Andy Gapin

One half marathon, one marathon, two days, four Disney parks, 39.3 miles, three medals, three shirts. It’s called the Goofy Challenge. It’s not for everyone and it’s certainly not for people who don’t like running.

If you had asked me a year and a few days ago if I thought I’d ever run a marathon and a half marathon in the same weekend, there’s no way you would have gotten a yes out of me. No way. I wouldn’t have even giving you a yes for running a marathon by itself. But, last year, my wife and I ran the Disney World Half Marathon and spent the rest of our trip in Disney seeing plenty of other people walking around with three medals around their necks, I call them “clankers.” It was at that point that we realized if they could do it, we could do it. It took months and some going back and forth before we finally committed and signed up for the Goofy Challenge, but we went for it.

Now, my wife and I aren’t always the smartest people in the world. We hadn’t run a full marathon at the time and were currently beginning our training for the Philadelphia Marathon, which fell just a month and a half before the Goofy Challenge. That’s not a lot of time to recover from your first marathon and then up the training for an even bigger challenge. But we signed up and booked a trip to Disney, we had to do it…or at least try.

Training didn’t go as well as it could of, in fact, between Philly and Disney, the longest run either of us did was 16 miles. Things could have been worse, but I really didn’t feel like either of us had built up enough stamina for the challenge. Time was hard to come by and the tendinitis that used to be in my left ankle had moved over to my right one, not to mention the fact that my knees hadn’t felt right since Philly. And to top off the fact that we had signed up to run 39.3 miles in one weekend, we also had to have enough left in our legs to walk around Disney for a few days and enjoy a “vacation.”

However, for as stupid as we were in signing up for this thing in the first place, we were smart in setting our goals. This was just for the sake of doing it. We weren’t going to try to run for time and we were going to run both races together. My wife and I don’t normally run races together, so this was going to be new for both of us, but we figured we could help each other through.

Half Marathon

The plan for the half marathon was to take things super slow and just get to the finish without working our legs too much. By this point, we’ve had a few half marathons under our belts and having just spent the last six months training for a marathon, 13.1 miles wasn’t worrisome at all. Plus, we knew the course from last year. Our biggest worry was just trying to keep ourselves slow. Very slow.

We woke up at 2:45am and got ourselves ready and out the door to catch the bus over to the start area. The weather was chilly, and still getting colder, but we knew it would be like this from last year. As we made our way over to our starting corral, we tried to prepare ourselves mentally for what we were about to start. We had no idea how our bodies were going to respond to such a goofy challenge.

The race kicked off with a blast of fireworks and we were on our way, trying to keep a slow pace. The start was very crowded and trying to find our own space to run wasn’t easy. On top of that, I had to pee right off the bat. I stopped at a porta potty and told my wife to continue without me, I’d catch up. This seemed like the longest pee of my life as I stood there thinking about how much extra energy I was going to burn trying to catch up to my wife. As soon as I was done, I sprinted down the course to catch up to my wife. The people around must have thought I was an idiot running that fast that early in the race, but since I’m used to running a half marathon at a pace three or four minutes per mile faster than we were planning on doing, it wasn’t a problem for me to run at my normal pace to catch up. In fact, my legs loved it, they wanted to keep it up, but I didn’t give in. I caught up to my wife and we continued on our way.

From there, we spent most of the race just trying to slow ourselves down. No matter how much we tried, our pace kept creeping faster and we’d have to make a strong effort to slow ourselves. down. The worst area of the course for this, without a doubt, was Magic Kingdom. This is the most exciting part of the course. There’s a ton of energy as you come down Main Street, through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and through Cinderella’s Castle. We picked up a little speed, but for the most part we were able to keep it under control.

After Magic Kingdom, the half marathon course gets pretty boring for a while. You run down a back street and a highway for a while as you make your way back to Epcot. We lost a few minutes when my wife needed to take a quick bathroom break in one of the porta potties, but she was quick. As we made our way into Epcot for the last mile, things felt pretty good. Once the finish line was in site, we grabbed hands and crossed together at 2:15:54. Almost a minute per mile slower than my wife’s slowest time, so we were both feeling pretty good and knew we hadn’t burned up too much energy or stamina.

