Friday, January 30, 2015

Dopey again Year 2!

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What is the saying "This &^%$ is about to get real?From last year I had learned that the ½ marathon portion of the Dopey is really an omen for the marathon on Sunday, basically how I felt after the half would determine how I would do on Sunday.  The goal was nice and slow, to preserve as much stamina as I could for the next day.  Now I had brought with me two pairs of running shoes, a newish pair of HOKA Clifton’s and a pair of Saucony Guide 8’s.  Since the Clifton’s were light weight and I had yet to try them for a long run, I thought running in a shoe I was more familiar with, the Saucony’s, would be a good idea for the next two long races.  The weather was still chilly on Saturday morning for the race, but since this would be double the distance of the previous 10K I decided to suffer with the cold, and wear my Lulumon running skirt and pink tech shirt, with the pink sweatybands hat and pink compression socks, I was definitely VERY pink.  I also wore my Spacecoast jacket thinking I could take it off on the course and wear it around my waist. I also brought along another emergency blanket to cover my legs, in a kilt-like fashion while we waited for our corral.  


It turned out the wait was not long after all.  We had left with plenty of time, or so I thought, leaving for the bus around 4:15, the bus was there when we arrived with plenty of space, and we technically should have arrived about an hour before the race start.  Didn’t happen, traffic was inching along on Buena Vista drive, and what should have taken 5 minutes ended up taking about 30 minutes.  Thankfully World Drive itself was relatively traffic free, and we made it to the drop off at about 5:15. Since we were in a corral far far away, Corral K to be specific, we had a significant amount of cushion time to get to our corral.  For the two shorter races, the 5K and 10K it was a short jaunt to the corrals, for the longer races, the ½ and full, there was about a ½ to ¾ mile walk to the corrals, which I like to call the cattle call, as there are thousands of runners traversing this dark wooded pathway towards EPCOT center Parkway.  The forecasted high temperature for Saturday was in the mid-60’s, making the start for the ½ marathon still a little chilly, but compared to the warm and humid start the previous year, is preferred.  You can always put more on but only can take so much off right?


I have to say after this race the WDW ½ marathon is becoming one of my favorites, long enough that you get to enjoy the best parts of a WDW race, in that you get to run through Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, but not so long that it wastes your entire day like the Marathon does.  It probably also helped that this year we had run already 9 half marathons, as opposed to only 2 the year before, so half marathons were becoming more routine, and less of a challenge.  The half marathon starts on EPCOT center drive, and heads out straight for the first 2 miles on standard concrete roadways.  Right around mile 2, the course turns right onto an exit ramp and onto World Drive towards Magic Kingdom. This section is somewhat congested and the slanting road way doesn’t make the turn simple.  Once on World Drive it is an enjoyable next few miles, we passed the Magic Kingdom Toll Booth (mile 3), went through the Ticket and Transportation Center (mile 4), and then headed under the water bridge, on our approach to Magic Kingdom.  The actual turn into Magic Kingdom is not through the main gate as you would expect, but passes under a Railroad crossing and into Magic Kingdom through the backstage areas, the turn into the backstage area is approximately Mile 5.


Suzy had texted me while we were still waiting for the race to start to let us know she was on her way to the Magic Kingdom.   I wasn’t entirely sure how easy spectating would be in Magic Kingdom due to the reserved “Cheer Squad” sections, that you had to pay for.  Still Suzy found a good spot on Main Street USA and got a photo of us going by! Not an easy feat with how congested Main Street was.  The course then turned right into Tommorowland, and turns again and heads towards Fantasyland.  I was surprised Dopey wasn’t around as a character meet by the new Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train, I mean you would think right?   Suzy was there again as we ran through the castle and got a pic of us with the castle behind us, a photo we had missed on last year’s run.  Another photo op we had missed last year was with the steam train and engineer on the Frontierland crossing, which is about Mile 6.  We missed it once, we weren’t missing it again!  There was very little wait and we got our photo and went.  


