Life’s A Beach, And Then You Run: A 2012 Marathon Weekend Trip Report!

Ariel484 · Jan 13, 2012

Day 2: Saturday, January 7.

Originally I’d planned to head to the Studios this morning for Extra Magic Hours, but after being there the previous night I decided to just sleep in a bit and possibly catch the end of the half marathon.

Here’s the view from my balcony:

Looking at the resort…I never realized that the resort (the blue building) and the villas (the greenish building) are actually 2 different buildings. You learn something new every day!

Maybe it was just me being weird, but the balcony seemed extra small. :shrug:

Ariel484 · Jan 13, 2012

I got myself cleaned up and wandered out to the common areas in the villas.

The Drawing Room:

Here’s the path to the resort from the villas. I’m standing with my back to the villas entrance looking at the resort. For whatever reason this had been incredibly confusing to me the night before.

On the path, looking at the villas entrance:

The covered walkway from the villas to the resort. The walkway leads right to the entrance of the Beach Club Marketplace.

Another thing I need to mention here…as I was standing outside taking these pictures, I realized that I could hear the half marathon finish line! (“Bring it home! You’re about to finish the 2012 Walt Disney World Half Marathon!”) Very exciting! Also, as I made my way to the resort, half marathon finishers wrapped in their mylar blankets were arriving from the finish, donning their hard-earned Donald medals. I realized, OMG, that’s going to me tomorrow!, a thought that was equally exciting and terrifying. I also realized that I had dawdled too long – there was no way I was going to make it to Future World in time to see any of the half marathon and still make it to the expo at a decent hour. Bummer.

I suddenly found myself with some time to kill, so I decided to explore the resort.

Cape May Café:

Mickey sandcastle:

Oops, almost forgot breakfast! Back to the Marketplace for a muffin and an apple, enjoyed in the Solarium. And coffee from the room (which I’d made when I woke up and forgotten to take with me…had to go back and grab that). No mud, er, Nescafe for me.

By now it was about 9:30. The expo was set to open at 10…time to head to the bus stop!

tiaragirl · Jan 13, 2012

Forget Will - I would have been upset if you avoided my beloved TOT!

Can't wait to hear about the marathon, ee! So much respect for people that are able to do that!

Joshua&CalebDad · Jan 13, 2012

Shannon, I stumbled across your last marathon TR in the fall and was so impressesd by it that I shared it with my wife. It has also motivated me to start training to at least do the 1/2 marathon, possibly next January. I have just started running in the past three months and know I could easily do a 5K but because of you and your husband's TR I have set my sights on the 1/2 marathon. I'm truly excited to see that you did the marathin again this year and I can't wait to read all of your TR. Way to go. :sohappy:

On a side note, my wife is about to start training for a 5K through a program at our church. As soon as she is done with that, I am hoping that she will start to train with me for the 1/2. Hopefully we will have our own TR to post next January. A man can dream.

PartOfYourWorld · Jan 13, 2012

enchanted_belle said:
I need to sit down and figure out money logistics for it to see if I can pop down for a weekend (I think Jess and I talked about even staying together! )... I'd love to make a full trip out of it, but with student teaching in the fall, I can't take off from my class duties.

yes!!!!!!!

Ariel484 said:
You're in great shape if you've started training already! My advice to you would be to just go sloooooow at first. Don't feel any pressure to get super fast quickly if you're just starting out!

Thanks for the Archie love! And Will thanks you for the get well wishes!

Definitely! I figure since I have 9 months I'm starting small, I've started the couch to 5k program and then i'll move on from there!

Thanks for the advice!

sweetpee_1993 · Jan 13, 2012

Ariel484 said:
I almost felt guilty going on this without Will, as I knew it was his favorite, but I knew I’d get yelled at if I didn’t. Plus, well…I just really, really wanted to ride it. I got stuck with a few obnoxious guys in the library that seemed to really want to prove to everyone just how much they knew about this ride (“Hmm, I bet the lights will go out! I bet the TV will turn on now!” etc.). Dude, you’re not impressive. Shut up. Then, as I entered the Boiler Room I found myself behind a group of cheerleaders who were, apparently, planning to chant “Down the shaft! Down the shaft! Down! The! Shaft!” during their ride. :lookaroun Okay, I’ll admit it, that one made me giggle…having said that, when they went into the line to the right, I veered left. Then I ended up sitting next to a super obnoxious dude on the ride that was screaming and yelling "WOOOOOOHHHHH!" at random points. Awesome.

