For those still reading along, does anyone remember the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day”? Basically in the movie he kept reliving the same day over and over and over again? It was staring to feel that way about now. I honestly did not get much sleep Friday night, and while it didn’t hurt too much Saturday, I think it left me somewhat tired for Sunday. We got up about 3:15, got ready, had the required runners breakfast, bagel and banana, (minus the powerade from the day before) and headed out to the monorail around 4:00. One of the perks staying at a resort serviced by the monorail is that you get the choice of riding a bus OR monorail. Of course we choose monorail. Hey how often do you get to say you road a monorail at 4AM in the morning? Yeah not something any normal rational human being would desire to do….
So we arrived at EPCOT and began one of the other major differences between the Disney short races and long races, otherwise here after referred to “the death march”, or the ½ mile walk between the bus stops and the actual corrals. Only it wasn’t a leisurely walk through the woods, it was more like a cattle herd… (hence the "death march") Finally we made it to the corrals, and found our corral, Corral K. Remember there were 10,000 people running with us! It was already pretty warm out, and humid so we sat and began to wait for the 5:30 start time. This would be the do or die race, how I felt at the end of this race would have a big impact on whether I finished the next day too. I was also greatly looking forward to this race, as it was the first one to take running outside of EPCOT, to the Magic Kingdom.
Fireworks are a little closer now... I liked the shirt so I took a pic (*smile*) and Marathon starting line!
Finally at 5:34, Donald Duck and the rest of the crew
started the first corral off with a blast of fireworks, after that there was
about 2-3 minutes between each corral, so we finally made it to the starting
line at about 6:15 or so. I’m starting
to think that Disney gets a massive bulk discount on fireworks, because each
corral, all 16 of them, had a fantastic blast of fireworks, and were not talking
the cheap buy your own fireworks, we are talking full out, professional
fireworks display 16 times in a row!
What a way to get you started!
Starting out.. Not sure if that's the sun coming up, or the lights from the speedway up ahead. Toll plaza comes into view... You can see Jeff up ahead to the left side in the grey shirt.
Our plan for this race was also VERY slow, at this time our fastest half we had run was about an 11:35 a minute pace, this half ended up around a 14 minute pace, which is exactly what we wanted. We ran it at a 2-mile run, 1-mile walk. Again holding something back for the 26 miles to follow the next day. Soon we were out of EPCOT and on the road to Magic Kingdom. Let me tell you for those that have been to WDW, those red, purple and green road signs that tell you where to turn for wherever you are trying to get? THEY ARE HUGE! As we reached close to the 3-mile marker, and by this time were walking our first mile we were approached by another runner. They had lost their phone and wanted to know if they could use ours to call their husband and let them know they hard started… I have learned over the last year that runners are all bound together as a gigantic family, I guess if you sweat together, that binds you forever? Still she was a very nice lady, and we found we would meet up with her later…
Heading up the toll plaza! Toll Plaza cast members cheer us on! Approaching the water bridge, Jeff was running up the hill out of the way of the other runners since I had slowed down to take the pic.
So we passed under the toll plaza, with toll plaza CM’s
cheering us on. (Did I mention how great
the Cast Members where?! FABULOUS!). We
started running again at mile 3 and headed into the Ticket and Transportation
center parking lot (whoa exciting!), through the ticket plazas, and under the
first overpass, to move us runners onto world drive, for a straight shot into
the Magic Kingdom. The sun was just
beginning to rise at this point, casting a pink glow over the sky. We approached the water bridge. Now for again those that have been to Disney
(and maybe even if you HAVE been to Disney) there is an actual water bridge,
that joins Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon together, so that boats can
easily cross between the two. It’s a
steep incline down and up, and we were still running at the time. Surprisingly it was quite easy! There was a DJ located over the water bridge,
who reminded us all that we could official say we have all ran a race
UNDERWATER! Whoo!
Magic Kingdom Steam Train bridge up ahead (this is the bridge you cross between Tommorowland and the Main Street USA station, its green...). Headed into Magic Kingdom, El Chaperell (the hat store) is on the right. Turning right and headed towards Cinderella's Castle!