Marathon

The marathon, the biggie. With just one marathon under our belts, we didn’t know how we were going to hold up through 26.2 miles after having put 13.1 miles on our legs just 24 hours prior. Again, we got up around 3am to make our way over to the starting area. The temperature was a little bit warmer feeling, but not by much. We sat for a few minutes in the corral to rest our legs while other runners were stretching and warming up. Saving the energy seemed more important than anything else at this point. Since I moved back to start in the C corral (there were eight total corrals) with my wife, we had a bit of a walk anyway when it was time for our corral to move up to starting line so that served as our warm up.

This time when the race started, we tried to take it even easier. We were on the other side of the road this time which had a little more room on it. I, again, had to stop and pee within the first mile, but this time I didn’t use a porta potty, I just ran off into the woods. Unlike for the half marathon, I didn’t burn energy sprinting back up to my wife. I picked up my pace a little and just slowly and steadily caught back up to her.

The marathon course quickly differentiates itself from the half marathon by taking runners right into Epcot after just a couple miles. At this point, my wife needed to make her first bathroom stop. There was a bit of a line this time, but again, she was quick in there and we were on our way having only lost a few minutes.

We entered the park at the front and ran around Spaceship Earth with the course separating into two halves, allowing runners to go down either side. From there, the course makes a left turn into the World Showcase and exits down a back road just after passing Mexico. After exiting around the back, the course loops back around near the starting line, which was already halfway broken down, and heads towards Magic Kingdom on the same roads the half marathon comes back on. Instead of going to the right of the Speedyway, though, the full marathon took us along the left. This section, between Epcot and Magic Kingdom, is a bit boring, but Disney tries to keep an ample amount of entertainment going on the sides of the course.

At this point, we had hit the halfway point for the Goofy Challenge. All downhill from here, or so I tried to reason.

As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, we were feeling okay, but weary about the big distance between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. But for now, we had a good pace going and were just a bit faster than we wanted to be. I feared that coming down Main Street in Magic Kingdom would pick us up a bit more than we wanted, but that was still a couple miles away.

As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, the course eventually merged back with where the half marathon had taken us through the park. We entered down Main Street and did our best to keep things steady and find our space to run in the massive crowd of runners that bottleneck coming through the park. After following through Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Cinderella’s Castle, Liberty Square, and Frontierland, we made our way out of the park to the left of Splash Mountain. We escaped without picking up our pace and burning excess energy.

This was the part we dreaded, probably even more than the part of the race after mile 20. This was the start of the roughly six mile trek to Animal Kingdom. This portion of the course doesn’t have much to see other than the few characters Disney had out to take photos with. By the time we hit the marathon halfway point, I was feeling good, but my wife was starting to fatigue. I tried encouraging her as much as I could, but as we kept getting closer to Animal Kingdom, she kept getting more and more worried. As we came along miles 14 and 15, I started to feel some fatigue in my legs, but things were still manageable.

As we started to get closer to Animal Kingdom, some of the animals were out on the side of the course and this started off the boost that we needed from the park. Once we made our way into the park, the energy grew and carried us through Asia and DinoLand USA to the front of the park.

Three parks done and I was actually feeling pretty monster now.

We just had a few miles to go until Hollywood Studios. As we curved around the Animal Kingdom bus stops, we hit mile 17 and then 18 came quickly. By this time in Philly, I was fatiguing hard and working out my strategy to make it to the finish line. I was weighing the best time to drop off from the pacer I was running with and that time happened by mile 18.5. But things were different this time, my legs felt great and I had energy, lots of it. I knew we were approaching the point in the race where things can fall apart in the blink of an eye, but I knew I was feeling good now and that was all that mattered. I don’t know what the time was at this point, but I’m pretty sure by now I had been running for longer (time-wise) than I ever had in my life.

