When I last left off it was May, and I had only been allowed to return to walking after being finally diagnosed with a stress fracture in February. I had completed my third year of the Dopey challenge in good shape, ran six miles only a few days later, the Star Wars ½ marathon the following weekend, and a few days following that twenty more miles over a course of three days. It was the last, a 9 mile run that the soreness begun, and had I stopped and rested then I believe that the final result would have not been as damaging. But I didn’t. Having been accustomed to some soreness and simply running through it, I attempted to run 3 miles a few days later and experienced sharp pain at approximately a mile and a half and was forced to walk back. At this point any attempt at jogging resulted in pain, and again had I stopped then the recovery would not have been as severe. Instead I signed up for a 10k the following weekend, thinking that I had to continue the tradition of the Sweetheart Shuffle 10k that I had run the three previous years. Keep in mind at this point I had experienced pain and soreness before but it had gone away after rest, had I even a glimmer of what really was wrong I wouldn’t have done it PERIOD. The first three miles were ok, and when soreness began at the 5k split, I might have fared ok if I had stopped at the 5k. Instead I pushed on and ended up walking, slowly, the last two and a half miles, now with a significant limp.
The next morning was far, far, worse, when I woke up, not better, but worse, completely unable to walk. Having been scheduled to work the next day I headed to the ER in tears having to use crutches to make it even a short distance. They x-rayed my leg and found nothing, but recommended I see either my primary care doctor or orthopedic doctor the following week. The next day, while able to barely stagger through work I did make an appointment for both an orthopedic doctor and my primary care doctor the next day. The next day again (Tuesday by now), feeling what I thought was better and hoping for just a severe strain of my muscle, cancelled the orthopedic doctor appointment but kept the appointment with my primary care doctor who “diagnosed” me (with no tests by the way) with trochanteric bursitis, gave me a prednisone shot, a prescription for prednisone pills and let me go saying I would be better in a few days.
I did not feel better. Truth is I had a stress fracture of the femoral head, but did not know it. In the mean time I loaded a 16’ moving van with help for a few hours, emptied the house, including innumerable dumpster trips, and cleaned up the front landscaping… there were moments of sharp pain that I discounted, but looking back realize were only making my injury worse. I look back and realize if I HAD kept my orthopedic appointment they would have realized what was actually wrong, which would have sped up my recovery, BUT would have really left me up a creek when it came to moving.
So I drove to Florida with Jeff driving the moving truck and myself my personal truck, along with two cats. When we arrived I helped un-pack the moving truck, and began working for DaVita in Kissimmee, still with a horrible, and slightly painful limp. Aleve had become my daily pain pill. At this point, again not knowing I had a stress fracture but knowing SOMETHING was terribly wrong, I figured I should try to find an orthopedic doctor in Florida. I made a few calls, then an appointment with Orlando Orthopedic. This was the first time I heard the term stress fracture applied to my condition, and was scheduled for an MRI. A week later, when the final, horrible news came in, I cried, not only for the fact that any hopes I had of running future races that year were virtually out of the question, but more so for the fact that at the time I was told I would be out of work for at least six weeks, zero weight bearing, completely dependent on crutches. For some, sitting on the couch, watching tv, and doing nothing for six weeks may sound like a vacation in paradise, for me it was horrendous, walking to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal became almost as difficult as a journey to Everest. If I wasn’t allowed to walk, bike, I was allowed to swim, and though swimming has never been and will never be a strong suit for me I put all my effort into maintaining a 3 times a week schedule at the nearby LA Fitness, and for over a month it was really my only opportunity to get out of the our tiny apartment.
At the six-week appointment I found out six weeks was in reality ten weeks on crutches, with each of the following weeks allowing slightly more weight bearing (25%, 50%, 75% and then 100%). FINALLY! By early May I was finally able to walk, and by mid-May returned to work.
Jeff in his infinite wisdom had in February talked me into signing up for the Dopey Challenge once again the following January. I had also, agreed to sign up for the Space Coast Half in November, thinking that more as the reachable goal. In my June follow up I was told by my doctor that returning to running was inadvisable, however when asked if my bones would never be as strong as they were I was told the opposite. It was one of the few situations in my life I have completely disagreed with the doctor. When I was sent to rehab they started me on the treadmill right out the gate, but at a quarter mile. I spent six weeks with rehab, and by the end of July I was up to a mile continuous running, or 2 miles run/walk combination. By this time I had also been allowed to start biking, and after a few attempts on my real bike I decided to stick with the stationary bike at the nearby gym 1-2 a week.
So back to the Dopey story. It was August and after a week trip to Utah that included hiking the infamous Angel’s Landing, I figured the only way I could get up to any decent mileage would not be straight out running, but as a run/walk combination, so I made a plan to half run/half walk my way first to the half marathon distance, while only increasing my running distance by approximately a quarter mile a week. By the end of September I was up to 5 miles using this plan, and by the next month up to 8 miles. At this point most of my running was either on a treadmill, or irregularly out on a hard road surface, I had yet to find a good replacement for a natural surfaced (soft) running trail. I had heard about the Clermont Clay Loop and figured now would be as good as ever to try it. So, at the beginning of November, in the middle of the day (around 2pm), I decided to run/walk 8 miles on a “clay” read more like sand dunes, with NO shade, and hills, yep it was like running on the surface of the sun. A few weeks later, now only three weeks prior to the Space Coast half I increased my distance again and went for 12 miles. This time… in the morning. I completed it, with no problems, and though my pace was achingly slow, an average of about 13 ½ min miles, I now felt comfortable with a half, and tried not to think about the Dopey Challenge, and by default FULL marathon that I was signed up for in January.
Space Coast half itself was a non-issue, and while again, done at a MUCH slower pace then I have ever attempted on a race (and probably constituting the slowest half marathon I have ever done) it was fun to take in the course instead of just running through it as fast as I could. At this point, I had to start thinking about the marathon, and I originally thought about doing 18 miles, but fear started kicking in, fear of hurting myself again, fear that maybe I hadn’t healed entirely and that I would have to be out of work for months again, and worse yet never running again, fears that I would hurt myself on a long training run and not be able to finish Dopey because of it. In fact, I thought about not doing another long run at all prior to Dopey. I’ll be honest at this time I strongly doubted my ability to even finish Dopey.
In the end I decided to go out and run on Clermont Trail again and go as far as I felt ok, which ended up being about 16 miles, not too bad, and considering my first marathon was completed with a maximum training run of 16 miles I didn’t feel too bad, plus as those who are familiar know, Clermont doesn’t exactly offer an easy running surface.
Several months prior I had seen a post on Facebook starting up a group of Dopey Challengers, who would run collectively dressed (though obviously not all collectively together), as 101 Dalmatians. Not really thinking, I signed up. I was thinking… what the heck. About mid-December I received a Facebook message that was sent out to everyone who had signed up but not yet ordered his or her Dalmatian Iron On. Considering how I was feeling about the Dopey Challenge at this point, I seriously considered not doing it, and giving up my spot, but then I figured no matter what I should have no problems with a 5k, and went ahead and did it. I ordered my Iron On, ordered some black and white spotted socks off Amazon and bought a cheap white t-shirt at Walmart. Total cost? Less than $20.
Of course like always, Christmas interrupted everything, and right afterwards I began the actual full on preparation. I knew at this point that the 5k and 10k would be absolutes to complete, the half was an almost probable it was the Marathon that I seriously was questioning. So instead of thinking about the Marathon I decided if I could finish the 5k, 10k and half that I would be content, and decided to plan to dress up for those races, since this year I would be going out incredibly slow anyway. The 5k was already figured out, I was going to be a Dalmatian. For the 10k, I already had an orange running skirt, and bb8 knee high socks that Jeff had gotten me for Christmas, so I decided to do the same thing as the Dalmatian shirt and create a bb8 shirt using an Iron On. The same lady that created the Dalmatian iron on, also, wonderfully, agreed to do a BB8 Iron on too, for only $3 extra! With the shirt being only $5, I was able to get the whole package for less than $10! I only needed some kind of headgear and decided to buy the headband at the expo. For the half, Jeff had bought me a white sparkle skirt and storm trooper socks for Christmas, so again that was easy, but not quite so cheap, as for the half I wasn’t going to resort to a cotton shirt, and went ahead and ordered a “I am a Trooper” tech shirt from Raw Threads. I already had a white running hat so that worked good with the whole design. Once all the “costumes” were assembled (Some people actually run in full out costume, the best I was doing were themed running outfits) the packing began shortly thereafter. I pretty much pack all my running stuff in separate bag from my non-running stuff to make things less confusing for me. The weather reports about a week prior were calling for slightly chilly weather during portions of the marathon weekend so I went ahead and found two long sleeve white tech shirts from two previous races to use under my two 5k and 10k cotton white shirts if I needed it. I also had to think about packing for the full, even if I wasn’t sure whether it would happen or not. I ended up packing a few variations a long sleeve tech shirt, (my original Dopey), a short sleeve tech shirt, and a purple Nike running top I had run several marathons previously in. I figured I could determine what I would wear the night before the marathon based on weather reports then. I also of course threw into the bag about a dozen emergency Mylar blankets, and emergency rain coats, all of which were incredibly cheap (I think $6 for a dozen Mylar blankets on amazon), but were incredibly important things to have as I had learned from the previous three years.