Here the course exits Magic Kingdom and begins its journey back to EPCOT, we passed the Grand Floridian, and Polynesian along with the Wedding Pavilion on Floridian Way.  Floridian Way is BY FAR the most congested portion of any WDW race I have ever encountered.  It’s a 2-lane road, with one lane open for car traffic, leaving only one lane for runners.  We ended up in the grass A LOT, as in many cases people were walking shoulder to shoulder along the course.  URG.  We turned back onto World Drive and the runner/walker traffic spread out with three lanes instead of just one, opening up the course for our trip back. There was a “free” GU booth which we stopped for (free flavored sugar yeah!) and then it was home free for the half.   In the last few miles the sun had begun making its presence known, I had shedded my jacket and wrapped it around my waist, and ended up sweating a little, but overall was not to bad.  We again crossed the finish line for a 3rd time (the finish line is the same for all four races), got our medal, headed towards the Dopey tent once more, and again it was just a pass through.  I know a lot of people stressed about this, how it was different then previous years, but the way I looked at it, I wasn’t stressed about it.  Try taking my Dopey away from me and watch out. J We got our free snack box, banana and powerade and again headed for the bus to take us back to OKW.

Since the races were getting longer with each day we didn’t make it back to the room this time until about 11AM, I began to ice everything down, I bring a box of sandwich bags and get ice from the hotel and make my own ice packs this way.  I know many take ice baths, and I’m sure they work but I just can’t get myself to sit in a bathtub full of ice water… so ice packs it is.  I iced down anything that was even remotely sore, for me ankles and Achilles which are always my two trouble spots. 
After relaxing a bit we took showers and I started snacking on the snack boxes provided, pretty good this year, goldfish, tortilla chips and cheese, and my favorite squeeze packages of cinnamon apple sauce, yum.  Our decision for food today had been discussed a little over the previous days. I knew I didn’t want to do too much walking, so our tentative plan was to take the OKW boat to Downtown Disney and get good carb-loading food options at Wolfgang Puck’s Express.  I really chowed down, mac and cheese, and chocolate brownie, I knew I would need all those calories and then some on the next day, not to mention the 20 some miles I had already ran.  After eating we did do a little shopping, Jeff got a Dopey 48.6 mile cell phone case for his Iphone 6+ (to add to his pile of cell phone cases he already has), checked out a few of the other shops including Art of Disney and the LEGO store and headed back to OKW.  Following my rehab plans from the previous year my next stop was the hot tub, One nice advantage to OKW is that each quiet pool has it’s own hot tub, both Jeff and I spent about 20 min. there, and then headed back to the room.  The ice earlier and heat later seems to have worked well these last two years, and certainly helped ease a little of the soreness I had so I think that is our plan going forward.

Over the last week I had followed the weather forecast for Sunday.  If I had a choice I would have preferred warm weather on the shorter races and cool weather on the long Marathon, because if it turned out to be the predicted warm and sunny we would be miserable for the last half, as it takes approximately 6 hours for us to get through a Disney Marathon.  The forecast was a high of 78 and various chances of rain and cloudiness.  I knew I couldn’t expect temperatures to change much in 24 hours, but I was hoping for cloud cover, which helps immensely!  I laid out my running gear one more time, and this time was a little more serious, no more worrying about the temperature at the start, and more thinking about the temperature around noon. I decided on a semi-translucent Nike tank top, a black lulumon running skirt, compression sleeves, purple sweatybands hat, and SPI belt which I filled with cliff shots, and a second pack of Spark.  I also gave Suzy a bag of pretzels to hand to us around Animal Kingdom, as I found that I probably was having probably hyponatremia (low sodium) on previous marathon races.

It was still a little chilly so I did still bring another emergency blanket, wrapped over my bare shoulders. We left about 10-15 min. earlier this morning for the bus due to horrible traffic the day previously… it was worse, but again due to our outer rim corral assignment (K) we made it with plenty of time, and didn’t have to wait around long.  I had also made the decision to change out shoes, as I mentioned previously the ORIGINAL plan was HOKA’s for the first two shorter races and Saucony’s for the longer two.  I had worn Saucony’s the day before for the ½ and seriously felt like I was wearing bricks on my feet afterwards.  So I decided to take a chance and run the marathon in my lighter HOKA Clifton’s.  GOOD CHOICE.  The moment I crossed the starting line I could already feel how much lighter my feet felt, and that was only with a 2 oz. difference between the two types of shoes.

