A Procrastinator's Super Late 2011 Marathon Trip Report!

Hi All! As I await our trip in November, I spend a lot of time reading others trip reports and I really enjoy them. It immensely helps to pass the time before we embark on yet another trip to our favorite vacation destination. I had always planned on writing a trip report on our Disney Marathon, but life got in the way and I didn't get around to it. I keep receiving emails about next year's marathon and it brings about mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am happy to not have to put in the grueling miles of preparation to prepare for it but also pangs of jealousy for those that are doing it because it was such an awesome experience.

So to relive the experience and to psych myself up for the next trip, I decide to write this much delayed trip report. I think it will be mostly pics with a short narrative as so much time has passed. I hope you enjoy!

On to the report!
Cast of Characters: My husband, Dan and myself, Kristi
Stayed at Coronado Springs from Jan 7-14, 2011

My short backround story to our madness begins in October of 2009 when I read Hollybelle's Marathon Trip Report. I thought it sounded like such a great time that I somehow convinced my husband that we should do it in 2011. Keep in mind that I have never been a runner. I could barely run a mile when we started training. We started with the Couch To 5K program. We entered a few 5ks then a 5 miler. In August, I injured my knee and it looked as though the marathon was in jeopardy. Luckily my husband is a PT and rehabbed my knee. We continued training with me back to running in October. In December, we had worked up to a long run of 15 miles. That was the longest run we were able to get in before the marathon, so we were a little worried but figured we would just go, have fun and make the most of the experience.

We took a later flight on Friday from Atlantic City to Orlando. The plane left around 6:30 pm. We landed in Orlando around 9 pm. The line for Magical Express was pretty long.

I was surprised because we usually land in the early morning and are able to get right on the bus. We waited about 45 min before we were able to board the bus. We were starting to get pretty tired and hungry. We were looking forward to seeing Coronado Springs since this is the first time we would be staying at this resort. We were the second stop and starving by this point.

We checked in at a empty registration. We had done online check in but I guess that didn't matter since we were the only ones.

By the time we got there, checked in and dropped off our luggage, the counter service was closed. There was a menu stuffed under our door for a pizza place that delivered. Dan talked me into letting him order pizza. Unfortunately it would take 45 min for the pizza to be delivered. That meant dinner at midnight! Yay! And we had to be up and on a bus around 3 am to cheer on my friend who was running the half marathon.

The pizza delivery guy would call Dan on his cell when he arrived at the front of the resort. I wandered around taking some pics while waiting.

 

[Kristia]

It is super peaceful at night!

It was getting pretty close to 45 minutes now, so we walked up to the front to meet the delivery man.

Waiting for some pizza.

Finally the pizza arrived. We ate (don't remember where it was from but the pizza was not worth the wait) and went to bed at about 1 am.

 

[Kristia]

We were awoken by our alarm at 3 am and crankily crawled out of bed. We made our way to the bus and spent the early morning hours trying to catch a glimpse of our friend running. With 20,000+ people running, we only caught her once running near the Poly. We headed back to the finish line to congratulate her at the finish. After the race, we headed to the Wide World of Sports to pick up our race packets and goody bags.
The nerves were starting to kick in for me once I saw this sign!

We also stopped by the expo. I bought a jacket and Dan bought a shirt. We considered buying "I did it" shirts, but felt that might jinx us.

After a much needed nap, we headed to the Magic Kingdom for a pasta lunch at Tony's Town Square. The meal was pretty good, but the service was just ok. I can't remember what I had but I believe Dan had the spaghetti with meatballs. We were very happy to see the Christmas decorations were still up as we had never seen the parks decorated for Christmas before.

 

[Kristia]

Sorry, some of these pics are a little out of order!

I think we may have taken a quick ride on Pirates after dinner, but we headed back to the room at about 6 pm so we could get a good night's sleep. 2:30 am comes fast! I think we were asleep by 8 pm.

 

[Ariel484]

Kristi, thanks for posting this! Better late than never! :sohappy: I'm really looking forward to the rest of your report as I'll be running the marathon in 2012.

 

[Kristia]

Kristi, thanks for posting this! Better late than never! :sohappy: I'm really looking forward to the rest of your report as I'll be running the marathon in 2012.

Yay! Good luck with the marathon. It was so much fun! I can't wait to do it again. I hope to write some more tonight.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Great TR so far!! My sister and I are trainin to do the Wine and Dine Half next year... We have a year to train and neither of us are runners!! I'm determined though!!

Cant wait to read more!!

 

[Kristia]

Great TR so far!! My sister and I are trainin to do the Wine and Dine Half next year... We have a year to train and neither of us are runners!! I'm determined though!!

Cant wait to read more!!