I worked Monday and Tuesday before the expo, which was on Wednesday before the actual races on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Expo opened at Noon, so our plan was to pick up groceries, head to the resort, Bay Lake Tower and check in and drop of groceries and bags, and then head for the expo on the bus. I had ordered Wal-Mart pick up groceries the night before and about 9 am I headed over to Wal-Mart near where we live (next to Universal) to do grocery pick up, and then headed back home to pick up Jeff and our luggage which only took about 5-10 minutes to pack up. Groceries included several bags of bagels, cream cheese, milk and orange juice, bananas, water and coke, along with most ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs I was planning on making Friday night. We made it to BLT around 10:30-11; bell services took all of our bags and refrigerated the one bag that required it. We got our magic bands assigned, and were told BLT was completely booked (no surprise), so it would take probably until 4 for our room to become available. That was no big deal as we had dining reservations at Beaches and Cream at 3:30 and wouldn’t plan on being back until around 5 pm anyway. A little around Noon we headed out to the bus stop and took the “scenic” route (otherwise known as the overly long route) to the Contemporary Bus Stop. The ride there was relatively uneventful, Contemporary was the last stop on the Wilderness Lodge/Fort Wilderness/Contemporary loop. The lines and waits came at the Expo itself, which was massively crowded.
Now to be honest though this is our fourth Dopey and probably 8th or 9th RunDisney event yet we had never arrived at the Expo at opening on opening day, so the crowds might be completely normal. However it seemed chaotic, the line seemed very long, (weaving in probably a half a dozen switchbacks) but overall it only took about 10 minutes to get into the expo itself. Once inside, it was actually well organized. We already had our waivers printed, so we went directly to pick up our bibs, had our photo taken with the bib, and picked up our race shirts in a matter of minutes.
WDW marathon weekend is actually held in two separate buildings at ESPN Wide World of Sports, most bib and shirt pick up is in the HP Field House, most shopping and the ½ marathon bib and shirt pick up was in the Josten’s Center right next door, which is where we headed to next. Our first stop was official RunDisney merchandise booth, which also had a seemingly long, but actually very short line to get in. Though I was still seriously questioning finishing the Dopey I knew I wanted the magnet (because I reasoned even if I hadn’t finished I could sell on EBAY), and Jeff had to physically drag me, quite literally kicking and screaming, into buying the tech Dopey shirt, since it was purple… Overall though our RunDisney purchases were small compared to previous years. We next stopped by Fit2Run’s booth because a friend of ours, Mark was working one of the cash registers there. He was also staying with us at BLT, and ALSO running the Dopey Challenge.
We next stopped at Sweaty bands to purchase a BB8 headband, I thought they carried them, but it turns out they couldn’t produce anything with a copyrighted character on it, but I went ahead and bought an orange band just in case I couldn’t find any other options. Last we picked up my pre-ordered RawThreads Storm trooper top, which was extremely easy! No line. No line. No line. We looked at many of the other booths, nothing terribly exciting, and though we wanted to check out the special Disney NB shoes the area was incredibly chaotic and crowded and we were way past overcrowded and chaotic. We did get a look at the shoes though and I will definitely be getting the Haunted Mansion shoes later this year.
It was now about 2:30, and we had a dining reservation at Beaches and Cream at 3:30, we decided to take the bus from the expo to Beach Club, and amazingly the bus was ready to leave the moment we approached it in the parking lot. Of course, the times everything is running on time, you get a bus just ready to leave…
For the past four years we have been running both Space Coast in November and Dopey Challenge in January, for all four of those years we have developed a bit of a tradition of Beaches and Cream preceding the 5k for marathon weekend, and following Space Coast. So this year was no different. We arrived at Beach Club around 3, got our buzzer and were seated only a few minutes later. We both had the same thing we have been getting for the last few years, grilled cheese, mine with tomato soup, Jeff with onion rings. Jeff once again the No Way Jose ice cream following it, while I decided on a small sundae. Both were very good, and while there we saw three kitchen sinks come out (not to us), we had one about ten years ago, but since then no one has been reckless enough to try it again. (Its about a dozen scoops of ice cream, every topping beaches and cream has, and a whole can of whipped cream.. A WHOLE CAN!??. Yes, a whole can…)
It was a little after 4 when we finished, and here is my favorite part of staying at Bay Lake Tower… instead of the idea of having to take the bus back to the expo and then another bus to Bay Lake Tower, we instead hopped a Magic Kingdom bus (which took about 20 minutes), and then took the approximately 5 minute walk from Magic Kingdom back to Bay Lake Tower. LOVE THAT!
So it was about 5 when we arrived, and after not having received the room ready message we decided to check at the front desk if indeed our room was ready. It was, but once again we had never gotten a message. We were room 7141, a 1 bedroom standard view, what I thought at the time was probably the worst location you could have (it wasn’t), on the first floor. What made this supposedly horrible location of a room, not so horrible was first, it was literally a hundred feet from community hall (free movie rentals!), and two, it was also literally only a hundred feet from the door out of the building, great when one considers how many times we would be leaving and returning to said building. Our view was of the bocce ball courts and Ping-Pong tables, with the pool not to far away. Only negative about the location was the ongoing pool party music. Not too bad the first couple days but last day… ugh.
So I texted Mark our room number, he was working until 8, I next called for our luggage to be delivered, which only took about 10 minutes, took pictures of the unmolested room, and last called for a dvd player. In the past, every DVC room automatically had a DVD player and on calling I found out that they were still complimentary but that you had to ask for one since many had been growing legs and walking away…
We hung out and watched TV for about an hour, we had two additional guests staying with us, Mark, whom I’ve already mentioned and a friend of his, Courtney. Courtney arrived around 7 and Mark not too long afterwards having worked the Expo until close. Not long after they arrived I set out my clothes for the 5k the next morning, took the obligatory flat runner photo and headed to bed. My plan was to be up at 3-3:15, make the 4 am bus and be at the course at 4:30 as we had the Dopey Dalmatian group photo scheduled at around that time. Normally, in the past I would have fallen asleep and woken with the alarm, but this night I didn’t get much sleep, I had a hard time falling asleep (rare for me), and kept waking up, stressing about the next few days, questioning what the heck I was going to try to do, worrying about breaking my leg, and yes even crying a little bit. It was pretty miserable. However I did finally I think fall asleep somewhere around 11 to midnight.
First alarm went off at 3, second alarm went off at 3:15, at the 3:15 alarm I got up to get ready for the 5k ahead. First thing I did was check the temperature, 60 degrees… My rule for the Dopey is dress for before the race for the 5k and 10k, dress for the race for the half and full, so I decided to wear a long sleeve white tech shirt (Cedar Point half) underneath my Dalmatian shirt, my black capris, which turned out to be comfortable for both the wait before the race and only slightly warm towards the end of the 5k. Since the two other Dopey runners in the living room where still sleeping I made breakfast (bagel and cream cheese) in the dark, and then both Jeff and I headed for the bus making it almost right at 4. The bus was pretty much full, Jeff had to stand, and I almost did until a lady moved her bag so I could sit. We made it to the race site around 4:25, and after a quick pass through security I meet up with the Dalmatian group near racer relations.
As the typical quiet, anti-social, loner type I was really breaking my comfort zone by signing up for a group event such as the dopey Dalmatians, but I’m glad I did it, it was fun. The organizer of the group had set up an official Disney photo shot with our group at the start line, which explains why I had to be there so early for a 6 am start time. They lined us all up by number, (I was #56, each Dalmatian had its own individual number and name), and then we were escorted over to the start line for the photo. We got a lot of compliments by other runners but I saw a lot of other interesting runner costumes too, I especially loved the group dressed up as the monorail! Around 5:15 we were done and I went to meet up with Jeff near the stage, we then met back up with Mark and Courtney and the rest of the running group they belong to. After a short discussion we all decided to start as a group with the runner with the furthest corral position, Corral E, and walk as a group. It was fun to have so many together in a group, but the walking together thing didn’t happen as you might imagine.
So starting in Corral E, I knew from previous experience we wouldn’t start until dawn would just be breaking, which was the case, right prior to 7. Our plan this year was the same as my training, half run, half walk. Mark did run with Courtney and stayed around us for about the first half mile, and it was rather funny watching Mark, who has extremely long legs, and runs 8 min miles easily, try to keep with the 12 min mile pace the rest of us were keeping. I did have a touch of soreness at one point in the race, but I am not sure if that was just my mind, or nerves, or stiffness or what, because it didn’t really bother me the rest of the weekend. However, it DID freak me out at the point, and my dim hopes of finishing seemed to dim even further at that point, kudos for Jeff for putting up with me!