After the incline Contemporary and Space Mountain loomed in front. Space Mountain and the Security gate (which the buses drive past to drop guests off at the park) marked mile 5, and the start of another walking mile. I rather wish we could have ran through the MK, but I am glad we did keep to the plan. We entered the MK through a side entrance (next to the hat shop), and the crowds of spectators was awe inspiring, it was loud, and packed with adrenaline, and tons of fun. We headed down Main Street USA, and took a right into Tommorowland. The course then wove back into Fantasyland and took us that to intangible moment all Disney runners pay the big bucks for, the run through Cinderella’s Castle. This is one moment I really wish I had run for, but again remember Space Coast… stick with the PLAN! We crossed into Liberty Square and exited the park through Frontierland, here was Mile 6 and we began running again.
Magic Kingdom Steam Train bridge up ahead (this is the bridge you cross between Tommorowland and the Main Street USA station, its green...). Headed into Magic Kingdom, El Chaperell (the hat store) is on the right. Turning right and headed towards Cinderella's Castle!
After the incline Contemporary and Space Mountain loomed in front. Space Mountain and the Security gate (which the buses drive past to drop guests off at the park) marked mile 5, and the start of another walking mile. I rather wish we could have ran through the MK, but I am glad we did keep to the plan. We entered the MK through a side entrance (next to the hat shop), and the crowds of spectators was awe inspiring, it was loud, and packed with adrenaline, and tons of fun. We headed down Main Street USA, and took a right into Tommorowland. The course then wove back into Fantasyland and took us that to intangible moment all Disney runners pay the big bucks for, the run through Cinderella’s Castle. This is one moment I really wish I had run for, but again remember Space Coast… stick with the PLAN! We crossed into Liberty Square and exited the park through Frontierland, here was Mile 6 and we began running again.
Running through Tommorowland! Photo with Cinderella's Castle in the background (actually BEHIND the castle), and Steam Train "Walter E Disney" and Train engineer out for photo ops.
One point I haven’t really highlighted is that Disney sets up characters, sort of meet and greets along the course. Exiting Frontierland, the Magic Kingdom Railroad engineers had parked one of the park’s steam trains, and were taking pictures with runners, pretty cool, who needs a costume when you have a living, breathing iron horse? The course then ran backstage Magic Kingdom, and then hit the road starting the journey back to EPCOT.
The roadway here turned into Floridian Way, it’s the road
that passes Grand Floridian, Polynesian and the Wedding Pavilion. The Reedy Creek Fire Department was out to
cheer us on too! However, the roadway
became VERY congested along this route, and we did a LOT of weaving in an out
of the people traffic. In the end our
run distance for this race was 13.5 miles, partially because of all the weaving
we had to do!
We finally hit World Drive, which is the main drag at WDW
connecting EPCOT and Magic Kingdom, we knew we were home free, but it was a
longish 2-3 mile run, and you could see the traffic backed up on the other side
trying to get into Magic Kingdom.
Sometimes it’s funny to see all the people that you as a running group
are slowing down. I know it’s got to
stink to be them, but still that’s kind of cool. It had been pretty humid earlier in the race,
but the weather had clouded up and a nice breeze had come in making the last
quarter of the race rather pleasant.
We passed “flag guy” who we had already seen several times, he carried a full size American Flag with him through all four races, we later found out I believe he ran in most of the Disney races carrying the flag to honor all of those who had lost their lives in the armed services. Pretty cool. As we neared the final two miles, whom should we run into again? Cell phone lady! She was asking around trying to borrow a phone to call her husband to let him know she was almost done! So we let her borrow our phone again, its sad I don’t even know her name… but very neat little side story.
Finally we made it back to EPCOT, ran the last two miles. In this case we entered through the front of the park, in Future World, ran to the end of the walkway connecting Future World and World Showcase, turned and finished the last half mile to the finish line… again in EPCOT’s parking lot. Yes! Almost half way done! 22 miles down.
Hi-Five THE MOUSE (in his track suit no less) while crossing the finish line!
We got our ½ marathon Donald medal, wrist strap to show we had completed the 3rd race of the Dopey challenge, and headed back for the monorail. We learned the next day that the walk to the buses was actually MUCH closer, but it was fun riding back, if somewhat tiring.
Unlike the two prior days today was a day of rest, to
rebuild the body for tomorrow, and we had no plans to run around ANY park
today.
So when we arrived back at the room my first visit was to
the Ice Machine room, I had brought Ziploc bags to make ice packs (thanks
school nurse), and proceeded to ice down every part of my legs, especially my
feet, which seem to always hurt when I run farther then about 10 miles. While icing I went and checked out dining
options, I really wanted to get some serious carb loading in before the full
marathon! The options were the quick
service restaurant at Contemporary (which I found out later had pretty good
pasta), or Tony’s at Magic Kingdom. One
of the nice things about the Bay Lake Tower/Contemporary location is that it is
VERY close to Magic Kingdom, either a 10 minute walk or monorail ride
away. When I had checked the day before
Tony’s had no openings, today though there was an opening for around 5PM for
two, so I quickly made the reservation.