Thanks! Good luck on your training! It is soooo worth it. The key is to start off slow and build very gradually so you don't get burned out and discouraged. I highly recommend the Couch to 5k method to start. Just do a search on the internet to get the plan. Once we did our first 5k, I was hooked. After the 5k program was complete, I used marathonrookie.com. They have beginner marathon and half marathon training plans. Even after the marathon, I have continued running and we are doing a half marathon next weekend. I will never win any races but it is fun competing with yourself and trying to outdo your last time.

 

[Kristia]

The ungodly hour of 2:30 am arrived much too quickly and we dragged ourselves out of bed. Luckily we had set out everything we would need the night before. I brought a throwaway hoodie from Walmart that I had for years and a pair of sweatpants from Goodwill. We planned on bringing our MP3 players, 4 Power Bar gels a piece, our running shoes with D-tags, salt capsules (really helps with cramping when doing super long runs), our watches, bibs, a clif bar each for breakfast, our race bags to store things during the race, a phone and my little point and shoot camera.

Our pre-bus photoshoot. I was in a hurry and took pics just before Dan brushed his teeth. There was no way I was missing that bus!!

We were at the bus stop at 3:15 am with a bunch of other equally crazy people. I was so excited and nervous. Was I going to be able to finish this thing with a partially bum knee? I had been wearing a knee brace while running since my injury. It still would ache a little after runs and I had never run anywhere near the mileage I needed to put in today. I was also worried about keeping up the pace and not being swept off the course.

We soon arrived at the Epcot parking lot. Spaceship Earth looks beautiful!

We begin our trek to the staging area, which is in a sectioned off area of the Epcot parking lot.

Staging area - the tents with the letters were areas where you can meet your family after the race (or before the race)

A nice woman offered to take a picture of us before the race. There were so many nice people at this race it was amazing!

Dan has realized the craziness of the journey we are about to embark upon!

We did not pay extra for the VIP tent. The weather was nice although a little chilly. I think it was about 35-40 degrees at the start. I felt that I could put my sweatpants in the checked bag and just wear shorts at the start. Dan put his sweatshirt in the bag and just kept on his Under Armour long sleeve tee. We turned in the bags and stepped through the point of no return! Only people with bibs were allowed beyond the bag check.

Now it looked like everyone was heading to the start because we couldn't see what was beyond the bag check. But it was just another holding area where they were packing people in pretty tightly. We still weren't able to start to the start line yet. There were plenty of porta-pots in this area, more so than in the staging area.

Finally at about 5 am they began to lead us on the long walk to the wave corrals. I have heard quite a few people online and in person at the race complaining about the walk, but I enjoyed it. It felt good to move and I like to walk a bit anyway to warm up the knee. There were a couple of porta-pots on the way but there were more in the wave corral area as well.

 

[Kristia]

We made it to the corrals and found Corral G. That was the 2nd to last corral. We estimated that we would have a 6 hour finish time.

The corrals were filling up fast! While waiting, we were standing next to the 5:30 pace group leader. She was discussing her strategy for the group and I thought maybe we should try it. Yeah, great time to change our strategy!:ROFLOL: We knew we couldn't run the whole thing, so we were going to try to walk for a couple minutes each mile. She said their group was going to run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute for the whole marathon. She guaranteed that if you could keep up, you would finish in 5.5 hours. Sounded good to me! The guy who was talking to her said he had only completed a 7 mile run during training.

After what seemed like forever, wave A starts with a blast of fireworks!:sohappy: We could just make out the start line.

 

[Kristia]

There were fireworks with each wave start! They even were sending off fireworks behind us.

We are getting closer! We can finally see the start line a little better.

Woohoo! Here we go! We are going to try to follow the balloons (that is the pace group). As we went through the start they sent up some flames. Boy did that feel so good! Gave us a little warmth after standing in the cold for 50 minutes.

See you guys on the course or at the finish!

Sorry about the quality of these pictures. It is very challenging to run and take night time pics. They get a little better as the sun comes up!

It was a very surreal experience when we hit mile 1. We had trained so long and our moment was here. We were actually doing this!

Shortly after Mile 1 we headed through the Epcot Toll Center. Can you tell from this blurry picture?

 

[Kristia]

Yes! Mile Marker 2! We are 1/13 of the way done:ROFLOL:

We entered Epcot and as we entered World Showcase we saw Epcot's Christmas tree. That was a sight to behold! I really wanted to stop and take a proper pic, but we had to keep moving to keep up with the pace group.

I think it was around this time that I discarded my hoodie. I was warming up and I hate being encumbered by extra clothes. Dan on the other hand doesn't mind running in sweatshirts and pants. Ewww. I get too sweaty!

Soon after the tree we left World Showcase via backstage near Norway and looped around to the start line again. After the start line we passed miles 3 and 4.