The 5K itself starts in the parking lot of EPCOT, runs the first mile through the parking lot and enters EPCOT itself right after Mile 1, and pretty much stays in the park the rest of the race. The race itself dog legs in future world, with a short out and back out to the land pavilion and back to the main thoroughfare for the last half mile or so, I know we passed The Land at 7:22 and finished around 7:48. For the first time for our race history the 5k medal was an actual medal and not a rubber medallion, we claimed our free (tiny) banana and snack box, and headed for the bus. For the 5k the bus line for Contemporary stretched back and we waited it felt like forever (I think about 20 or so minutes) for a bus. By that time Mark and Courtney met up with us and we made it back fairly uneventfully making it back to Bay Lake Tower at 8:41.
After a shower and dressing, I made a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, and then Jeff and I decided to head to Magic Kingdom as we had a FP for Seven Dwarfs at 12:15. Courtney I think went off to Downtown Disney to see Rogue One, and Mark had to work the expo, which is where he stayed the rest of the day. We arrived at Magic Kingdom around 11:30, and amazingly enough Jeff was hungry so we headed to Casey’s for hot dogs (for Jeff) and corn dog nuggets for me. I noticed it was remarkably busy, but I guess that makes sense since New Years Day was on a Sunday and with a lot of schools still out, a lot of people were probably staying over for the next week. We finished up around Noon and headed directly for Seven Dwarfs which was listed as a 120 minute wait, and don’t get me wrong it’s a good ride, but its NOT that good. Still with our FP we had maybe a five-minute wait, and it was fun. With it being as busy as it was every other ride was almost an hour long wait, and with us now living only 30 minute away there was nothing that was an absolute must do. We decided to give Hall of Presidents a try for the first time in almost 8 years, a total of twice for the current President Obama, which for me to avoid an American History Disney attraction means quite a bit…
We still enjoyed it though, I had also set up two additional FP the same morning for Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean for around 3, but it was just too crowded, and around 1:30 or so we decided to head out back to Bay Lake Tower instead. I had noticed that morning that the DVD player had been delivered AND hooked up in our room so we decided next to stop at Community Hall and rent some DVD’s and relax for the rest of the afternoon, our final decisions were Secretariat and Finding Dory.
Somewhere around half way through Secretariat I fell asleep for about an hour and woke back up around 4:30. We were both getting hungry so we decided to go over to Contempo Café, on the way over we stopped at the marshmallow roast that they do nightly at Bay Lake Tower around 5:30, hung out there for a few minutes, and then headed to Contempo Café around 6. I wasn’t too hungry so I had a kid’s meal, flatbread with grapes, Jeff had the Chicken Alfredo. I have said it before and I will say it again, Contempo Café is one of my favorite quick service restaurants of the deluxe resorts, they have a large menu and the food is decent, and its one of the reasons I wish each time we stay at Bay Lake Tower that we owned more of our points there.
After eating we did some shopping at the two gift shops on the main floor of Contemporary, I bought a pair of BB8 mouse ears to wear for the 10k the next day, since the weather was supposed to be cool during the race, and bought Jeff a Nautilus hat from the other store, since he is a huge fan of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (Both the ride and movie)
It was around 7:30 when we headed back to the room, I set out my running clothes for the 10k the next day, and took the obligatory photo. When we arrived I believe Mark was still working at the Expo and I think both he and Courtney made it back not long after we did. We got ready for bed, and fell asleep right around 9 or so.
Friday morning, 3:15, alarm goes off again… this time not for an early meet up but because the races were starting earlier at 5:30 instead of 6 going forward. It wasn’t too bad though as I was used to getting up at around 3:30 for work anyway. We all went through the same routine again, get dressed, ate a bagel and orange juice and headed for the bus. Pretty sure we made it on the bus a little after 4, arrived at the course around 4:30, unlike the previous day our plan was just to run in our assigned corrals, except for Jeff and I, since I was in B and Jeff in C, I went back and went with him in C, I have an agreement with myself that pretty much every Disney race we do together, all other races just depend on the situation and how good of shape I’m in at the time.
It actually wasn’t too long of a wait until the race to start, and since we were in C, it felt like they were letting the corrals out quicker. A couple of points about the 5k and 10k I didn’t make previously is that for both the two shorter races they were releasing in mini-corrals, in that they took each corral (A-G) and split them into four mini-corrals which they released about once every 1-2 minutes. It made the wait the previous day seem like forever, but since we were in C, about half way back it didn’t seem anywhere near as bad today.
Our plan was the same as the previous day, run a half a mile, walk a half a mile, and then repeat. The 10K course was unchanged from the previous three years, but every year I like the course more and more, as unlike the 5k and half there are very few bottleneck areas. The course heads out of the EPCOT parking lot and under the toll plaza, then soon afterwards u-turns and heads the reverse direction on EPCOT Center Drive. Though the turn is cramped, EPCOT center drive is three-four lanes wide and offers ample room to walk/run. Disney had set up a video board along the route playing clips of old Disney cartoons, which was fun. All of the characters we passed already had extremely long lines, and for some reason we never seem to stop, I’m not sure why that is. So, at around mile 3, the course turns right onto Overpass Rd and towards the back area of Test Track, by this time the sky was just starting to lighten but though I had two shirts on and one was a long sleeve shirt I was still very comfortable. The course entered EPCOT around Norway and we noticed again that they had the Maelstrom/Frozen ride boats out for maintenance, very neat to see, and noticeably how similar they are to my beloved Voyager flume ride in KC. So we entered EPCOT through Norway and stopped at its REAL bathroom for a Jeff potty break (Real bathrooms are a rare and beautiful thing on race courses), the one character stop I saw that I was tempted to stop at was at the American Pavilion they had Goofy, Mickey and Minnie out as a group in Colonial gear, which I found very tempting. However, the line was adequately long too. The course then exited EPCOT through the International Gateway, and we made our way along the almost mile long loop around the Boardwalk/Beach Club area. Since a big chuck of the loop was done walking, we happed to notice a runner who ran by in a “I Conquered the Hill” shirt, otherwise known as the tag line for Hospital Hill Half Marathon in our home town, Kansas City, Missouri. Hospital Hill half is quite possibly one of the most difficult yet underappreciated half marathons in the country. I must have noticed it loudly as the runner stopped and we talked for a few minutes, it was great times. A few minutes later he ran off, and we started our running section not long afterwards either. An annoying aspect of the 10k on the Boardwalk is the wood boardwalk itself which gets slick in the morning, the race had a notice playing warning runners about the slick conditions, that was the first time in four years that the race has been run that I had heard the warning, good addition!
Around mile 5 we entered EPCOT again, funny enough Jeff and I were cut off by a runner with a frying pan who wanted to “pose” for the RunDisney photographers, but turned into a rather unusual race photo for both of us. We headed across the walkway that connects World Showcase to Future World, and then past Spaceship Earth. It was at this point we starting running once more towards the finish line, thinking that the next time we would see World Showcase would be during in the Full… thinking that there would be another race between the two (dum dum dum). We finished in a little over an hour and a half, an incredibly slow 10k any day, but still under 16mm pace. Unlike the previous day we headed immediately to the bus and were back to the hotel quickly.
I know we made it back to Bay Lake Tower before 9, as we saw Mark leave as he headed back to the EXPO to work, today only until 4. We had a breakfast reservation at Kona at 11:05 but had plenty of time before that, so we all took showers, got cleaned up, I ate one or two things out of the snack box, and then we decided to head towards Poly around 10:15 or so. We arrived around 10:30 and checked in early, and were given a buzzer, which we were told only worked on that floor so we quickly checked out the small shop next door and then sat down for a few minutes. It didn’t take long after that for the buzzer to go off, and I am pretty sure we were seated by 10:45.
Breakfast was good, I had pancakes and eggs, Jeff had the Big Kahuna Breakfast (pretty much everything, French toast, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, etc) and both of us had the special juice, (Liloki Juice), which is a blend of orange juice, passion fruit and guave juice, Courtney who was with us had the Tonga Toast, which she seemed to like but as those who have had it know, its huge.
After breakfast we made our way back to Bay Lake Tower, there were no parks scheduled for today, instead I was planning on making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, along with an apple pie, that I had frozen at home. So the plan was for Jeff and I to head back to our apartment, pick a few things up and then come back, I left our DVC card so that Courtney could rent a DVD if she wanted, and we headed out. I have to say that it is the weirdest experience to be on vacation at Disney and be only 30 minutes from home, but we made it back I picked up a pot, as well as the apple pie, and we headed back, the whole process took close to about 2 hours or so.
Now we had a great stay at Bay Lake Tower, literally almost no bad experiences, except the stocking of the kitchen. I had read online that there was to be a 12-piece pot and pan set in the kitchen. When we arrived on Wednesday there was one VERY SMALL pan and one pot with a lid. When you are making spaghetti sauce and meatballs fresh, that really isn’t going to work, which is why I brought the pot from home. I did call housekeeping, but they called back a few hours later and said that they didn’t have any extras… I would have really been up S%^&^T creek if we hadn’t already lived in Orlando.