Our next stop after icing in bed, was the hot tub, because
if ice works by reducing swelling, heat helps with healing sore muscles. So we headed down and baked for about 20-30
minutes. It seems like it was a popular
idea because several other Dopey and Goofy runners were down there too! (Goofy was on its 9th year, and
was the combo Half and Full Marathon).
A few hours later we headed for the monorail, for our trip
to Magic Kingdom. That whole idea bout
NOT going to a park was side tracked but for only a brief period of time. I had set up a Fast Pass for Peter Pan, so we
rode that, and then headed to Tony’s for Italian … well food. All those reviews out there about how bad
Tony’s is? Well I think the cooks there
could learn a thing or two from chef Boyardee, it was NOT good. But it was spaghetti so it fulfilled that
requirement atleast.
After eating we headed back to Bay Lake Tower and our room,
we headed to bed around 7PM and I feel asleep as Wishes was going off… it was
becoming easier to fall asleep early I did not realize that keeping these crazy
hours would lead to some to a couple of crazy days of waking up at the crack of
dawn WITHOUT an alarm clock.
Jeff and I make "the walk" one more time down the halls of Bay Lake Tower heading for the monorail. Jeff and I waiting for the final race, the Marathon to start!
So Sunday comes…. (notice that comment about Marathons being on Sundays?). The weather report to my relief offered a much more runner friendly forecast, a high of 69 and about 50% humidity. My legs and feet surprisingly felt decent, and except for a persistent desire to yawn, I was ready to go. It was D-Day for Dopey. Time to find out if we could REALLY complete the challenge. We headed for the monorail about 4:00AM, and went for another 0 Dark Thirty ride to EPCOT. Remember that comment about Groundhog Day? Yep… exactly same today, same half-mile cattle call to the corrals, and 45 minute wait for our corral (K) to make it to the starting line.
So Sunday comes…. (notice that comment about Marathons being on Sundays?). The weather report to my relief offered a much more runner friendly forecast, a high of 69 and about 50% humidity. My legs and feet surprisingly felt decent, and except for a persistent desire to yawn, I was ready to go. It was D-Day for Dopey. Time to find out if we could REALLY complete the challenge. We headed for the monorail about 4:00AM, and went for another 0 Dark Thirty ride to EPCOT. Remember that comment about Groundhog Day? Yep… exactly same today, same half-mile cattle call to the corrals, and 45 minute wait for our corral (K) to make it to the starting line.
Our plan for today, was VERY conservative, run the first half marathon distance (13.1 miles) at a 2 mile run, 1 mile walk and then 1:1 afterwards. The goal was TO MAKE IT to the finish line on two feet…
So we started out, everything surprisingly felt fine… except
my bladder. Yep remember the 10K? Only problem was the porta-potties all had
long lines. It was still dark out, the
trees and bushes looked pretty good at that point, and I will leave it
there. Needless to say I felt a lot
better as we passed the toll plaza once again.
I have to say everything from here to about the exit of
Magic Kingdom was a repeat of the day before.
(Groundhog day seriously!), except I guess the weather was a lot nicer
this time around! Cooler and much less
humid. The only addition was probably
one of the craziest things we saw during the entire Dopey experience. It occurred while running through Cinderall’s
Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Now, for
those that have ran ANY Disney race know people do CRAZY things and in many
cases WEAR crazy things. This guy… must
have been atleast 50 years old, running the Goofy Challenge was running the
ENTIRE RACE, ALL 26.2 MILES, WITH A SOUSAPHONE!
Seriously! (Marching Band Tuba), and playing it while he went
along! I don’t know whether to laugh or
get on my knees and bow down to his greatness… After exiting Magic Kingdom we
again hit Floridian Way. The day before
it was very congested, and we weaved all over the place. Today it wasn’t quite as busy, and we had
made a plan to not have to weave around traffic as much.