Getting photos of the mile markers in the beginning was a little tough. I never knew what side of the road they would be on and I had to keep cutting across many lanes to get photos. This was causing us to fall behind the pace group a little but we could still see them.

Wow! Mile 5! Could that be a glimpse of the sun I see?

In between Mile 5 and 6, I took a pic behind us. Look at all those people behind us! At least we are not last!

Mile Marker 6! The sun is coming up at Disney! What a beautiful sight and we are still going strong.

Mile Marker 7! The miles are just flying by! I can't wait to get to the Magic Kingdom. On a side note, there were a lot of people like me taking pics of the mile markers. I did hear at least once, somebody say "Geez, its just a mile marker, you don't need a picture!" Listen buddy, you run your race, I will run mine.

 

[Kristia]

There are the Magic Kingdom tollbooths! Alas, we must go the long way around but at least we are getting close.

Mile 8!

Shortly after Mile 8, drivers from the Richard Petty Driving Experience were there to cheer us on.

Coming up near the TTC we had some doo-wop entertainment complete with classic cars and 50's music.

A "Fonzie" dude was playing some tunes. Sorry for the blurriness! So hard to run a take pics!

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

 

[aeillill]

I'm loving this! My friend and I are planning to run the Princess 1/2 marathon in 2013 so this is great motivation to start working on training.

 

[MKCP 1985]

Great report! Brings back good memories of this race. :wave:

 

[Kristia]

I'm loving this! My friend and I are planning to run the Princess 1/2 marathon in 2013 so this is great motivation to start working on training.

Good luck with your training! I would love to try some of the other races. We are definitely going to try to be back for the 2013 marathon. My husband is toying with the idea of trying for the Goofy medal. Maybe I will join him We will have to see how our training goes!

 

[Kristia]

Great report! Brings back good memories of this race. :wave:

Thanks!

 

[Ariel484]

Yay! Love it so far!

We planned on bringing our MP3 players, 4 Power Bar gels a piece, our running shoes with D-tags, salt capsules (really helps with cramping when doing super long runs), our watches, bibs, a clif bar each for breakfast, our race bags to store things during the race, a phone and my little point and shoot camera.

Isn't it crazy, all the stuff one needs for a long race??? :lol:

Finally at about 5 am they began to lead us on the long walk to the wave corrals. I have heard quite a few people online and in person at the race complaining about the walk, but I enjoyed it. It felt good to move and I like to walk a bit anyway to warm up the knee. There were a couple of porta-pots on the way but there were more in the wave corral area as well.

I agree with you. Disney has the runners get to the races so incredibly early that I'd rather walk than just sit around. It's a good way to get a little warmed up, like you said, and helped me with the nerves a bit.

The corrals were filling up fast! While waiting, we were standing next to the 5:30 pace group leader. She was discussing her strategy for the group and I thought maybe we should try it. Yeah, great time to change our strategy!:ROFLOL: We knew we couldn't run the whole thing, so we were going to try to walk for a couple minutes each mile. She said their group was going to run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute for the whole marathon. She guaranteed that if you could keep up, you would finish in 5.5 hours. Sounded good to me!

I do not understand how those paces do it! Very impressive.

The guy who was talking to her said he had only completed a 7 mile run during training.

Yikes!

Yes! Mile Marker 2! We are 1/13 of the way done:ROFLOL:

I totally do the same thing...thinking of each mile in fractions/percentages :lol:

We entered Epcot and as we entered World Showcase we saw Epcot's Christmas tree. That was a sight to behold! I really wanted to stop and take a proper pic, but we had to keep moving to keep up with the pace group.

I think the Epcot Christmas tree picture is kind of cool! :sohappy:

On a side note, there were a lot of people like me taking pics of the mile markers. I did hear at least once, somebody say "Geez, its just a mile marker, you don't need a picture!" Listen buddy, you run your race, I will run mine.

Um...lame. I'm sure for most people this is a one-in-a-lifetime event. :shrug: How is it hurting that other person if someone takes a picture of a mile marker? I'm glad you still ran YOUR race! :sohappy:

EDITED TO ADD: Can't wait for more!!

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Good luck with your training! I would love to try some of the other races. We are definitely going to try to be back for the 2013 marathon. My husband is toying with the idea of trying for the Goofy medal. Maybe I will join him We will have to see how our training goes!

My aunt is running in the Goofy Challange... I'm not 100% sure what that entails but I think she said it's a half marathon PLUS a full marathon....???

 

[Ariel484]

My aunt is running in the Goofy Challange... I'm not 100% sure what that entails but I think she said it's a half marathon PLUS a full marathon....???

Yes, you run the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon the next day!

EDITED TO ADD: And if you run the 5K on Friday (so the three races 3 days in a row) it's unofficially known as the Dopey challenge!