling pretty whipped. We did really well with our nutrition. We Gu'd about every 30 minutes. I had 20oz of Endurance Gatoraid in my bottle and we took a little water at each stop. (plus energy drink after I finshed my gatorade) The course was very interesting. You get to run all around the WDW complex. Early on the only people in the parks were "cast members". We stopped in the Magic Kingdom (near it's a small world) and took a picture with one of the seven dwarves. It was still real foggy and the pavement was slick. So slick that some guy wiped out right in front of me. I think he was trying to move to the left to pass someone when his feet just came out from under him. He got up quickly and kept on going. It looked painful. Once the sun came out and burned off the fog it started to get warm(er). I was already drenched with sweat from the humidity and fog. Now it was going to get steamy too. The sun sucked a lot when we were out on the open roads. The shade really felt really good when we got back into it. The crowds really helped keep the energy flowing. There were bands and music out on the roads to help those time go by as well. It was neat to see difference between the theme park areas and all the support areas behind it all. We realized early on that our 4 hour goal was going down the toilet (literally) but we still tried to keep up out 9 min/mi pace. For the most part I think we did that but it was hard to tell from the Polar data. I wrote down all the avg paces and counted the ones that were 10 minutes or better and I think those represent PP breaks. (The count was 14) At mile 20, K said lets kick it up for the last 6 miles. Then she laughed. I was plodding along but I knew better than to think I had a 6 mile kick in me. At mile 24 K started to feel the effects in her legs. We were plodding along just wanting to get this thing over. I was looking at my watch wondering if we were going to finish slower than my first marathon (4:28:07). This was bumming me out a bit but there wasn't too much I could do about it. I had told K that I would run this with her and that was that. It was going to be what is was going to be so I just kept on truckin. I think we were going through the MGM theme park when K started searching for another PP. We didn't find one there and it was quite a ways past that when we came upon some at a water stop along a waterway. We left that stop and got going again. We ran through one of the resorts. It was very nice but it had a little bridge that made my quads scream. This resort is right next to Epcot and next thing I know we are back in Epcot in the World Showcase. K was fading fast and I was itching to get done. I saw her slowing way down as we were going up a hill so I reached back and held her hand an pulled her up. She told me she was in DIRE need of a PP again. We were in the last 1.5 miles. We could hear the anouncer talking on the speakers as we ran through the different countries (looking for a restroom) We found one in Japan or Mexico. It seemed like forever waiting for her. I picked up one of the traffic cones and tried to cheer on the runners going past us. I SO wanted to take off and finish. K came out and we were off again. She wasn't getting up to speed as fast as she had in the past. I was chomping at the bit to get done. We left the World Showcase and entered the other part of Epcot. There were people everywhere! It was great and was really pumping me up. The "cast members" were busy directing traffic and trying to let the guests get across the choke points when there was a lull. I saw them helping someone in a wheel chair and a blind guy across right in front of us. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of panic the blind guy might be feeling. It was loud and I didn't know if he could hear us coming or not. I came up behind him as he getting clear and told him it was ok he was safe. We ran through the last bit of Epcot and were nearly done. I knew that our families were going to try to be in this viewing area so I was trying to run and look into the crowds at the same time. We didn't see them but it didn't matter. Just around the corner and we were done. As we came up near the finish line I saw the clock approaching 4:30 I was bummed for a second then remembered that we spent nearly 3 minutes getting to the start mat. It looked like I would match my first mary time or maybe even beat it by a bit. We ran over the mats and got our space blankets. (I was hot and sweaty but I wanted the blanket any way) A very nice volunteer took off my chip and retied my shoe for me. Another smiley faced volunteer put the medal over my head and it was official. Done Done Done! Marathon #2 in the bag. It wasn't as fast as I had hoped but I was happy to be done. What would you do differently?: Give my running partner pepto-bismol. I was happy with my running. It was the standing around outside port-a-potties that killed our time. I am pretty confident that we would have had a sub four hour run otherwise. Post race
Warm down: We stopped at the portapotties one more time and proceeded to try to find our families. I called my wife and told her to meet us at the the "M" family reunion tent. (They had different tents by alphbet.) K and I walked to the M tent and found a piece of pavement to sit on. A minute later my wife called. They were at the "A" tent. I told her we were at the "M" tent come on down...."NO" she said, "It is not that easy to get everyone through this crowd" [She and K's husband had five of my kids and K's two. Getting them through that crowd was like herding cats and my wife wasn't going to take another step without help] K wasn't happy about having to stand back up but...such is life. We found our families and took some pictures then walked a bizillion miles in the heat back to our cars. The car ride home took about 3 hours and at some point during the ride, {while I was rubbing my feet} my wife remarked that it would be a good day for a bike ride. She said "So..do you want to go for a ride when we get home?" I don't think she expected me to say yes but I did. I showered up when we got home and we took the tandem out for a 30.25 mile ride. My legs felt pretty good. We maintained a pretty decent pace. The starts were kind of tough {my quads complained a bit} but it felt good to ride. What limited your ability to perform faster: 14 port-a-potty stops Last updated: 2006-07-22 12:00 AM
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2007-01-08 11:01 AM |
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General Discussion-> Race Reports! |
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United States
Disney
80'sF / 0C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 2523/10936
Age Group = 45-49
Age Group Rank = 250/772
The pre-race started Saturday morning at 5am. We got up and loaded the kids in the minivan and drove to Orlando. We got to Epcot around 9:30am and did the park all day. (see my training log for more detail on this adventure)
After the park we went to our room and I got to sleep around 11pm.
I woke up Sunday around 3:45am. I had some coffee and a clif bar, got dressed and we headed to the start at Epcot.
We (K my running partner and I) hit the port-potty's (PP) and wandered to the start. It seemed like a pretty long walk to get to the starting corals. We were in the B group so after another PP stop we joined the masses.
It was dark and foggy but very festive. There were big screens set up so we could see the start and hear the anouncements. As we were standing there waiting, I turned on my footpod for my Polar and was putting it into the start mode when it locked up. This has happened before so I knew what I needed to do. It takes a couple minutes to go through the reset, change the date, bla bla bla. Needless to say, when it did come back to life my heart rate was higher than it should have been for just standing there.
When the national anthem started I was pleasantly surprised that all 12000 runners got quiet very quickly. In true Disney fashion, there were rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air at the appropriate times.
We watched the wheelchair competetors start then 5 minutes later we were off.