Feet Fur Running: The Disney World Marathon Weekend: Part 1

Well, I've experienced my first Disney Marathon and I will say that they do know how to throw a party!

We left the bitterly cold Midwest on Wednesday evening and arrived in balmy Florida late that night. The flights were really uncomfortable for me, with my knee in particular having painful spasms pretty much the whole time. Thursday morning Alex and Phil went for a short run around the Port Orleans Riverside resort, where we were staying, and saw a lot of the runners returning from the Family 5K that took place that morning. The jumping off point for all of those Dopey runners!

We grabbed a quick breakfast and then hopped on the shuttle to the Marathon Weekend Expo. It was probably close to 10:00 when we got there and it was not crowded at all. I think the rainy/misty weather probably had a lot to do with folks not feeling like they needed to get there first thing in the morning (as our plan had originally been so that we would have a full day in the park afterward). Alex was in corral A for the half marathon and Phil in G, and both walked right up to get their bibs. I had one person ahead of me for my marathon corral of H. T-shirt and bag pickup were in the main expo hall (the one with the official Disney New Balance shoes), and that was equally as swift. They had a table just past Tshirt pickup where you could exchange your shirt for a different size. They had plenty in all sizes, but I would imagine as time goes by you might be out of luck.

We browsed both the main expo hall and the Champion Stadium Expo. Alex bought a half marathon jacket. We looked at the shoes. Phil was tempted as that is the exact shoe (well, minus the mouse stuff) that he runs in currently, but we all walked away without any in our possession. Did buy a flipbelt, which worked brilliantly on race day. Returned back to the resort, dropped off our stuff and then headed to the parks.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, bright and early! The alarm went off at 3:15. I was worried on Friday night that it would be difficult getting up so early, but with all of the excitement for Alex running his first half, I was up and ready to go. The boys took off for the shuttle at 3:45 and I continued to rouse a slow moving 14 year old daughter/sister who didn't have the same level of excitement for the day ahead. She did rally, though, and we managed to walk out the door at 4:20 to head to the starting area at Epcot.

Phil was sending me text updates about where they were and how long of a walk it took to get to the start, etc. If Kate and I had been out there earlier, we might have tried to get to the corrals to see the boys before the 5:30 start. We got to Epcot around 4:50 and decided we'd better head directly to the Magic Kingdom to see Alex when he hit Main Street USA, at around mile 5.2. According to our calculations from the previous day riding the monorail between the two parks, it would take us at least 30 minutes to get to MK from Epcot, and that doesn't include walking from the bus drop off area to the station and the station to the park. Alex figured he'd run the 5+ miles in about 35 minutes, which means we needed to be on Main Street by 6am.

Main Street on Sunday morning. No jackets required the day Alex and Phil ran.

I had signed up for the runner tracking, but really had no idea when or how often I would get updates. When we got ourselves situated on Main Street, I saw a group of spectators wearing what looked like "official" WDW spectator t-shirts so I asked on of them if they knew how it all worked. The guy I talked to said that he remembered there being a timing mat at least a quarter of a mile from the turn on to Main, and that I should have plenty of warning before Alex arrived. Good. The first wheelchair athelete came tearing through, then a couple of others and then the first foot runner came flying around the corner. Then a few more, then the first female runner. More fast runners came through and still no text. I started getting a bit concerned that something had happened to him. Let me back up and say that it was extremely humid and warm that morning. It really felt like a sauna out there. We had gotten pretty comfortable with running in cold, dry air so this heat was oppressive. Then, all of a sudden, I see his floppy hair!! No text, but at least he was doing well! His 5K split, which I received on the monorail back to Epcot, was 19:14/pace 6:12. The text updates were really great. They gave split times for the 5, 10, 15K plus an estimated finish time that updated with each split time.

As much as we wanted to stay to wait for Phil on Main Street, we had decided that it would be better if we were at the finish for Alex. So Kate and I headed back to Epcot. We found a great spot just shy of the finish to watch for Alex and cheer him to the finish line. I took a super short video clip of him going by, but I will apologize because I was not watching him through the camera so you see him, then you don't, then you see him. Oh well. I'd rather witness the moment. BTW, he's not the guy in a green shirt that I do seem to have captured...he's the shirtless one.

He ended up finishing his first half marathon in 1:38:45! Super proud of that guy!! He said it was tough and that he probably started out too fast (his goal was to catch the elite starters, ugh). But he said he enjoyed it, too.

Phil was in corral G which got started around 5:50, so more time hanging out in the humid weather. He said it definitely had an impact on him but it also caused him to be really proactive at hydrating! He hit the 5K split in 33:48/10:53 pace and finished in 2:37:28.