On Wednesday the first day of the expo I headed out to ESPN World Wide of Sports to join thousands of other people to shop and pick up my bib. I hadn't attended a Health & Fitness Expo for Marathon weekend since 2010, and I couldn't believe how many more people were there compared to Princess weekend and Wine & Dine! Lines were wrapped around the Jostens Center and down past the tracks just to get into the Expo! I did manage to actually get everything I went for, so that was a nice surprise. My past expo experiences with the runDisney booth had been a nightmare! It felt like Black Friday x1000 with all the people crammed into that small area all grabbing and reaching and shoving at the same time. This time they had queline and only allowed a certain amount of people in at a time. My mom and son joined me on this trip. After I picked up my bib and commemorative merchandise we headed over to the Beach Club resort for an early dinner at Beaches and Cream Soda Shop.
(Pre-order commemorative tumbler and ornament)
The days leading up to the Marathon were filled with hydrating, stretching and 1 last short run. The weather forecast kept changing and was getting colder and colder as we got closer to Sunday morning. By the end of the week the forecast seemed to settle on a morning temperature in the 20-30's! This Florida girl was going to be cold! I went out and bought a last minute pair of throw away sweatpants and sweatshirt and found an old fleece blanket I could use in the corral. Even though it was going to be cold, thankfully it wasn't going to rain. Unfortunately the rain and storms were predicted for Saturday morning when the half marathon was scheduled. On Friday night Disney made the announcement that they were actually cancelling the half marathon and all kids races on Saturday. I felt so bad for all those people that had traveled and trained and paid a lot of money for this! But Disney has to think of the safety of thousands of runners and volunteers first. I was a part of the 2015 Wine & Dine half of a half that got cut short due to thunderstorms so I definitely knew how they felt! I was following blogs and facebook throughout all this and that night and morning it was amazing to see what happened. Runners started forming groups and went out and ran those 13.1 miles on their own around the resorts. Spectators gathered and cheered them on, and I even read about ESPN at Boardwalk creating a water station! People made signs and even character stops! It was so inspiring to see these people and the running community come together and support the runners turn a disappointing situation into an experience they will never forget.
On Saturday afternoon my husband, son, and I headed out to Orlando. We were spending the night at Lake Buena Vista Resort and Spa. It is off Disney property but only about 10 minutes to the parks. We wanted a 2 bedroom suite because my parents were also coming out and staying with us that night. This was the first time we stayed at this hotel, and I would definitely stay again! We had so much room, the beds were comfortable and it was actually pretty quiet!
That evening we headed to Disney Springs to have dinner at Portobello Country Italian Trattoria. The last time I had eaten there was before my first half marathon in 2014 during Wine & Dine. We had the best ravioli's I had ever had and was looking forward to having them again. Well unfortunately due to the cold weather they couldn't sit people outside so they lost 1/3rd of their tables and even with reservations we weren't seated until an hour past our reservation time! And then they were out of the raviolis. So sad! After dinner we headed back to the hotel so I could attempt to sleep. I probably only slept a total of 2-3 hours. That 2:45am wake up call was a rough one! We left at 3:30 and my husband dropped me off at Epcot so I wouldn't have to deal with parking. Unfortunately I did't get a picture of me all bundled up but here I am at the hotel about to leave.
The race was scheduled to start at 5:30am and they let us walk out to the corrals at 4:30. It is a 20 minute walk out to the corrals! I was in corral L (out of P) so I had about an hour until my projected start time of around 6:10 in the corral. I just sat on the group all bundled up under my fleece blanket and chatted with a few people around me. I still wasn't feeling nervous so was thankful for that, I think I was too cold to think about anything else. I was actually looking forward to starting to run just to warm up!
Finally it was time for Corral L to start! According to my mapmyrun my corral started at 6:18am. In the past the first few miles (or really sometimes the majority of the race) you spend just trying to get around people and get into your grove spot. I don't know if it was because I started at the beginning of my corral or what, but I never felt the overcrowding that I have felt in past runDisney races. It was a cold start but I tossed my sweatshirt within the first mile, I was so happy just to be moving! I didn't take any pictures along the way. I keep my phone in an armband and it is really difficult to get it in and out without stopping. And I really hate to stop, lets just say I had to pee throughout the entire race, but refused to stop!