Mile 8 is where today’s run would deviate from the prior day’s run. Instead of continuing onto World Drive and heading back to EPCOT (I wish), we hit the WDW Speedway. The WDW speedway had been used by Nascar for races until several years before when there had been a large accident I had heard… it was still home to the Richard Petty Driving experience. For our run today though it would add a mile onto our outbound run. We ran the mile oval, and two things occurred to me. Number one, Dozens of locals had brought in their classic cars (corvette’s, trans-Am’s, etc), and they were pretty cool and gave us something to look at, and number two, my Achilles started bothering me, not really hurting per say, but it let me know it was there, and my thought was “oh my God not now! Its only mile 8!”
I will leave you with that for a minute. As we exited the Speedway we hit Mile 9 and
began our 1-mile walk. As anyone can
tell you if you are going to have a 26.2 mile run there are going to be points
along the route that will be BORING.
Disney does a pretty good job of setting up the route so that these
boring sections don’t go on forever and ever… but we were approaching our first
boring section. Mile 9-12 put us back on
the roads, and directed us to the back roads of Disney, in this case Bear
Island road. The excitement along the
way was the WDW Water Treatment plant… yep we discovered that “wonderful smell”
of untreated water. Yeah… AND an AID
station with BioFreeze! Now for those
non-running initiated Biofreeze is like liquid ice, for runners with any leg
soreness… it’s like liquid GOLD. So I
stopped for some, and that seemed to resolve my leg issues, so one minor
Achilles issue resolved, and one slightly freaking out mind put to rest.
Running through Animal Kingdom and approaching "Expedition Everest". Jeff and I stop for a quick photo opp in front of the Forbidden Mountain.
So where does Bear Island Road lead to? Our 2nd Disney park for the day, Animal Kingdom! We arrived at the park through the back area, and a few Cast Members had brought out several animals for photo-ops with runners, but we didn’t stop. Still interesting to look at along the way. By the time we arrived at Animal Kingdom it was about 9AM and the park had just opened. There is a tradition among Disney runners to sometimes ride Expedition Everest if you pass the ride near or right after park opening. We didn’t, but maybe next time…
Still we made our way through Animal Kingdom, past Everest,
past Dinoland and its giant yellow brontosaurus and out of the park just past Primeval
Whirl. One last comment about Animal
Kingdom. You know that wonderfully
themed pavement, that everyone just loves?
Yep it STINKS TO RUN ON! Moving
on.
So as we headed through Animal Kingdom’s parking lots, we
hit mile 14, which was a walk mile but also as important it was were we started
our 1:1 split, 1 mile walk, 1 mile run.
Looking back and knowing what I know now we could have probably kept up
with the 2:1 split we were running, (because running believe it or not is
easier then walking about this point), but we were being conservative…
ESPN Wide World of Sports at about Mile 16-17. Jeff and I rounding the baseball diamond at Wide World of Sports (Spring Training Home of the Atlanta Braves)
So we started the next boring section of the marathon, Osceola Parkway, which would take up the next 2 miles of running and walking, before we entered ESPN wide world of sports. The “joke” of course about ESPN is that it goes on forever, and ever and ever. It’s basically five miles of running around empty baseball fields, football fields and buildings. Lots of curves and twists, and bananas. Because those “free” (well $500) bananas at around mile 18 were NICE. I have to say ESPN is also about were I started really feeling the miles. When we ran the Space Coast marathon Jeff died on me, while I felt ready to go, in this case situations were reversed. I was starting to feel tired and fatigued and really, truthfully wondering how I would make it the next 8-9 miles. Considering at this point I had already spent the last four hours running that sort of makes sense. But what doesn’t really make sense is the why… it can’t be all entirely due to lack of preparation, because Jeff who had done less running up to the event was just fine. I have to either blame it on low sodium (which I am really considering) or that dang lack of tapering the few weeks before the event.
One thing is certain I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when
we exited ESPN. Still fatigued I had begun
to think of things to keep me going, there were two things. One was a quote…
“Pain is temporary, it may last for a minute, or an hour, or
a day, or even a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will
take its place. If a quit however it
will last forever.”
I knew if I quit I could never forgive myself and that was
something I didn’t want to live with.
The other thing… that dang $40 I Did it Shirt! Heck no was I wasting that money and I was
wearing that shirt tomorrow!
Our brief sojourn on World Drive between Mile 21 and 22. You can see the sign for Tower of Terror in the distant background (to the left). We would take the next exit ramp for Hollywood Studios.