When we arrived back we found Courtney out, with Guardians of the Galaxy playing, so I relaxed and watched the rest of it, and then around 4:30 went about baking the apple pie. I had prepared it fresh on Tuesday and thinking we wouldn’t eat it until Friday went ahead and froze it. Never again. It leaked all over the bottom of the stove (which I did attempt to clean up), and the crust stuck to the pie plate. Having made probably a half dozen at least, apple pies in my time that has never happened before. So no more freezing pies.
We had agreed to dinner being at around 6pm, so with it being after 4:30 I turned to my next chore, mixing meatballs. I thought I had everything, olive oil, garlic, hamburger, bread crumbs, eggs… but not quite, I had brought basil instead of parsley flakes (technically you are supposed to chop the parsley but that’s a big pain and using parsley flakes is one of the few cheats I use), so the bowl of freshly mixed meatball mix went to the fridge, as I called Mark (who was out of the expo by now) and asked him to get some parsley flakes at the store on his way back since he was already picking up a salad.
So it was the sauce next, and this wasn’t to big of a fiasco as the meatballs or pie, I use a combination of McCormick’s Spaghetti Sauce mix powder, and add sugar, garlic and the olive oil from frying the meatballs to it. So it’s a rather hybrid recipe. While that was cooking, Mark showed up I was able to quickly add Parsley to the meatballs, roll them and cook them in about 10-15 minutes, dumped them in the sauce and make the spaghetti itself. Now I was thinking about this time what else could go wrong? Well besides the fact that I ALSO burnt the garlic toast, quite a bit actually.
See all of us had been watching the weather forecast for Saturday and the half. We all knew it was going to be wet, none of us are strangers to wet races, heck it rained the entire 10k the year previous. Jeff and I are also not strangers to thunderstorms both before and during a half marathon having encountered both a few years previous during the Garmin Half Marathon and Hospital Hill Half Marathon in Kansas City.
We also all remembered the ill-fated Wine & Dine Half Marathon in 2015, which became a 10k, half half, or quarter-marathon, due to an hour-long delay caused by severe weather. At the time runners were moved inside to the HP field house and Josten’s Center, since the race start was the Wide World of Sports. All of us knew this, all of us knew that there was no such take shelter locations at the start of the Marathon Weekend half, and at least double the number of runners. There were rumors circulating that Disney had already modified the course, but no one knew what that course was, there were rumors that there was only a 30 minute window for a race delay going through Magic Kingdom. What none of us expected was what happened. After finishing up eating around 7, Facebook flashed across a message that RunDisney had cancelled the half. I mentioned this to Jeff, Courtney and Mark and stated it had to be a big joke, RunDisney would never cancel a half marathon… or would they?
That one post, became a trickle, which became a stream, which became a downpour. Within 30 minutes it was official the race had been cancelled as Disney put it due to an overabundance of caution. Now I know a lot of people were thinking, but what about my half marathon? I know this because I saw the posts later that night about groups joining up at various resorts to run a “fake half marathon” and nothing but kudos to them. However, that was not my first though, my first thought was… I don’t have to go to bed at 8, we can go to Top of the World and watch Wishes fireworks at 9pm! Which is exactly what we did. After cleaning up the kitchen, loading the dishwasher (thank God for that!) we walked the hundred feet or so to the lobby and took the elevator to the Top of the World, we staked out spots at the railing about 20 minutes before, Jeff and Mark got beers, weather was balmy, it was fun.
It was also about this time that doubt began to enter my mind. Courtney was getting texts from other runners about meeting up at Clermont Loop to run a “fake half marathon” the next morning, and was saying no, in fact everyone in my group of four seemed to be thinking running a non-Disney race half marathon was a bad idea at the time. Truth? Probably the only time it might have been ok to run the “fake” half was the night before. At the time I wasn’t even thinking about running. Because lets be honest, I have done three Dopey challenges at this point, the suckiest part of Dopey is going to bed at 8pm the night before the races and missing out at nighttime in Disney.
That night, as I laid in bed and starting reading about all the meet ups I really started second guessing myself. Was I relived that my leg wasn’t going to have to be banged through 39.3 more miles, and instead ONLY 26.2? I will be honest, the half didn’t scare me, I had no doubt I would make it through that, it was the full that I questioned, and now that was all that was left.
So here I am, I was one who did not run the “fake half marathon” along with at least for sure three other Dopey challengers. Do I regret in hindsight not going out there and running it for myself? Yes and no. No because I have done the Dopey three times previous, and no because I finished the next day, and honestly no because if I had gone out at the point I started thinking about it WOULD have been stupid. The storms, with the lightning and pouring rain that the weatherman predicted DID come true. The storms ended probably around 11 am, 11 am, I would have been DONE with the RunDisney half by then, by trying to run a half that late I would have taken several hours of recovery away. I could say much more about this issue but I have chosen not to, in the end I wish I had had the half marathon RACE to run, but in the end there wasn’t one. It is what it is.
So what did we do on Saturday? Normally had I run the race it would have been sit on my butt, in the hot tub and relax kind of day. However, I had not, so I could for once have a little fun. Our first decision was to all wear our half marathon shirts, since we thought maybe we should all try to walk the half marathon around the parks that day. The next question was what park to go to, Jeff and I living in Orlando were open to any park, so was Mark since he lived in Naples and was also an Annual Passholder, we left the decision to Courtney since she hadn’t been to any of the parks for a long time, and had never been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It wasn’t as clear cut an answer as you would think and originally the thought was just to catch the first bus that came.
Around 11 though we finally decided on Animal Kingdom, and it was still a bit rainy so Jeff and I donned our rain coats, and we headed to the bus stop, which again being on the 1st floor proved to be a well located location. I believe we waited 10 minutes or so for the Animal Kingdom bus, and while doing so two things happened. It began pouring cats and dogs, and two I saw two runners run by doing the “fake half marathon”, and I’m thinking… that’s not dedication, that’s crazy. (of course that is coming from someone who was bound and determined to finish my 3 mile training run about two years ago, and it was pouring so hard you could barely see… and your husband is chasing you in a car just in case you are smart enough to stop running).
When we arrived we headed to the in person FP kiosks, usually I set up FP through the iphone AP, but as Courtney had a comp ticket, and it couldn’t be linked to the reservation, we couldn’t set it up until we arrived at a kiosk, scanned it and set up FP for Kilamajaro Safari at around 1:30 and Everest around 2:10. We were all fairly hungry so our first stop was at Pizzafari near the entrance, Jeff had a flatbread, I had the macaroni and cheese kids meal, which was good as usual.
After eating, we walked around the tree of life briefly and then headed for the Safari about 1:30, really the FP was pointless here it was basically a walk on, but the ride itself was good as usual, the driver was hilarious, probably one of the best we ever had (felt like a cross between the Jungle Cruise and Safari!), had a giraffe walk right next to the vehicle which is always amazing, and a few hippos decided to show off in the water. Since we didn’t have another FP (Everest) for awhile, we next headed to Dinosaur, (otherwise known as the ride formerly known as Countdown to Extinction), the last time I rode this ride was right after our wedding, and though I am not sure where the photo is… the look on my face is one of abject terror. This time, almost fifteen years later I knew there was a big T-Rex in there somewhere, only thing is I didn’t know where, and I had forgotten just how dark the ride was… yep I was slightly terrified. And afterwards… I think it will be awhile for another ride on Dinosaur. After our close encounter with a dinosaur wanting to make us all lunch we headed for Everest next. Now I have ridden Everest, it was cool back when the Yeti worked, not so much now, and I am not a fan of the backwards section which while I KNOW doesn’t go upside down, I can’t help feel like it does. So I usually sit it out. With the cold front for tomorrow starting to come in I found a nice, somewhat warm seat in the gift shop while Mark, Courtney and Jeff rode using the single rider line. They came around once about 15 minutes later and decided to ride again, this time using the FP and waiting for the front seat. Lets just put it this way… they were on one of the longest Everest rides ever, their train got stuck right before the track switch, right after the projection of the Yeti tearing up the track. Now most people, this would freak them out, obviously there were none of those people on the train as supposedly no less then a dozen people started Facebook Live from atop Forbidden Mountain (because its EXPEDITION Everest, the mountain is actually Forbidden Mountain), Mark was one of them. Good times. Wish I had rode, that was until I heard how cold it was up there, I guess though they were technically inside the mountain, the tunnel created a wind tunnel effect to the already blustery wind. Maybe not wanting to get stuck that much… Jeff tells it that they had to ride evac them down 17 flights of stairs. Sounds pretty cool to me.