The first 8 miles were basically a repeat of the previous day, but I began to notice around mile 4 my right ankle telling me it was there, it wasn’t necessarily pain but it worried me, with over 22 miles left to go.  It was about that time that I began to feel really stupid about doing a fast 7 mile run right before leaving, because it had felt a little sore then too.  Overall I didn’t find the first 8 miles as congested as on the half, but I had made the decision no to do as much swerving on Grand Floridian drive as I had the day before too to help my ankles and avoid the rough mud and grass. It was right after mile 8 that the marathon and ½ marathon courses diverge.  The marathon headed us onto the WDW Speedway, the sun was out at this point, but overall the temperature was holding steady in the low 60’s and I hadn’t started sweating, good signs. 

Exiting the Speedway at mile 9 we started heading towards our next park, Animal Kingdom, I generally consider the next 3 miles the 2nd most boring portion of the WDW marathon, as it weaves through the back areas, water treatment plant, and a massive Animal Kingdom backstage area.  At this point, I knew if it was sunny and hot it would mark the beginning of a miserable 2nd half or 13-15 miles, thankfully it was anything but, the sky had become overcast, was threatening rain with a slightly cool breeze and comfortable temps.  As we passed mile 11.5, we picked up a “free” banana, and I also applied some “free” bio freeze to the sore ankles.  I also noticed how many runners were surrounding the medical station, laying down or sitting, or stopped stretching out.  I was thankful that I seemed to be in better shape at the moment, and hoped both my body and the weather would hold out!  I also texted Suzy at this point to let her know we were about to enter Animal Kingdom’s backstage.  I almost immediately received a text back saying she was waiting near Kali River Rapids, I was unsure where this was on the course, having only run once through Animal Kingdom on the previous year’s marathon, but I made a point to really watch for her. 

Animal Kingdom is probably the shortest distance of almost any park that the Marathon transverses, literally you enter at about mile 12.5 and exit before 13 miles, weave through Asia and Expedition Everest, past Dinosaur and out of the park near Primeval Whirl.  I knew when we crossed by Everest we had missed Suzy, so I stopped, called her quickly, while doing so noticed the hundreds of runners passing by and crowds surrounded the course would make finding her at this point virtually impossible, and we would waste a great deal of time doing so.  So I texted back and said we would continue on.  Turns out I had no reason to worry as she found her way to the front of the park, about a half mile further on, and was able to catch us then!  A nice side note is that we were able to pick up my baggie of pretzels for later on in the race.

A lot of people dislike the next 3-4 miles, which heads pretty straight down Osceola Parkway towards EPSN Wide World of Sports.  It is pretty flat, boring, and right out in the sun with no shade.  I know at some point if we continue to run Dopey that I will experience how truly hellish this strip of road can be, I mean no shade around 11a.m. or so?  Thankfully our experience was completely different.  We mixed our 2nd pack of Spark about Mile 14, and not soon after it began sprinkling.  I was thankful; even if it did rain the rest of the entire race, way better then hot, sunny and 80 degrees!  I had done several practice runs in misty to pouring rain conditions, and two half marathons in the pouring rain, so rain no longer scared me.  It obviously scared those running around us… people were “stop the rain!” and I was like “NO!, I like the rain!”  The streets weren’t really slick except for the paint dashes and overall it was pretty nice running experience.  What really terrified me was waiting next, ESPN…

In 2014 we also ran the Dopey, and though Dopey wasn’t my first full marathon, it was not a great marathon experience.  I quite literally felt like I was running in a near collapse haze during EPSN, which adding to the shear boringness of EPSN (its 3 miles of empty fields) makes it my least favorite part of the Disney marathon.  By the time we had reached mile 17 and the entrance into EPSN it was downright raining, it felt quite good actually, yet they were also giving out cold wet towels in ESPN, which felt nice too, being able to wipe down my face. 

IN 2014 we had run the marathon at a 2:1 (2 mile run, 1 mile walk) pattern until mile 13, when we switched to 1:1, at this point we were still at 2:1 and feeling good, well at least decent.  Was EPSN still boring? Absolutely, but I didn’t feel at Mile 20 the need to lay down and die, and that made for a MUCH BETTER experience.  Exiting out of EPSN at mile 20, we looked over towards the entrance (its out and back for a short period) and saw the balloon ladies coming. Last year this freaked me out, this year I became the consoler, as several ladies around us seeing the same thing became concerned, I knew at this point we were 3 miles ahead of them and even if we had to walk the next 6.2 miles we would be fine and explained this to those who were concerned around us.  I think it helped. 