So we kept going. Right before Mile 21 I saw my next inspiration and one group of people I never EVER want to see again on a Disney racecourse. The Balloon Ladies. Let me explain. Disney institutes a 16 mile (rather liberal) maximum pace for all of its races. That 16 min pace starts with the last person in the last corral crosses the start line. This group of ladies, not employed by Disney keeps the “official” pace at the end. They carry balloons to identify themselves, which is how they get their name. They are SCARY. You never EVER want to see them. Luckily they were entered ESPN and we had just exited so they were about 4-5 miles behind us. There were a few stragglers behind them, try valiantly to keep up, some wearing Dopey bibs. My heart just went out to them; after all they had made it 16-17 miles in the Full marathon! That along with the two other aspects I mentioned above gave me the strength to keep going. Somewhere just past that 21-mile marker, near the entrance ramp to World Drive I picked up my second wind. It was time to finish this race, and be Dopey!
So we kept going. Right before Mile 21 I saw my next inspiration and one group of people I never EVER want to see again on a Disney racecourse. The Balloon Ladies. Let me explain. Disney institutes a 16 mile (rather liberal) maximum pace for all of its races. That 16 min pace starts with the last person in the last corral crosses the start line. This group of ladies, not employed by Disney keeps the “official” pace at the end. They carry balloons to identify themselves, which is how they get their name. They are SCARY. You never EVER want to see them. Luckily they were entered ESPN and we had just exited so they were about 4-5 miles behind us. There were a few stragglers behind them, try valiantly to keep up, some wearing Dopey bibs. My heart just went out to them; after all they had made it 16-17 miles in the Full marathon! That along with the two other aspects I mentioned above gave me the strength to keep going. Somewhere just past that 21-mile marker, near the entrance ramp to World Drive I picked up my second wind. It was time to finish this race, and be Dopey!
The Citizens of Hollywood (Cast Members that dress up in 20's and 30's style and act various skits throughout the park) cheer us on. I especially love the sign "Go Complete Stranger Go!" Jeff and I enter the Streets of America section of Hollywood Studios.
We ran over the overpass of MGM’s entrance, and onto a brief stent on World Drive and then all of a sudden there was mile marker 22 at the top of Buena Vista Drive. The last ROAD we would run on. We began walking again and that took us to our third park, MGM or now officially Hollywood Studios. Again we went in through the back area, approaching the rear of Tower of Terror. The citizens of Hollywood were out, urging us on in their classic Hollywood movie star style. One of the characters, dressed as a cop was even writing speeding tickets to runners, which we desperately wanted, but thought was funny anyway!
So as we entered MGM we entered through the Backlot Tour
tunnel, for those that have ridden this attraction it’s the costuming tunnel,
where you can look in and see Disney costuming working on the various characters,
and cast member costumes for the property.
Cool, and I mean that in every sense of the word, it was AIR
CONDITIONED! And DARK! Not as if it was a hot day because it wasn’t
but still that feels good after you have been running (or walking) as long as
we had. Soon afterwards we hit Mile
marker 23, and began our run again. We
ran through Streets of America, and passed the ABC commissary restaurant. The Cast Members working at the Commissary
were handing out cups of water for the runners that were passing by. This was not something they were told to do,
and it was a nice gesture if a very simple one.
(This was on top of the normal water/powerade stops Disney had set up at
every 1-2 miles). We ran past the awful sorcerer’s
hat, Disney had the park guests corded off, and were funneling them around the
course, but it was just a wonderful sight to run through the parks with guests
in them, like we were the stars.
Next we ran past the Crossroads of America and out of the park, towards the final stretch and our final park. As we passed under Buena Vista Dr. we hit mile marker 24, and our last walking mile. At this point I just wanted to get it over, and I have never had any mile seemingly last SO LONG. A lady off to the side was handing out pixie cups of Coke, so of course we both took one, (normal rational adults wouldn’t take a cup of dark liquid from a stranger and drink it up quickly but we weren’t normal rational adults at this point). For those not familiar with this area, there is about a ½ a mile long walkway that connects MGM with the Boardwalk area; it’s a wide sidewalk that usually sees VERY LITTLE traffic. But today it was full of people.
We crossed by the sail bridge by the Swan and Dolphin and
onto the Boardwalk. I kept looking for
the mile 25 marker, and it seemed to never come! I think I was such in daze trying to find the
25 mile marker that we bypassed Dopey the one and only time we saw that
character anywhere the entire next 7 days.
The one character we really should have stopped for, but oh well.
Finally as we approached the international gateway and entrance to EPCOT we saw
it at the entrance to the France Pavilion.
We were almost there! Of course
at the same time we looked across the World Showcase lagoon and you could see,
what seemed like so far away, runners exiting towards Future World. UGH! So
we hit mile 25 and we were home free, just don’t fall down and on your face
Jennifer you are almost there!