So as I am sitting on the shop at the base of the mountain time is clicking away, we had a group meet up at Macaroni Grill at Vineland at 4:30 and it was about 3:30. I Facebook’d the group saying we would probably be late, and for a second thought about taking the bus back to Bay Lake Tower, get my truck and meet the group back at Animal Kingdom. Turns out I was thinking worst case, Jeff and Mark showed up only a few minutes later, and we decided to head out of the park. The bus for the Contemporary was waiting at the bus stop, and we quickly made it back to Bay Lake Tower. Once back at Bay Lake Tower we hopped in our truck and drove to Macaroni Grill. We ate at the same place the night before the marathon last year, and last year I had no clue where I was driving. This year… no Waze or google maps needed, I knew exactly where it was. We ended up arriving only a little late about 4:45.
There were about 25-30 people in our running group, and we had a private room, nice right? Not so much. Our whole group had ONE server. Let me re-iterate that, ONE server. You think after last year, and it taking 3 hours to eat I would have learned. Nope. Now with that being said, that ONE server busted his ass, and though service was understandably slow, it moved faster then it did the previous year. Food was good, and we left a good tip considering it wasn’t the waiter’s fault that his management was a bunch of idiots.
Now if the weather forecast for Saturday was rain and lots of it, the forecast for Sunday was COLD. Funny in the many Facebook groups I follow several weeks before Dopey the weather forecast had Sunday as in the 70’s, and everyone was complaining about the heat (70’s is pretty warm for a marathon), Then about a week and a half before Dopey the forecast drastically changed and predicted instead high’s in the upper 50’s, lower 60’s. Not too bad actually. Only thing is… it kept getting worse. As in colder, with each day. At its coldest the forecast was for a slight freeze just north of Orlando and a low of 34 for marathon Sunday.
I have ran a marathon in that cold of temperatures, the Kansas City marathon, so while all I was thinking about was running in the cold, and having 1-2 layers, I completely forgot about the hour WAITING for the race, because in KC they open up Crown Center, and everyone gets to be warm. I knew I had space blankets (I had actually given one to a runner we met at the Top of the World lounge on Friday night), but I was thinking after talking with Mark, Courtney and the rest of the runners present that more extreme measures may be needed. So at 7:30, the night before the marathon we headed to Walmart. Jeff and I stocked up on clothing that would be in our possession for the shortest period of time imaginable, $5 sweatshirts, sweatpants and TMNT stocking caps (because it IS Florida and the only stocking caps left where in the boys section). We ended up spending around $50 for everything. Here is the kicker. We planned on stripping it all off during the marathon, and casting it off, never to see it again. Supposedly, Disney picks up all the cast offs (trust me the idea of casting off clothing during a marathon is not a new concept) and donates it all. So I guess it went to a good cause.
Walking out of Walmart it was even more than chilly, it was so cold I RAN to the car. We made it back to Bay Lake Tower around 8:30, I had already laid out my running gear, so I added my new sweats and cap to the pile, and headed to bed.
Marathon… 26.2 miles. The idea had terrified me since the day I had signed up for Dopey in the previous February. I had no idea if it would even be possible for me to complete it, and though the cancelled half marathon certainly “mildly” eased my fears, I can vividly remember that fear of having to be picked up off the course in an ambulance. The good news is as the weekend progressed my fears tended to lessen, I am not sure if that was Disney, or just being surrounded by others who were once again more sure of what I could accomplish than I was, or what, but its definitely the truth as the night prior to the 5k I barely got any sleep from waking up with stress and crying (a little) the night before.
So back to the story.
Woke up marathon morning and the first thing that I did was check the weather, 38 degrees with a real feel of 31. Geez. Me being me I over compensated, and decided to not only wear my capris but also my sparkle skirt over that too, BAD IDEA #1. (rule: never listen to what anyone else has to say about layering for a race on Facebook), next I put on my Inaugural Dopey challenge shirt (white), followed by my green Goofy shirt (thinking I wouldn’t shed a tear if I had to throw it away), followed by my purple pull over that I had had for years and had worn a few times with the intention of being a throw away, and finally the sweat shirt and pants. I put on my running hat that I almost always wear for a marathon (anytime there will be significant sun on a run), and thankfully my TMNT stocking cap fit well right over it.
I had packed my belt bag the night before and it had one pack of gels (Jeff had a second in his pocket), a salt pill, and two spark packets.
It was one of my strangest outfits for ANY race to date. It worked… mostly. I also took an emergency thermal blanket, but found I really didn’t need it. I had my bagel, cream cheese, half a banana and orange juice, and bottle of water with spark mixed in and headed for the bus.
We arrived at the course around 4:30, and started making our way to the corrals. Here was an odd “deja-vu-like” moment I had, there were several times I felt like I was running the half marathon, since I have never done “just” the half marathon or marathon during WDW marathon weekend, and have done Dopey three times already. I think my brain is used to running a half marathon before the full, and doing two “death marches” two “corral line ups out on Epcot Center Drive”, and two runs through the castle. This year, because the half was cancelled there was only one of each, and it just threw me off a bit, actually having to tell myself a couple of times that I was doing the full not the half. Weird. So I mentioned the death march, and for those that have read any of my previous blogs knows what this is, or if you have done either race you probably know what I am talking about. For those that don’t, prior to the half a full there is a ¾ mile walk (more like cattle call), from the stage and festival area to the actual corrals themselves. Prior to making it to our corral I decided to stop at a porta-potty. I did need to use the facilities but I had an ulterior motive too, I knew I had made a bad decision doubling up on the sparkle skirt and capris, together they felt tight and constricting. So I made the decision to peel off the sweats, the sparkle skirt and remove the capris, resigning them to some unknown porta-potty. It wasn’t my first choice, I really liked those capris, but they were a $10 find on the target clearance rack three years ago so I didn’t feel ALL that bad. Sparkle skirt and sweats went back on, IN the porta-potty, and for those that have experienced those, in the dark, it’s not exactly an easy task!
So out of the porta-potty and to the corral, I was assigned Corral G, and Jeff Corral I, which was identical to the previous year (different time submissions though), but I once again went back to corral I to run/walk with Jeff. For the first time though I was asked by a volunteer if I knew I was going back corrals… I don’t say that as a bad thing, it was actually nice that someone reminded me, but its interesting that considering I have been going back on Dopey for the last 2-3 years, and other Disney races too, and this is the first time anyone has asked.
The race was on at 5:30, and unlike the 5k and 10k there were no mini-corrals, each corral went all at the same time. Corral I seemed to go off earlier then last year by a few minutes the Garmin says 6:04 as our start time.
Now if the first four miles or so were going to be an indicator of the entire race, it would have ended very VERY, VERY, BADLY. It seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
First though, Courtney was running with us as she was in corral I too, and before I go any further, SHE was not what went wrong. We did stop at a porta-potty about ¾ of a mile in, making the first mile a little over 16 min mile. Again not a problem. Between mile 2 and 3, I had to use the bathroom next, and I began thinking… this is no bueno, no way was I going to stand in a porta-potty line, no I was going to just find a bush. We were on World Drive now prior to the parking gate, and I decided to run off to the side, find a bunch of bushes and my first thought was “dear God don’t let there be any alligators back here”, and second, for some reason I put down my phone in the grass. BAD. Because once I did my thing, I couldn’t find my phone! I was in full freak out mode. I called (more like screamed) Jeff over, who used his flashlight and found the lost phone. I made the decision at this point to run the rest of the mile, making Mile 3, just barely under a 16 min mile. In my rush I hadn’t put all my layers back in order, so I spent the next mile trying to re-cloth myself. Of course, that also meant my bib got moved around even more. I had been using a bib holder for all my races since I re-started them in October, and hadn’t had any issues. Well around mile 3 I had issues. The bib became partially detached, and I had to beg Jeff for a safety pin to hold the bib to the holder. Gee Whiz (actually something more “adult” than that) I was thinking, could this get any worse? Yep. Around mile 4, JEFF had to use the bathroom. I was yelling at him at this point. How dare he need to use the restroom, does he not realize we are barely making a 16 min mile and I was counting on the first half marathon portion to average under 16 so we had extra padding to add to the end? Yeah. I’m sure I scared more than Courtney off at this point. Jeff found a tree. Must be nice. While Jeff did his thing I removed my sweat pants and sweatshirt, primarily because the sweat pants were far too large and I had practically been holding them up the last two miles.
Sigh
So did it get better? Yes, much. By the time we hit the water bridge right before Mile marker 5 (or what used to be Mile Marker 5), I was in a fairly happy mood, pretending to swim down and back up the proceeding hill.