So despite all these super cool people I'd encountered, the ride was most excellent as usual. On the way out I grabbed a ToT coffee mug and shirt for Will.

Love this window display:

I'm making a mental note that it seems when solo a person might be more aware of the people around them, like what they are saying. Normally when I'm in the parks I'm in the zone, in-tune to the boys or Tracey or what I'm doing never really noticing people around me. Tracey points it out when people do or say stupid stuff. :lol: And, uh, I think you might not like to ride ToT with Tracey. When the elevator doors shut at load he'll to the big "Wooooo!" and throw his arms in the air. Usually gets the nervous people laughing. And when we are on rides like IASW when the boat starts moving forward at the veeeeery beginning of the ride he does the same thing. :ROFLOL:

I like that dance line Minnie ornament window, too! It's one of my fav's! :sohappy:

flipadeeflop · Jan 14, 2012

I'm hooked! I'm interested in eventually planning a trip during the marathon at some point in the next few years, so I am excited to hear all about it!!

jhoff3405 · Jan 14, 2012

Can't wait to read more!
A friend and I are looking to do the Wine & Dine 1/2 this fall, but the Disney Marathon is definitely on my bucket list.
Can't wait to hear about your latest experience!

Kristia · Jan 14, 2012

Yay! I have been looking forward to your report! I have to live vicariously through other marathoners since I couldn't make it this year. Sorry to hear about your husband being sick. I can't imagine going to Disney without my hubby. I am glad to hear he is on the mend! Your fur-kid is adorable! Love the mix! As a mother to only fur-kids, I know how important it is to include them in your reports! I can't wait to hear about your journey in the marathon!

And hearing all of you talk about the TOT 10 miler is making me jealous! I don't think that will be in the cards for me since we want to try to do the marathon in 2013. All these races get expensive!

Ariel484 · Jan 15, 2012

tiaragirl said:
Forget Will - I would have been upset if you avoided my beloved TOT!

Can't wait to hear about the marathon, ee! So much respect for people that are able to do that!

Well I'm glad I rode it then. I wouldn't want to upset people! :lol:

Joshua&CalebDad said:
Shannon, I stumbled across your last marathon TR in the fall and was so impressesd by it that I shared it with my wife. It has also motivated me to start training to at least do the 1/2 marathon, possibly next January. I have just started running in the past three months and know I could easily do a 5K but because of you and your husband's TR I have set my sights on the 1/2 marathon. I'm truly excited to see that you did the marathin again this year and I can't wait to read all of your TR. Way to go.

On a side note, my wife is about to start training for a 5K through a program at our church. As soon as she is done with that, I am hoping that she will start to train with me for the 1/2. Hopefully we will have our own TR to post next January. A man can dream.

Thanks so much, what a nice comment! :sohappy: If you put your mind to it, you can totally do a half marathon.

I can relate with trying to get your spouse to join you. I'm trying to talk Will into doing the ToT 10-miler with me in September, but a lot of that will depend on how his health is and if he doesn't change his mind between then and now :lol: Tell your wife she'll regret it if you come home with a finisher medal and she doesn't have one!

PartOfYourWorld said:
yes!!!!!!!

Definitely! I figure since I have 9 months I'm starting small, I've started the couch to 5k program and then i'll move on from there! Thanks for the advice!

I started with Couch to 5k too! It's a great plan.

sweetpee_1993 said:
I'm making a mental note that it seems when solo a person might be more aware of the people around them, like what they are saying. Normally when I'm in the parks I'm in the zone, in-tune to the boys or Tracey or what I'm doing never really noticing people around me. Tracey points it out when people do or say stupid stuff. And, uh, I think you might not like to ride ToT with Tracey. When the elevator doors shut at load he'll to the big "Wooooo!" and throw his arms in the air. Usually gets the nervous people laughing. And when we are on rides like IASW when the boat starts moving forward at the veeeeery beginning of the ride he does the same thing.