Crossing the finish line...
World Showcase, seemed to go by as a blur, I remember very
little of it, except for thinking about how many more pavilions until
Mexico? (which is the last pavilion before you exit to Future World) Mexico seemed to come up
quickly, and before long we were on last half mile, into Future World! I cannot explain the emotions I felt when I
saw the Mile 26 marker, it was overwhelming, and I just wanted to cry tears of
joy. The gospel choir was there, just
like the day before, and now so much more then the day before I felt just how
appropriate that was! We turned the
corner and saw the final chute, the FINISH LINE for the Marathon and for the
Dopey Challenge! As we ran one last
burst of speed that last 10th of a mile Jeff and I joined hands and
crossed the finish line together…
There are a lot of times I have accomplished great things,
graduating nurse school was one that was just recent, but no matter what I
have accomplished it has always lacked a certain emotional level. I recognize
at the time that it’s a great accomplishment, but hey yeah I did it, what’s
next? With this for the first time ever
I think I was overwhelmed with emotions, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it
was the lady telling me I couldn’t do it, maybe it was the fact that I myself
said I couldn’t do it, and yet I did. We
did, Jeff and I together. If I could
capture that feeling and put it in a jar it would be worth its weight in gold. 48.6 miles, it was done.
After crossing the finish line I walked around in a blur
almost… We got our Marathon medal, and yes you put that over my head, thank
you. :) Disney is definitely a class act in many
ways, their med tents had everything you could imagine along the course, and
after finishing their huge medical set up was impressive to say the least. Jeff and I had ice packs tapped to our legs
(though mine was more prophylactic the shins really didn’t hurt, but I figured
they would probably hurt later…). I
found out later on that Jeff’s ankle had hurt all the way through the marathon,
and he didn’t want to stress me out by telling me about it…
Our next stop was the lines for Goofy and Dopey Medals, they
marked our wrist bands, we got our medals and we went for our photos.
After picking up our banana and powerade, we figured we
would head over to the monorail. If
my shins weren’t sore, my feet sure were. Running the last mile of the marathon was EASY compared to walking to
the ride back to the room.
After stumbling a few feet towards EPCOT, and the ¼ mile walk (atleast!)
to the monorail a marathon volunteer
pointed us to the buses… AHH! Much closer!
The bus ride back was long, we stopped at a few other resorts before Contemporary. That’s when almost all my
Facebook updates were done, because by the time we got back to the room we WERE
DONE. I briefly, for like a mili-second
thought about going to the post race party Disney throws at Downtown Disney, that
idea… did not last long. I spent some
time icing down my legs and feel asleep early.
Monday, there was no alarm clock, no races to go to, it was
the start our REAL vacation. What did I
do? I woke up at 3:30. I have herby named this “Run Lag” (or maybe Dopey Lag) think like
Jet Lag, but after getting up at 3:00 AM every morning for four days, and going
to bed at 8, you get used to it. I went
back to sleep but didn’t get much and finally got up around 5:30, and took this
great little photo of the sun rising, a feat I usually am not up (or if I am up
I am busy getting ready for work), to see.
We ended up going to Magic Kingdom that day and spent about 6 hours running around riding almost every ride there, it was fun and amazingly my legs held up well. A few days later, after one of Jeff’s short flashes of brilliance we headed to Chef Mickey’s for photos with all the characters of the races. (Pluto for the 5K, Minnie for the 10K, Donald for the half, Mickey for the full and Goofy for the challenge) Over the next few days we began talking about NEXT year. Now, the day that we finished the Marathon I was pretty sure I wasn’t sure if I would do Dopey again. (that's not a typo, you read it right) The next day we started talking about it, and now I am pretty sure that it’s going to happen again. Remember Disney and their aptitude for pulling money out of people’s wallets? Well they have come up with a special tribute for those that can run the same challenge year after year, they are called “Perfects” and usually get special little gifts and a different medal ribbon starting at year 5. Before 2014 there were Perfect Disney Marathoner’s, Perfect Goofy’s and now there were about 6100 Perfect Dopey’s and we were two of them. Hopefully, Disney continues the Dopey in the future. It was tiring, probably one of the most exhausting feats I have ever tried, I sweated, cried, and hurt, yet crossing that finish line was one of the greatest experiences in my life, and yes the $525 was ABSOLUTELY worth the price. The only difference? Next year I will be faster.
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