Now here is the interesting part. Due to construction on Epcot Center Pkwy, where the race starts, the start line had been moved, not far, but probably between ¼ to ½ a mile. Meaning where Mile 5 used to be, wasn’t where it was anymore. It used to be at the security booth where the road turns left across from the Contemporary. Now, Mile 5 was now in Magic Kingdom right by the Chapeau shop (hat), what this also meant though… is we were now running, for the first time in a WDW marathon, down Main Street USA, following the plan. In all previous Dopey Challenges, Main Street USA would fall in a walk section, but not this time around, it was nice. The course turned at Tommorowland, wrapped through Fantasyland, into Liberty Square, where Sam Eagle, the new addition to Liberty Square’s key hole was out for the runners! Then we entered into Frontierland. Mile 6 again, which used to be right in front of Country Bear Jamboree had also moved further into Frontierland. Again the course winded back near Big Thunder, back past Splash Mountain and out across the train tracks.
Looking back I remember noting that there seemed to be more characters out then the previous year. In 2015 it was noticeable that the characters along the course had been cut back, Jack Sparrow was back at Mile 3 this year, The Beast was out near Be Our Guest.
Mile 6 through 10 were virtually unchanged from previous years, and are also identical in the half and full, the courses passes Polynesian and Grand Floridian, the golf courses, and wedding pavilion. As in previous years this section of the course didn’t seem as crowded as the half had seemed in previous years, its congested for sure but not too bad. It was about this time I also said goodbye to another layer of clothes, my purple pull over. I wasn’t against tossing it, in fact it had entered into the possibly-tossable list several years back during the KC Marathon, it was an inexpensive Target brand pullover. It was a little sad though considering I had had it for so long.
Almost immediately after Mile marker 10 the course turned right onto Bear Island Rd, which has always been a rather boring stretch during the marathon. About this time I was expecting a nutrition stop, as there had been one around this location the past few years. It was for this reason I had only packed two bags of nutrition between Jeff and I. But there wasn’t… in fact there wouldn’t be a nutrition stop until around mile 17! However, Mile 10-11 wasn’t all bad. As you might have noticed there are a lot of characters along the course which we had yet to stop for (I’m not sure why, I think the long lines scare me away), however right between Mile 10-11 there was a “character” stop I couldn’t pass up… Old ride cars! For those that know me know I have an intense love for defunct rides, Jeff and I even collect ride parts from old Worlds of Fun and Silver Dollar City attractions to boot. So when Jeff spied the ride vehicle from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and then the vehicles for the Von Roll Sky Ride, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Scary Adventures of Snow White… well that was an absolute 100% must stop for me. It also probably ranks up there as one of my favorite moments from any race. Yep it was that cool.
So continuing onwards, we were about to turn onto one of the most recent, and second most cursed sections of the WDW marathon course, the Mile 11 out and back. GROAN. Interesting enough even though this was the fourth time we had run the WDW marathon it was the third overall different course we had run. After year two WDW removed the Nascar Speedway which used to be mile 8-9, causing an addition of a few turns to Magic Kingdom and a tiny out and back between Bear Island Rd, the water treatment plant and Animal Kingdom park. With this year, and Hollywood Studios being quite literally HALF under construction for Star Wars land and Pixar land, and since Hollywood studios previously was almost a mile of the marathon course… well the distance had to be made up somewhere, so guess what? More boring out and back near the water treatment plan. YEAH. Can’t you hear the excitement? By now the sun had come up, it was still chilly but there was no shade so it was bright out.
Around mile 12 we finally hit the turn onto the back service road (Conservation Rd) for Animal Kingdom. Here is the interesting part, it used to be you would hit the half marathon point just outside of Animal Kingdom, NOW you actually hit it almost right as you enter Asia inside the park. The second interesting part is that I really don’t remember a whole lot of Animal Kingdom, meaning I remember it vividly from previous marathons but this year not so much, it was kind of one sunlit blur. Maybe its because we were hitting it actually a little further in the course and that threw my mind off? I don’t know, heck I don’t even remember running past the entrance to Everest though I know we did!
Mile 14 was in the Animal Kingdom parking lot, which weaved just slightly around the parking lot, also adding slightly more mileage to the course, cut off from the previously mentioned Hollywood Studios. At Mile 15 we entered onto Osceola Parkway, and it was here we have always stopped to mix a second Spark (two cups of water back and forth to mix) However, this used to be more mile 14 than 15, and that too screwed with my mind a bit more then I was expecting. The Haunted Mansion grave diggers had set up a photo stop, but at this point I was more… lets keep moving.
Every year I seem to remember Osceola Parkway a bit better, and this year I was reminded by Jeff of the two “ramp hills” or overpass hills, one crossing over the roadway to All Stars, and the second World Drive on the way to Hell on Earth… oh wait a minute, I didn’t mean that, Wide World of Sports.
If I thought there was going to be a nutrition station at Mile 9, I was ABSOLUTELY sure there was a Clif Shot stop along Osceola Parkway, only thing was… where? Turns out it was right before mile marker 17. A little late for my taste to be honest but at this point I was pretty desperate. Next time, no assuming there will be gels early in the race, and plan to carry what I need, like I have done every other time before, duh. On the way down Osceola I also noticed an ambulance on the shoulder with a runner, with a half marathon bib, sitting inside. I have to say, I was glad it was not me (for obvious reasons), like seriously THANKING GOD it wasn’t me. I did feel a little bad, but not entirely because he HAD done more then the half he signed up for.
So in previous versions of the race Mile Marker 17 was already well into Wide World of Sports (herein referred to as WWOS), in the 2017 version Mile 17 was right before the turn into WWOS instead, and we were doing ok, that was until Mile 18. Now I will give Jeff credit, on our very first marathon, Space Coast Marathon in 2013, Jeff “crapped” out around Mile 16. However, since our arguing was done way before (like Mile 1-4), and also as my goal this time around was to finish in front of the balloon ladies I didn’t really complain.
Let me stop there, for those that don’t know for almost every Disney race (both Disneyland and WDW) there are usually two ladies that pay full registration fees, carry balloons, and run/walk at almost an exactly 16 min mile and are the last to cross the starting line, meaning if you don’t want to get swept off the course, you better stay ahead of them. They strike fear in the hearts of all of us slowish runners. They are a mere myth to the faster runners out there, but hark… they really do exist. For 2017 I had decided to track one of the balloon ladies to give me an actual idea how far ahead of them we were. Around Mile 17 I looked at my iphone to see when the Balloon Ladies had passed the half marathon point, and I found we were almost 3 miles ahead of them, or about 45 minutes ahead. I also knew at this point we were about 30-40 seconds a min mile below the 16 min mile requirement. So when Jeff asked about running a ¼ mile and walking ¾, I was good with that. I had tested it and knew it would average around a 16 min mile. That lasted… oh a little over a 10th a mile. Jeff’s quads starting cramping up badly, he said he could walk but couldn’t run. Ok walking is ok. Still keeping a 16-17 min mile, no problem. Of course by now I had figured if we were forty-five minutes ahead of the balloon ladies, and we had 8 miles to go we only had to keep a 21 min mile pace for the rest of the 8 miles to not get swept. Yep, funky marathon math at its finest.
Somewhere around mile 19, we ran into a first-time marathoner, a big guy, ex-football player, who had gotten talked into doing the WDW marathon and seemed to be having a really hard time, as in seriously contemplating not finishing bad time. At this point there was no way we were going to be breaking any land speed records, and Jeff was still hurting, so we figured instead of making it just about us finishing, lets have a good time doing it too and help someone else out too. I believe the conversation started because he was wearing a Dallas Cowboys shirt, and of course, us being from Kansas City, and still having hope that we might actually make it to the Superbowl for the first time in my lifetime, maybe against Dallas Cowboys, it was a fun time.
So in WWOS, of which I refer to as hell on earth during the marathon, the marathon ceased being a race, and instead became more of a party, which considering just how horrible I was imagining the marathon WOULD be was a major positive step, and took lemons and made lemonade. Mile 20 came up next, and once again instead of it being on the way out of WWOS, it was located in the outfield of the baseball stadium, at this point we were maintaining a pace of around 17-18 min miles, and somewhere between mile 20-21 as we passed by the parking lot we had only a few days earlier arrived in on a bus to pick up our race packet, we still saw runners coming in on the other side (mile 17), so we knew we still were about three miles ahead of the sweepers, so I mentioned to our now growing group that we could probably crawl in on our hands and knees and still finish without a problem. Good feelings.
We finally made the turn back onto the entrance road to WWOS and starting making our way out, mile 21 seemed to take forever to approach. Going back to the original Space Coast marathon, I vividly remember miles 20-26 feeling like they stretched on forever. Of course, at that point we were walking most of the way as we were in this case too. Of course by this time the street sweepers were already out cleaning up the streets, and in the past at this point we would have been passing the last stragglers, so I knew we were going slower then previous years, but as there are literally almost 4 miles (Mile 17-21) within WWOS, I wasn’t really worried.
Between Mile 21 and 22 the course turns back onto Osceola, and about a half a mile down makes a turn onto the entrance ramp to World Drive. There is a small hill here, and just like last year a green army guy (think from Toy Story I, II and III) yelling at run/walkers to get moving, forcing them to do push ups, sounds really horrible but its actually really funny. It definitely gets you moving!