I like that dance line Minnie ornament window, too! It's one of my fav's!

Oh Tracey...:lol: I think you make a good point that I did notice that stuff more since I was by myself. But it was hard not to notice since the guy was sitting right next to me! :ROFLOL:

Admittedly I think part of my crabbiness was due to me being whiny about being there by myself. That weekend was really an emotional rollercoaster.

flipadeeflop said:
I'm hooked! I'm interested in eventually planning a trip during the marathon at some point in the next few years, so I am excited to hear all about it!!

You have to do one at some point, Angie. They are ridiculously fun. Would Kevin be on board too?

jhoff3405 said:
Can't wait to read more!
A friend and I are looking to do the Wine & Dine 1/2 this fall, but the Disney Marathon is definitely on my bucket list.
Can't wait to hear about your latest experience!

I think it's on a lot of people's bucket lists...at least that's what a lot of runners' t-shirts said during the race :lol:

Kristia said:
Yay! I have been looking forward to your report! I have to live vicariously through other marathoners since I couldn't make it this year. Sorry to hear about your husband being sick. I can't imagine going to Disney without my hubby. I am glad to hear he is on the mend! Your fur-kid is adorable! Love the mix! As a mother to only fur-kids, I know how important it is to include them in your reports! I can't wait to hear about your journey in the marathon!

And hearing all of you talk about the TOT 10 miler is making me jealous! I don't think that will be in the cards for me since we want to try to do the marathon in 2013. All these races get expensive!

As a fellow dog mom you must understand how ridiculous we are about our dog

Like, of course there's no logical reason to put a picture of him in the trip report, yet here he is!

You're totally right that these things are expensive. The only way I found to save money on registration was to sign up right away (before the price increases) and use my Disney Visa, because that gave me an additional discount - maybe $20 off the registration price? I forget. I also rented DVC points and found a room discount for my mom and brother. Where I get nailed is on flights. Blech. :cry:

Of course, now that I canceled Will's flights he's got some credits to use up. That's almost begging for a return trip to WDW, don't you think?!

Ariel484 · Jan 15, 2012

I did not enjoy the Princess Half Marathon expo in 2011. Everything – bib pick-up, d-tag activation, vendor booths, etc. – was crammed into the HP Field House. It was jam-packed with people, hot…just not at all pleasant. So I was hoping to get to the marathon expo as early as possible, do what I needed to do, and get out quickly.

The special runDisney transportation wasn’t actually at the normal bus stop…I think it was near a convention area of the resort or something. At any rate, they did have special signs telling us where to go. Of course, now that I really wanted to get somewhere early, this was the longest I had to wait for a bus the entire trip (maybe 15 minutes). During that time about 4 or 5 half marathon shuttles pulled up to drop off half marathon finishers.

I ended up sitting next to a really nice woman from New Jersey on the bus to the expo. She told me that this was her first marathon as well…she’d trained for the 2011 marathon but had slipped on a patch of ice on New Year’s Eve and broken her arm, so she couldn’t participate. Isn’t that horrible? Plus, she’d missed the deadline to defer her entry to this year, so she’d lost the entry fee. Woof.

We arrived at the ESPN Wide World of Sports a bit after 10…marathon signage was everywhere!

First stop was the HP Field House for bib pick-up and b-tag activation.

Look at how empty it is! What a beautiful thing. For the Princess Half, bib pick-up and vendor booths were ALL in this room, and it was packed. It was so nice to have things spread out this time. Plus, at this point, the only people that were picking up packets were non-Goofy marathon runners and relay runners, so that helped cut down the crowds a lot.

I love this ad. I’d seen it all year in issues of Runner’s World.