Unfortunately, my wife was not in the same kind of shape I was in. Since running with her is already a much slower pace for me, I wasn’t putting my body through as much, but we were only running a little slower than she’s used to for a long race like this so it was much harder on her body. These were dark times for her. She had a blister on her toe pop that nearly took her down. She screamed in pain and seemed like she was about to throw in the towel. I’ve never seen her in pain like that before, but she soldiered on as I did my best to reassure her that she could and would make it. Still, I could tell that she was tiring quickly. I had been gulping down energy gels and sport beans for the last five miles, but she didn’t want them. By now, I knew she needed something so I convinced her to eat the chocolate gel she had in her SPI belt. With eight more miles to go, I knew it would kick in when she really needed it.

Unfortunately, the temperature was rising quickly now. We had been taking water at almost every stop since the halfway point so we were hydrated enough, but we were starting to feel the effect of the sun on us.

Mile 21 got a bit rough for my wife and she started feeling the need for another bathroom stop. We, luckily, weren’t far from a porta potty and she was able to stop. Now, she was really fighting to keep things going, but once she was able to hit the bathroom, things started to pick up a little for her.

As we turned into Hollywood Studios, we hit the 22nd mile marker, which pretty much marked the homestretch. From now on, the rest of the course was lined with people, no more dead zones.

There was a huge burst of energy as we entered into the park. Both of us sucked this energy in and picked things up massively. We dropped from around an 11:10 mile to closer to an 8:30-9 minute mile. The combination of the bathroom break, the energy gel finally kicking in, and all the energy from the park transformed my wife from struggling to keep it going all to a running machine. She looked fresh, like she had just started the race. As we made our way through Hollywood Studios, we started passing other runners like nobody’s business. Runners that had been near us all race or had passed us a while back quickly ended up behind us.

We both were feeling great and reaping the reward for keeping things so slow in the 35 miles behind us. Hollywood Studios was over in a flash. We entered in the back of the park and ran through part of the Backlot Tour, down Streets of America, up Commissary Lane, and turned right onto Hollywood Boulevard towards the front of the park. After exiting the park, we made the sharp left to head down along the river to the Boardwalk Resort. Again, tons of people lining the side of the course. Things got tight here, but we squeezed our way through.

As we made our way onto the Boardwalk, we had tons of momentum and we were flying as we passed the marker for mile 24. We were almost there and nothing was going to stop us now.

We followed the course back into Epcot by the UK pavilion. All that was left was a lap around the World Showcase and then to make our way to the front of the park. The counties were flying by us and it felt like we were running on fresh legs. By the time we exited into Future World, we’d passed hundreds of runners since marker for mile 22. It was like we were fast-forwarding the end of the race.

Finally, after wrapping around Spaceship Earth again, we could see the finish line. We stopped passing people, grabbed hands, and made our way across the line at 4:58:16. We were only 21 minutes slower than my wife’s time in Philly and considering we had run a half marathon the day before and stopped for two bathroom breaks, that’s not bad.

Overall stuff

The Goofy Challenge sounds intense. And it is, it’s a lot of miles, but what I learned this weekend is that if you take it easy, really easy, you can do it. And you can still enjoy a vacation after doing it. Of all the long races I’ve done (1 marathon and 3 half marathons before this), I felt the best after this. My legs weren’t very sore and my ankles didn’t hurt. I could walk pretty well. My biggest issue after finishing was just that my feet were sore (that continued for two days). Other than that, I really felt great. Even my ankles, which have been constant problems for me for almost a year and a half now, were completely fine. I did some preemptive icing on them right after finishing, but they never started to hurt.

Throughout the course of the rest of the day and trip, I really didn’t feel like I had just run a marathon and a half. I was impressed with us.