Soon after the course turns down onto World Drive, but it doesn’t actually merge onto World Drive, since the course then goes up the exit ramp, and turns right onto Buena Vista Drive, that if you follow it long enough goes by Boardwalk, and the Hess gas station across from it. USUALLY Mile 22 would be at the top of the hill, instead we had already passed Mile 22 marker about ¾ a mile previously. It was still Jeff, RJ and I, walking and I think by this point RJ who had been questioning his ability to finish the race, had come to realize that finishing was becoming much more probable. We also ran into another runner we knew somewhat well, through Mark, named Jen. She seemed to be hurting bad, and didn’t seem to be in the greatest spirit, and our small group seemed to bump into each other rather on and off for the remaining portion of the race. It was also about this time I decided to remove my last additional layer, the Goofy tech shirt, not because I was hot (because I most decidedly NOT, it was only about 51 or so about this point), but because I wanted to cross the finish line with my Inaugural Dopey shirt in the picture.
Now if you remember the last time I had to use the restroom was at the Mile 2 ½ drama, it was about now (four-five hours later, not exactly sure) that I really needed to go to the bathroom again, only thing was there was no where to go exactly. We turned into the back entrance to Hollywood Studios, behind Tower of Terror. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (Walt Disney’s first popular cartoon character that preceded Mickey Mouse), and man I really wanted to stop, but I think the bathroom took precedent. No porta-potties, and at this point, yeah I wasn’t going to find a bush. So I told Jeff I was going to run past and see if I could find one. Jeff who told me later he was surprised I could still run at this point, and while yes it was uphill part of the way, I still don’t get the point of that comment. Hallelujah though there was a REAL (aka stationary, non-porta potty) bathroom at the top of the hill.
Now here is where it got interesting. In previous years the course had turned and gone through the Backlot Tour costuming tunnel, through Streets of America and out past ABC Commissary. Well… as most of that no longer existed (ABC Commissary is still there), there was NO WAY the course could go that way anymore. This change was the reason for the modifications to the previous 23 miles, and why we were approximately ¾ of a mile ahead of course mile numbers in the past. So instead, of the round about, twisted curving around Hollywood Studios, the course instead took a turn immediately after Tower of Terror and landed us run/walkers on Sunset Blvd, the walkway that connects the main park entrance to Tower of Terror. The course then turned left past Crossroads, and out the park entrance. So maybe ¼ to ½ a mile tops in Hollywood Studios. At this point though we were back on the exact same course as the last three years.
It was about this point I think my feet regretted the idea of walking the last 8 miles, it was about this time I realized we would be over 7 hours for a marathon and the two were probably related, as my feet were killing me at this point. I am sure that had to do with the decision to wear almost brand new shoes for the marathon too. Never, ever doing that again! Mile 24 just wasn’t coming either, I thought I knew where it was (just past the over pass on the walkway to the Boardwalk) but it wasn’t there either, and it had gotten to a point that I felt I was wandering amid a never ending course. Mile 24 did finally come and pass (it’s near the Boardwalk villas section), and about this point we received a text message that Courtney had finished. It was also at this point that we were so close, yet so far away. The course then ramped up the bridge connecting the Boardwalk to the Swan and Dolphin (I call it the sail bridge, as it has large sails like a sailing ship on it), then past the Beach Club. I thought I would feel emotional at the finish line, and I was a bit. I was probably the most emotional though passing the Beach Club. Only eight months prior I had sat there, in a scooter, with a broken hip and watched as Mark, and Jeff and my sister had all ran a race that I had so wanted to do myself, and had signed up for, but obviously could not do. I had sat as a spectator. Which don’t get me wrong spectators are incredibly important, and its still fun to spectate in its own right, but I so wanted to get a big “you’re my #1” finger gesture to exactly where I sat, but I decided not to because obviously those spectators today would have no idea why!
I was back exactly where I wanted to be, and even if I was walking, even if I HAD had to walk, it it was still 1000% worth it.
We passed by the international gateway that connects EPCOT to the Boardwalk and Beach Club resorts, I believe Tigger and Winnie the Pooh were there for photos. We entered EPCOT at the United Kingdom pavilion and noticed a sweeping bus, which we thought was unusual because in previous years the last sweep was outside of Hollywood Studios (sweeping buses are easily identified as they are labeled as parade bus), we then wound our way to France and the Mile Marker 25. At this point everything was going by as a blur, I know we ran into Jen again somewhere around Mexico and it was about that time that the inside of my right foot started to hurt. I figured I had blisters on my feet, both from how long I had been on my feet, combined with the fact that I hadn’t attempted this distance for a year, and the stupid decision on my part to wear almost brand new shoes on a marathon.
As we passed through the walkway connecting World Showcase and Future World I think back to what I was thinking at that point, and I will be honest I don’t remember a whole lot, I wasn’t thinking about pace, I wasn’t thinking about what was going on around me, because honestly Future World was a complete blur to me, I do remember my foot hurting, and I do remember thinking over and over that we were almost done. The next moment that IS vivid to me is going past the hallelujah choir, for at the end of the half and full marathons for marathon weekend they are always stationed right at the last mile marker, in this case Mile marker 26. The first year I had done Dopey the moment I saw the finish line that was my, “I did it!” moment, or I guess emotional moment. This year it was the dang choir. Sure I didn’t do 48.6 miles this year, I did 35.5 but let me be honest with myself. I was dead set serious with fear that I wouldn’t finish. But I wasn’t worried about the 5k, 10k or half. NO. It was the full marathon. TO the point that when I told my mom about marathon weekend I said I was doing a marathon because for me that was the only challenge left. I honestly, 100% seriously, never thought I would finish. Yet I did. It was the 7th marathon I had completed, yet it was the first one that at the start I seriously didn’t know whether I would finish or not. Yet I did.
I do recall very vividly the moment we crossed the finish line. I received all four medals (full marathon, goofy and dopey of course, but also the half that was a bit odd). Jeff asked if I wanted to get our photo taken, and that was as if there was a question? One point I noticed during the photos post race of all races is the lack of specific race backdrops, in the past there had been a different backdrop for each race, and after the marathon there was one for the marathon, Dopey and Goofy challenges. This year it was all standard RunDisney backdrops, I’m not sure if that is a marathon foto thing, or a photopass thing, or a RunDisney being cheap thing. I will say immediately afterwards we headed directly to the buses, my feet hurt, really everything hurt, and in the most sincere rendering of that phrase that is used over and over… I just wanted to sit down. Of course I found out on the bus, after my brain started working again and I checked Facebook that Mark, Courtney and a group of runners friends had meet up for an after race photo. This is the problem with most marathons, my brain turns off, and I don’t realize what I miss until after the fact. Oh well. We still had some plans for that night though so it wasn’t an entire loss.
The bus dropped us off, thankfully, at the normal bus stop, which made for a shorter walk to the room, and once again I was ever thankful we were as short a walk as possible on the first floor!
TMI alert!
You have been warned. So once we arrived back at the room I went immediately to peeling off my socks I wanted to take a look at my feet, figuring that I had at least a few blisters. Once I took off my socks… it wasn’t as bad as I thought, though I had two quarter sized blisters on both my heels and two small ones on my balls of my feet. Could have been worse, and I learned two very important points… one) try never to go not running for such a long period (aka DON’T break my leg again), and two) NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER wear new shoes for a marathon. Yep.
TMI moment over
So I next did the first thing that every marathoner thinks about when they get back to their hotel room, no not sleeping or eating, but those are very good guesses. I took a shower. The shower at BLT 1 bedrooms are just beyond amazing, a shower head and a rain shower in one. Very nice. Thankfully though I could feel just about every muscle in each leg individually my hip seemed to feel okay, which is what I was worried about the most. Afterwards I got dressed, ate a few snacks out of the RunDisney snack box. It was around 3 or so now, and we had dining reservations at Be Our Guest at Magic Kingdom at 6:45 pm, and I wanted to take a nap… but it just wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t really that tired believe it or not. So after completing 26.2 miles (ok more like 27), getting up at 3 am in the morning, and freezing my butt off, what did I do? I packed. Yep, another “mistake” that I had to make it seems twice so far is checking out on the day after the marathon. I did this last year at Polynesian and this year at BLT, next year I am making a solemn promise NOT to check out until at least Tuesday. We did have a lot of stuff scattered across the room, that happens after 3 (should have been 4) days of races, but I did a pretty good job picking stuff up and packing most of everything.