Also at this point I dug out my pretzels and began inhaling them, I think after 4 marathons I might have found a good option for low sodium at this point in the race, as I never really ran into a wall during Dopey this time.  At mile 21 we started our walking mile and I took the opportunity to text Suzy again, I had texted her last about mile 14, and thought the Beach Club area would be a good vantage point and allow a reasonable amount of time for her to get there and get a spot.  Suzy had texted me that she was there now, and I was just updating her as to our position.

Right after 21 the marathon exits onto World Drive, and was my mental “I got this” moment last year. This year I was still feeling pretty good, though Jeff was a little fatigued, so we ended up walking about a ½ mile up the overpass hill, and past the 22 mile marker (which by our plan we should have ran).  As the road turned into the Hollywood Studios at EPCOT Resorts Blvd, we began running again, and it also began raining again, so none of the street of America performers met us in the Hollywood Studios backstage area as they did in the previous year.   We headed into the old Backlot Tour area next, and ran through the old costuming tunnel; in the previous year this was a simple dark tunnel, which was nice on a sunny day.  This year, most likely due to the Backlot Tour be axed, the costume tunnel featured strobes, fog, colored light DJ the whole nine yards.  Pretty cool.  Mile 23 was right at the exit of the tunnel and the course then turned onto the Streets of America.  The rest of Hollywood Studios went by as a blur, and soon we were exiting the gate and headed towards Boardwalk and our final destination EPCOT!  Funny enough as we were exiting the park, an EPCOT bus was parked waiting for riders, and there was a split second though about climbing aboard and taking a ride for the last 2 miles!  Those would have been some FAST split times!

Mile 24 came up quickly and it was about this time, with only 2 miles to go that time seemed to stop and the distance seemed to crawl by…  We meet up with Suzy at Beach Club, she was sitting there with a long time spectator of the WDW Marathon, she also had two cold bottles of Coke, 100% calorie fully loaded, (and found out later it should have been flat), but tasted great!  We rested a few minutes but soon enough we off running again. 


Jeff and I had been talking and he was filling tired, and my feet hurt like crazy, Jeff wanted to walk Mile 25, but we compromised and walked part of the mile, and ran about the last ½ (my feet hurt less when I am running).    I had learned from the marathon in 2014 that Mile 25 seemed to take forever to reach,  this year I knew exactly where it was, in the France Pavilion.  I shared this little nugget with runners along the way, since by that time you just want to finish.   As we entered World Showcase you could see all the way across to Mexico, and it seemed like an eternity to reach.  As we moved forward we crossed into China, and Mulan and Mushu were there together, I had thought at the time it was a regular park Photopass stop (EPCOT was open to the public by this time), but it turned out to be a Marathonfoto, and it was a great photo!  We also caught up with another runner dressed up as Lilo (from Lilo and Stitch) we walked with her for a bit, before she split off at Germany for a beer.  A tradition for marathon runners is to make stops along the course, whether it be at McDonalds on Osceola Pkwy for a McFlurry, A ride on Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom or an adult beverage in EPCOT.  I think one of these at least is a must try for next year.:)

We started running again right after Mexico, on the bridge heading for Future World, by this time the rain had stopped and the sun was out, it was getting pretty toasty but with only ½ mile left it was a non-issue, but thinking back it would have been HELL if more of the race had been in that weather.

Soon enough we crossed through Futureworld, and the turn for the exit out of EPCOT was approaching, we passed the hallelujah choir, and then ran down the chute for the finish line.   It was a great feeling, and for the 2nd year, I still have to say that though Dopey is expensive, it is worth all $500 of the registration fees.  Looking back I think this year was by far a better experience, as I wasn’t hurting near as much as I was the previous year. We received our Marathon medal, and then headed for the Dopey tent for our Dopey and Goofy medals.  The cast members verified us against our original photo from the expo, confirmed we had completed all four races and received all our finisher medals.  Our next stop?  The Bus, we had advised Suzy that we were heading immediately for the bus back to OKW.    The previous year, once back in our room we were dead to the world until the next morning, this year we still took a nap, but were able to get up get something to eat and relax in the hot tub later that evening.  I believe overall our training was improved over the previous year, and offered a better experience.  OF course the weather worked out for us too!  So the question this year of whether we would come back for year 3?  Not much to question this year, we will be back for more in 2016!










































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