For me, the biggest change from any other races I’ve run is just the difference in running at a slower pace. It’s a really different experience. At a 10-11 minute mile, the course is much more crowded. Things only cleared out so much for us throughout the entire 39.3 miles. At any given point, there were always a few people within a 10 foot radius. At a 7-8 minute pace, races are much different, they clear out. Unless you have someone running with you, you’re much more alone, with the nearest people 15-20 feet away from you. There’s also a lot more conversation from the people around when you’re running slower. Maybe it’s because more people run with friends at that pace, but there were groups of people all over the place that seemed to be running together. At this pace, water stops are a complete mess, there are people and cups everywhere.

Additionally, running at a slower pace gives you time to enjoy the course. I’m used to flying through courses as fast as I can while focusing on breathing properly, keeping an eye on the condition of my body, and keeping myself right at the upper limit of a sustainable pace. I don’t normally notice much going on around me aside from what I need to in order to protect my safety. At an 11-minute mile, I was taking in all the things Disney had on the sides of the course. There were dozens of characters out, marching bands, etc. I even got to enjoy the parks in a different way.

I find the Marathon Weekend events to be a great experience from beginning to end. The races are fun and the courses are unlike any other courses you’ll ever run. Not to mention the fact that, despite the races starting at 5:40am, they’re very well organized. The Goofy Challenge is definitely something I want to do again, but I think I’d also throw in the 5k as well. I don’t know if my wife and I want to make a trip down next year for our fourth January Disney trip in a row, but it’s the 20th anniversary of the marathon, so I’d really like to. If she does both races again, I think I’d do them with her again, but if she decides not to do Goofy again, I might try running for a time. Maybe both races in under five hours combined.

The biggest downside to doing something like Goofy is if you’re trying to also do a full trip to the parks as well. You lose a lot of time because of the races. You have to get to bed before the parks even close on both nights and by the time you’re showered and ready to hit the parks after each race, you’ve lost a good portion of your day, especially after the marathon. We thought we could do four days in the parks, including the race days, but we really felt pressed for time. In the end, we did all the highlights and the things we wanted, but adding an extra day would have made the trip more enjoyable as a whole.

Now what

Now, with the Goofy Challenge done and two marathons under my belt, what are my goals? First thing I’m doing is taking a couple weeks off to rest my ankles. They don’t hurt now, but I want to make sure they’re in decent shape. After that, it’s time to start training again. I’ve got the RU Unite Half Marathon at Rutgers in April, but as long as training goes well, I’ll be doing another marathon after that. I’m looking to qualify for Boston in the Spring so I can run next year. It’s going to mean a lot of training, but as long as my ankles feel good in two weeks, I won’t have lost much from where I am right now. If training is going well, I’m going to shoot for a time closer to 1:25:00 at the half marathon and a marathon for May or June.

Running the Boston Marathon is my main goal right now, but after I qualify for that, my next goal is to get under three hours. Since I have to run under 3:05:00 to qualify for Boston, getting under three hours, at that point, should be attainable. You’d think.

UPDATE: My wife posted her recap as well.

As a runner that lives far enough north that night comes before getting home from work in the Winter, I’ve been left with a decision to make multiple times a week. Do I go to the gym and run on the treadmill, meanwhile hating my life, or do I run in the dark outside. Running outside in the dark is not only dangerous because of cars, but also because you can’t always see where you’re putting your foot down. Because of lighting around where I live, or lack-thereof, the only route I can really do at night is a two-mile loop near my house. If I want to run more than two miles, I have to do laps. For four or even six miles, it’s tolerable, but for eight, ten, or more, it’s unbearable for me. And before I go any further, I will mention that there is always the third option of waking up before work and running in the morning, but I’ve failed at actually getting myself out of bed so many times now that I don’t even try anymore.

My wife had suggested getting headlamps last year, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Unfortunately, this year, we’ve got too much training to do to ignore the problem. I spent some time trying to pick out the right headlamp for me, but the idea never seemed right to me. I can’t imagine running with something on my head like that and I couldn’t find one online that didn’t have almost as many negative reviews as it did positive ones. While much of the negativity for the better overall rated headlamps seemed to be somewhat subjective and a matter of preference for the reviewer, I couldn’t help feeling that I would run into the same issues.