I know I sat down and surfed Facebook for awhile, downloaded some photos from RunDisney, etc. A little after 5, we both started moving towards leaving for Magic Kingdom. Ever since we had started running Dopey I had wanted to go to Be Our Guest for dinner afterwards, for whatever reason (mostly because Jeff didn’t want to go anywhere after the marathon), we didn’t. This year I had made THIS one dining reservation at 180 days. I usually don’t make them that far in advance because I stand by the belief that no one should have to know what they want to eat 6 months ahead of time (right?!), but this was one I wanted to have. Of course, in the weeks and then days proceeding Dopey I thought long and hard about cancelling it. I was that dead serious that I didn’t think I would finish. Thankfully I didn’t cancel. Around 6 we headed towards the monorail at Contemporary, and took it over to Magic Kingdom. Now typically it is MUCH faster to walk from BLT/Contemporary to Magic Kingdom, it’s about a 5-10 min walk, vs a 15 minute or so monorail ride. Uh but we had just ran a marathon, and it was cold out… so yeah ride. We arrived at Magic Kingdom around 6:30and headed straight for Be Our Guest in Fantasyland. Mark was joining us but was running a few minutes behind us (how often does THAT happen?), we had checked in but were told we couldn’t go inside until all of the guests showed up, which was only about a 30 second wait.
I think at this point I was actually starting to get tired but it wasn’t too bad, both Jeff and I had the steak, which is rather unusual for me, I’m usually more a fish person, but beef sounded good, and protein is good for you after a marathon, so of course right? We were seated in the ballroom, which had the windows with the (fake) but still beautiful falling snow behind them. It was fun, but I wasn’t all that impressed with the service itself. After eating we stopped for a picture with The Beast, which is a huge trademark of eating at Be Our Guest, and took a few pictures before leaving. By now the park had closed but still had some guests lingering around since it had just only closed. We decided to walk back to Bay Lake Tower since the line for the monorail was enormously long, and I fell asleep rather easily that night.
After a good nights sleep, we had our second big dining reservation, Chef Mickeys. Unlike Be Our Guest which was a reservation I had wanted for four years but never had actually done until this year, Chef Mickey’s was one in which we had made into a tradition and had eaten at every year after Dopey for four years. It came about right after the first Dopey in 2014 when after passing through Contemporary we realized we could get a photo with every character for every race (except Dopey) at one restaurant, Chef Mickeys. I had changed the time though of the reservation from 7 until 10 am in the morning though a few days prior figuring that by 10 we would be up and out of the room. Turns out that was absolutely the case. I had packed most of everything the day before, so we ended up packing a few other items, cleaning out the fridge, and called bell services to come and hold our luggage until we left the parks that day. One annoying point of DVC is that we did receive a hang up call, and knock on the door from housekeeping around 8 in the morning. Next time… I am taking the phone off the hook and putting a do not disturb sign on the door. That’s just annoying. We were out right before 10 though without a problem and headed straight for Chef Mickeys right next door.
'
There was a 5-10 minute wait but overall the wait wasn’t too bad, and we were seated right next to the buffet. The food is good, not amazing, but decent, and of course what almost everyone is there for is the characters. It seemed like in the past we would barely have sat down to eat and then the characters came around, this time seemed much more relaxed having made it through most of the food (two plates of it) before the characters came around. Of course we all got photos with Pluto (5k), Minnie (10k), Donald (half marathon), Mickey (full marathon) and Goofy (Goofy challenge), and we had them sign the medal ribbons as well. Chef Mickeys IS expensive, but like many things at Disney its worth it I think.
We finished up around noon or so and decided to head over to Magic Kingdom for a few hours, I had to work the next morning but I figured we could hang out for a few hours. That same morning I had set up two fast passes, one for Jungle Cruise and a second for Space Mountain, so we headed for Jungle Cruise first, since we had a FP there around Noon, right afterwards we stopped at Sunshine Terrace and Jeff and I got their raspberry frozen lemonade, Mark went over to Aloha Isle for a Dole Whip. Next we headed over to Tomorrowland, it was a little early for our Space Mountain FP, so we rode TTA, a ride that almost always has no line (though the next weekend it would have a 20 min line!). By now my feet, and the blisters were not feeling all that well, so we figured we would ride Space Mountain and then maybe head out. We hit Space Mountain around 1:30, our last plan was to get a photo in front of the castle with all the medals. I had done this last year at EPCOT, but really wanted one in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom, of course because of the location of the sun I look terribly in pain… but I wasn’t. At that point though it was around 3, and I figured Jeff and I should get headed home, I had to work the next morning and had to be there at 5. Yep that was seemed like a good idea several months ago, now not so much.
We walked back to Contemporary, grabbed my truck out of the parking lot, and went to the entrance to BLT to gather all of our bags, or at least what I THOUGHT was all of our bags. Of course once we got home and unloaded everything, we found we had forgotten the refrigerated bag, which wasn’t a horrible loss except one of my SDC pie plates was in that bag, so it was back we went. I finally got back home around 6, and was able to relax a little before going to bed for work again…
So it ended.
No flight back to Kansas City, I was wondering how being on site at Disney would feel with us living only 30 minutes away. It felt just like it always had, but I have to say the part about heading home half way through the trip to grab a few kitchen items felt a little… odd. I hadn’t really wondered about my DVC, which we had initially bought (well the first 25 points) in 2007, it was almost all bought and paid for, except for the 50 Polynesian points we had added on two years previous. So we figured we would keep it, as all we had to pay was dues and the small monthly payment for Poly. After this trip, I felt we had made the right decision, vacation is vacation whether it’s halfway across the country or 30 minutes down the road.
Reviews
Bay Lake Tower 9/10
First off I almost never give a perfect ranking, so this is about as good as it gets from me. We own 50 points at BLT bought for $94 a point right after it went on sale, and it’s the one place we own at that I wish we owned more at and this stay made me realize that just a bit more. (We also own at OKW, VWL and Poly). I banked and borrowed and with 150 total points I was able to book a standard view 1 bedroom at 11 months with no walking, from Wednesday through Monday. One mistake I have made the last two years is to check out on the Monday following the marathon. We will not be doing that again. Don’t do it. The only hiccup we experienced was the fact that we did not receive the room ready text, but it wasn’t really too much an issue as once we made it back at around 5, the room was ready and we went immediately to it. The room itself was in good shape, I believe there was a soft goods update recently, and it showed. One other minor issue was that there was only one small pan for cooking, so I guess that’s a small negative. The shower in the master bath was frickin’ amazing it was a combo normal shower head and rain shower. The bed was comfortable, Mark and Courtney slept in the living room and they said the pull out was very comfortable. It was nice to have two bathrooms, and I didn’t ever feel cramped. The location was unbeatable, we walked to Magic Kingdom a few times, caught the bus back from Beach Club to Magic Kingdom and walked back to BLT. Contempo Café was good, and still stands as one of my favorite Quick Service options in the deluxe resorts. No complaints whatsoever, and will be glad to come back in three years.
Photopass
Star Wars darkside was the first RunDisney race I had signed up for that no longer used Marathon foto, Marathon weekend was the first RunDisney race I had RAN that no longer used Marathon foto. In the past, Disney had relied on Marathon foto for official race photos, which was insanely expensive (about $30 for one picture download), and I had only used for online trip reports by “print screening” with the marathon foto watermark. This time though since we are Annual Passholders and get “free” Disney photopass downloads that meant all of my race photos would be free. So what did I think? Overall I think there were far fewer race photographers, but as in the end I ended up with MANY more usable race photos I was overall happy. The only downside meant that I really didn’t take any photos with my own camera and I am now missing moments that I had taken photos of previously. Which is something I will remember for next year.
RunDisney
My opinion on RunDisney has really been back and forth the last year or so. When we first started running RunDisney back with the first 5k in 2013, the first Dopey Chellange in 2014 and Tower of Terror 10 Miler in 2014, the experience WAS expensive, the course was slightly crowded, but the experience was definitely worth it. Around 2015 to 2016 races KEPT going up in price, but they dumped the two best races two years in a row (the final Tower of Terror was in 2014, and the final Wine & Dine at night was in 2015), both jeff and I were rather put off by the shortening of the Wine & Dine course in 2015, partially due to thunderstorms, partially due to the required “shortening” of the after party. In 2016, during the Dopey Challenge we again noticed that over about half of the characters along the course had been cut, along the while prices continued to go up. Now to be completely honest, in 2017 there seemed to be an uptick in total characters along the course (which of course is moderately hypocritical considering we almost never stop for characters). However, I think we are not only alone in feeling slightly “ripped off” by Disney as races that used that sell out in days, and sometimes hours, are now open for months and months. Not that I am entirely complaining about that. However, I agree with many that Disney races don’t hold as much interest as they may have in the past, and that is WITH them being local races and not having to pay to fly to them either. For 2017 we have completed the Dopey Challenge, and are signed up for the Star Wars Darkside half and are comtemplating one or two others (Wine and Dine 10k if its still open in a few months and possibly a Disneyland race to get coast to coast for this year). On the flip side I do have to still give Disney credit, there races though expensive are INCREDIBLY well organized, especially when one considers just how many people are running them at the same time. Disney may also be realizing that they have hit maximum capacity and hopefully the quality will continue and prices will stabilize, we will see.
I was still a perfect Dopey and yes we all still exist, all 700 or so of us, no we didn’t do 48.6 miles in 2017, but we have done 181.1 miles over four years and that’s saying something.