I was a very nice sister and offered to grab my brother’s stuff for him (I needed a copy of his drivers license, his signed waiver, and a form from him allowing me to pick up his stuff), so I had 2 lines to wait in. I hopped into his first (6001-6500) and then into mine (5501-6000).

I got my marathon bib (I took this picture after the race, which is why the bib is so wrinkled) and pin…oh crap, they actually expect me to run this thing!

The half marathon bibs were royal blue (with Donald), the Goofy racer bibs were orange (with Goofy, of course), and I believe the relay bibs were white (with Chip and Dale).

Ariel484 · Jan 15, 2012

Next stop was Runner Relations to change Craig’s corral so that we could run together. This corral placement stuff continues to be a mystery to me. The races start in waves (so the fastest runners are in Corral A, and they start first, then B a few minutes later, etc.) and runners can submit a time from a previous race to try to move up in corrals – so you’re guaranteeing yourself an earlier start. I thought Craig had submitted a time from the same race I did (a 10-mile race), yet even though the time he would have given Disney was 20 minutes faster than mine, he was in corral E and I was in corral D.

So I am guessing that he actually did not enter his time, and this makes me think that people that submitted times were in corrals A-D. I entered in a time when I signed up for the race, but it was a slow one, so I was in the last possible corral for people that submitted a time, and then those that didn’t give a time to Disney were in E-H. The order for E-H is something I’m not sure about – is it based on when you sign up for the race, or when you think you’ll finish? Who knows.

Okay, enough rambling on corral placement. I’d brought a proof of time for Craig and easily changed his corral from E to D. My last task was to walk over a timing mat to activate our b-tags (which are attached to the bibs and track our time). One of the volunteers got weirdly snarky with me for having 2 bibs until I explained that I’d picked one up for someone…odd. :shrug:

Bibs in hand, I was off to the Jostens Center for the expo.

Shoppinggggggggg! :sohappy:

The biggest area in the back had official race merchandise. On my way there I picked up our goody bags (which were not impressive – no drawstring mesh bag like we got for the Princess Half, just a bunch of coupons and ads) and tech shirts…which I LOVE.

My favorite detail is on the sleeve…since the course goes through all 4 parks, we get all 4 park icons!

The shirts for the other races were very similar – the half was royal blue with Donald on the front (the castle and Spaceship Earth were on the sleeve), the Goofy shirt was white (totally should be orange to match the bibs and stand out, in my opinion) and the Chip and Dale relay shirts were, I think, dark blue. Very cool. I should also point out that the shirts are unisex…I probably could have used a smaller size, but I still love mine.

Ariel484 · Jan 15, 2012

After getting the shirts, it was on to the official race merchandise area. I found their use of color on the merchandise to be really interesting. For example, most of the marathon stuff was purple, not red like the tech shirt/bib, for whatever reason. :shrug: I really wanted a hooded sweatshirt, but it was brown, so I balked on that one (and regretted it later). Here’s what I did get…a Marathon Mickey plush (which the monster pup definitely thought was a souvenir for him…nice try, buddy!):

A coffee mug:

And one of those “I did it!” shirts. The CM assured me that no, I was not jinxing myself by buying this thing the day before the race…I would be jinxing myself by NOT buying it, since they’d almost surely be out of my size! That’s salesmanship for you. The shirts were in women’s sizes, which was nice (they also had a long-sleeved version that was black and, I think, in unisex sizes).

I don’t really love the concept of these things...I bought it purely for the course map on the back.

Apologies for the messed up color here. It’s a dark purple shirt.

There was also lots of “runDisney 2012” merchandise (hats, shirts, etc.) and more pins. It wasn’t crowded at all so I could take my time looking. As a nice bonus, I could use Disney giftcards that I’d gotten for Christmas to pay for stuff and the CM gave me a Premium AP discount of 20%, which was really nice since I only have a regular AP.

Ariel484 · Jan 15, 2012

I didn’t find much else I wanted to buy (I really wanted a Mickey-shaped 26.2 sticker for my car but never found one) but I did find the runDisney booth with all of the other race medals!