Enter Knuckle Lights!

Knuckle Lights take the idea of a headlamp and run with it (pun intended), while trying to improve on the idea. Instead of having a single light on your head, they move the light to your hands. One in each hand. Knuckle Lights are specifically designed for runners, whereas most headlamps are more general purpose or more geared toward hiking.

I decided to give these a try, they seemed to be the best option for my wife and I so I bought us each a pair ($40 each). I was impressed by the free shipping which got them to us in two days (via USPS, nonetheless). When the lights showed up earlier today, I opened up the box and found that not only did we get the lights, but they also threw in two stickers, two reflector strips, and two red flashing clip-on reflector light dealies. Not bad.

Since I was scheduled for a run today anyway, I grabbed them and ran right out the door to give them a try. I purposely ran past my normal nighttime loop and down a dark road that I would normally never run down at night. I quickly found that while the Knuckle Lights didn’t provide massive amounts of light, they certainly provided enough light for comfort. The lights provided me with about ten feet of good visibility in front of me. Not a lot, but enough that you can run safely. From the perspective of an oncoming car, I’m sure they could see me quite a ways away, as well.

If you take a second to head over to their site, you’ll see that the makers of Knuckle Lights mention the wide beams over and over to try to convince you that the motion of your hands won’t cause the light to be all over the place. I have to admit, this was a small concern of mine, but they were right, you don’t see the light bouncing all over. You can see the movement of the lights in your peripheral vision, but that’s it. In front of you, the light appears steady and unmoving as long as you have both lights turned on. Completely distraction-free.

Something I didn’t think about beforehand, but I quickly realized while using the Knuckle Lights was that having two separate lights that could move independently of not only each other, but also your eyes and head is extremely useful. You don’t have to move your whole head to light in a slightly different direction. As I was running by cross-streets, I started pointing one light down the street so that any cars coming down could see me easily. I kept the other light forward so I could still see where I was going. I also found it useful sometimes to point one light down as I was running over sections of sidewalk that were in extra bad shape. This allowed me to place each step strategically to not trip while also allowing me to keep an eye on what was coming up.

The biggest issue I have with running in the dark is with the headlights of oncoming cars blinding me. Knuckle Lights can’t stop that, but I found that the effect was greatly reduced. I could look down and away from the light, but still give myself at least a little light to be able to see where I was going.

My biggest concern with the Knuckle Lights before buying them was having to have them in my hands, but in reality, I didn’t find that to be an issue for a single second. The lights are very light and they strap onto your fingers in such a way that you barely even notice them. Once you put them on, you don’t have to actually hold them, they just stay there. They’ll work over gloves or mittens as well.

All in all, I think Knuckle Lights are well worth the $40. They’re not going to light up the entire road in front of you or impress you with their brightness, but they will give you enough light to not only allow you to run at night, but also make you feel comfortable with running in the dark. They’ll also make you very visible to cars, which is important. They’re easy to use and aren’t annoying. I can’t compare them to using a headlamp because I’ve never used one before, but I have no doubt that these are a much better option.

This is kind of a spur of the moment post, a quick reaction. My wife emailed me an article from No Meat Athlete a little while ago (I don’t read his site, but I’m familiar with the content since my wife talks about it sometimes and even has one of his shirts) and it got me thinking. If you’re not going to take a minute to click the link and read it, the article is a response to a conversation he had with the writer of ZEN Habits regarding living life without goals and how maybe that’s a better way to live.