The race started on Epcot Center drive. We ran west until we hit World drive and stayed on World drive until we hit the Ticket and Transportation Center. From there I think we ran on some back roads and entered the Magic Kingdom around mile 5. We entered just before Main Street and ran down Main Street towards the castle. This was surreal, because it was the first race that took me down Main Street and also what I named my blog after. At this point I was feeling good. The park wasn't open yet, but there were a lot spectators and employees cheering us on! From Main Street we turned into Tomorrowland. We ran past the Speedway, into Fantasyland down back past Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Under the Sea back out of Fantasyland and through the Castle.
We then took the bridge into Liberty Square and ran through Frontierland and then out of the park through a back entrance next to Splash Mountain. All of this only took about a mile! We then turned onto Floridian way and ran past the Grand Floridian and Polynesian. I had to mentally prepared myself for several miles of running on highway. The next theme park wasn't until mile 12 when we got to Animal Kingdom. Miles 9 and 10 were on Bear Island Road with a little added turn around on Western Way (I'm assuming to make up for the lost miles in Hollywood Studios due to construction). Finally we got to Animal Kingdom. I was still feeling good, I had a good pace going and was averaging 11:45 minute mile - 12:15 minute mile. I was surprised that I was feeling as good as I was and running a little faster than my training runs, so I just kept up with it. I don't really remember too much of Animal Kingdom, but we entered somewhere in the back in Rafiki's Planet Watch ran along the train path then ran through Asia past Expedition Everest. People actually stop to ride Evererst! If I wasn't so paranoid about stopping and loosing my momentum, that would have been a fun stop to make! There was quite the line already formed, the park wasn't open yet when I pasted it. This is also right around the half mark! Only 13.1 more to go! We ran through Dinoland and than out the back into the parking lot.
Shortly after leaving Animal Kingdom my right knee started to bother me. I had never had that pain during training. It wasn't hurting enough to stop, but I did start to slow down some. Miles 15-17 took us down Osceola Parkway turning onto Victory way towards World Wide of Sports. I was looking forward to this, because I had never run through here before. WWOS covered miles 18-20. It was around this time that my knee really started to bug me and I started to take short walk breaks at the beginning of each mile. I knew the rest of the course would be tough but at least it wasn't a lot of highway. After leaving the Sports Complex we ran back out onto Victory Way back to Osceola Parkway and onto World Drive towards Hollywood Studios. Hollywood Studios was shortened due to the current construction going on. We entered around mile 23 back by Tower or Terror ran down Sunset Blvd and out towards the entrance but veering off to the left towards the path to Boardwalk/Epcot. My family was waiting outside of Beach Club just after mile 24 and this really kept me going at this point. We purposely picked this spot knowing I could use the encouragement at that spot! I was really struggling at this point, my knee hurt, my feet hurt, and I was just so tired! We crossed the bridge towards the resorts and I just told myself not to stop until I saw my son holding his sign for me. And finally I saw them! My Dad had ran down to cheer me on as I approached them. I stopped to hug my son and of course started crying and they were all crying too! Happy tears for them, happy and tired tears for me!
After I left them it was the final stretch! We entered Epcot by the United Kingdom Pavilion at mile 25 ran through the counties (it felt like the longest mile ever!) down towards Spaceship Earth. Then I heard them, if you have ever ran a runDisney race before you know what I am talking about... yeah the Gospel Choir! They are always in that same location just before you turn and see the finish line! I mustered up any energy I had left in my body and just ran. And there it was ... the finish line!!
When I started this journey I thought I would be a one and done marathoner. But now that a few weeks have passed I can totally see myself doing another. Someday I will conquer Goofy or Dopey. But right now I am going to take the year off from marathon training. I am registered for a 10 mile race in March and then I have my sights set on a half in the fall of this year and then another in January of 2018. I think my next marathon will be Space Coast Marathon in November 2018 or Celebration Marathon in January 2019. I will do more runDisney races, but I would like to try more local races that may not be as crowded (and expensive!). Or who knows maybe I will do Dopey in 2019, I guess only time will tell!
Oh my gosh. Max's sign. And then you crying and then them crying and it suddenly got a little dusty in here... ðŸ˜❤ Twenty.six.miles. I'm still so in awe of you!!
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