From L-R, Coast-to-Coast, Tinkerbell Half, Neverland 5k (I think?!), Disneyland Half, WDW Half…

…WDW Marathon Relay, WDW marathon (mine mine mine!!), Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge, Wine and Dine Half…

…Wine and Dine Half again, Wine and Dine Relay, Expedition Everest 5K and the 2012 Princess Half Marathon medal.

I wish I’d done a better job with these and made them into a panorama. Oh well.

Anyhoo, no Tower of Terror 10-miler medal! Boo! I grilled the runDisney representative and he said that the medal is a secret. He also said that there will be a 5k race during the weekend and that the 10-miler course will be “all-terrain” – concrete, dirt, etc. That’s all I could get out of him.

My last purchase at the expo was The Stick (picture from their website):

Basically you roll it over tight muscles and it helps to loosen them up. The guy at the booth let me try it and let me tell you, the thing works.

On the way out of the expo there were castle screens set up and stations to print free photos! I like free.

Definitely not a great photo of me AT ALL, but they printed out a free copy for me and allowed me to email it out to people, so I have a digital copy as well. Hooray? Oh well, how often do you get something free at Disney?!

After running into my New Jersey friend from the bus for the 2nd or 3rd time that morning :lol:, I wandered around taking some pictures before heading back to the bus stop.

Just a few baseball games going on that day:

He’s jammin’:

Heading out.

At the bus stop, New Jersey friend and I were at the same place at the same time again! It was pretty funny by that point. On the bus back they were playing an information video with tips about the race and logistics of how race morning would go. Great idea. A guy on the bus commented that Disney should dedicate a channel on the resort televisions to this stuff as well. Even better idea.

By now it was about 11:30, and I was getting texts from my mom that she and Craig had checked into the Yacht Club. Hooray! I made it back to Beach quickly, dropped off some stuff, and headed over to their room.

Kristia · Jan 15, 2012

Ariel484 said:
Of course, now that I canceled Will's flights he's got some credits to use up. That's almost begging for a return trip to WDW, don't you think?!

I definitely think those credits should be used for a Disney trip! That's what they were purchased for after all! Will is owed a trip! :ROFLOL:

fractal · Jan 15, 2012

Those pics of Beach Club has me feeling homesick.

Nice recap of the pre-marathon procedure - I can't wait to hear about the race!

TakeMeThere81 · Jan 15, 2012

Ariel484 said:
Look at how empty it is! What a beautiful thing. For the Princess Half, bib pick-up and vendor booths were ALL in this room, and it was packed. It was so nice to have things spread out this time. Plus, at this point, the only people that were picking up packets were non-Goofy marathon runners and relay runners, so that helped cut down the crowds a lot.

I love this ad. I’d seen it all year in issues of Runner’s World.

Wow, it was empty! You are right, last year was a madhouse!!!

I LOVED that ad!! One of my favorites!

I love all of the souvenirs and your t-shirts!!

Yay!! I am loving your report already and getting excited to read more!! :sohappy::sohappy::sohappy:

Long story short...I need to change my siggy because our travel plans have significantly changed, but...there's a good chance I might get a chance to run the Disneyland Half this year! I hope!

Kristia · Jan 15, 2012

We bought The Stick at the expo last year! It does work too! It hurts like hell doing it after the marathon, but I think that is why we were still able to walk later that evening! Great purchase!

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 15, 2012

Yay yay this is an awesome TR so far! :sohappy:
Props to you girl for being able to run a full marathon! Can't wait to read about race day and the rest of your stay!

I have 1 question: What kind of camera did you use on this trip?

diddy_mouse · Jan 15, 2012

I love all the merch you saw/picked up. The tech shirt with the park logos on the sleeve is SWEET! And I must say, seeing those medals is a fantastic way to get that "I can totally do this" confidence boost. :king:

I remember your Princess Half report and seeing the pics of the madhouse that was the registration pick-up-area-thingy. Very nice to see that you had some time to browse without feeling claustrophobic.

Race report time is drawing near! :sohappy:

Life’s A Beach, And Then You Run: A 2012 Marathon Weekend Trip Report!

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