The point (or at least a point) from ZEN Habits is that if something isn’t enjoyable at any point, why are you doing it? Is achieving a goal what’s really important if the process of getting there isn’t enjoyable? Shouldn’t you be trying to enjoy every moment of life instead? No Meat Athlete seems to have a hard time fully agreeing with this idea and I’m with him on it. His example is ultramarathons, but for me, it’s just plain old marathons (you know, the easy stuff). These long races are painful. Doing them physically hurts. A lot. And training for them isn’t really all that fun all the time either. I enjoy running, a lot, but there comes a certain point, usually by mile 10 or 12 where I’m not really having fun anymore. Sometimes, that point comes way earlier…like say mile 4 or 6, but for the most part, I enjoy running up to a certain point.

If pretty much no part of running a marathon is really fun, why do it? As No Meat Athlete points out, I don’t need to run excessively for the sake of exercising, I can run much less and supplement with other fun activities as well. So I don’t need to run long races and the fun parts of running could still exist in my life without having a goal and doing the hard stuff.

When I was running the Philly Marathon there was a spectator holding up a sign that  said “it doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.” Seeing that sign was a kind of weird moment. It just kind of clicked in a way for me, I knew exactly what was meant by that. I could really feel the sentiment behind that sign. That sentiment kind of carried itself with me through most of the race, even in the last few miles. I was in crazy amounts of pain and, by most definitions, I was not having fun, but yet, what I was doing was still fun to me as a whole and I knew it would be fun after crossing the finish line.

It was fun to know that I was pulling off something a relatively small portion of the population has done. It was fun to know that after just a little more pain, I’d have this for the rest of my life. No matter what, I could say “yup, I ran a marathon.” Nothing could take that away. And it’s not in an “I’m better than anyone who hasn’t run a marathon” kind of way. It was more in the vein of how we all have something that makes us stand out or some accomplishment that we can be proud of, and this was both of those things to me.

That was my first thought as I was reading, my justification for why I put myself through something that wasn’t fun for the majority of the time I was doing it. But there was a second thought that came after that about why most of us have to have goals.

If life was reduced to doing only the things that were the most fun at the moment, I wouldn’t leave the house. Ever.

As I’ve mentioned, I truly do enjoy running, but that doesn’t mean that when I come home from work the first thing I want to do is change and head out the door to run. Really, what I want to do is plop down on the couch, have food handed to me, watch TV, and at some point have sex with my wife (hey, we’re being honest here, right?). I don’t want to go run. On the weekends, when I don’t have plans, I want to move from the bed down to the couch and just watch TV. I don’t really want to go for a run.

If you’re keeping track, I really just want to hang out on the couch and watch TV. But the thing is, I don’t want to do that! After doing just that, I hate myself. I feel like I’ve wasted my time when I could have been doing something else. But doing something else that I enjoy would be more work, at least to start. That initial work, without some other motivation, a goal, if you will, isn’t fun. If we’re trying to maximize fun and only do things that are fun from start to finish, then anything that requires me to put on pants is going to lose to plopping down on the couch.

This gets us to the poing, having fun is the goal.

Much of the time, getting to the fun part isn’t fun itself, but without it, there wouldn’t be fun at all.

Like I said, I don’t want to go for a run when I get home, but once I’m out there and a mile in and all warmed up, I’m happy. I’m having fun and I’m glad that I didn’t take the immediate fun (i.e. the lazy fun). And on top of that, the fact that I chose the delayed fun for my run means that I’m working towards being a better runner and therefore having more fun running in the future.

I know I’ve been doing a lot of running talk here, but there are other examples. I hate having to book vacations. You can just ask my wife about booking our honeymoon, it was one of the worst and least fun experiences I’ve had in the last year. But, vacations–especially, that honeymoon–are fun! If I chose to only be doing things that are fun from start to finish, I wouldn’t have chosen to plan a vacation…and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to deal with TSA and the airport.

I have fun going to shows and seeing bands, but I generally abhor having to drive to Philly or, even worse, trek into New York City to actually get to the show.

I have fun going through my photos and discovering new favorites or realizing that a photo I didn’t think much of six months ago is actually really awesome. But I don’t have fun post-processing photos and tagging and organizing them so I can find them later. If I didn’t put in the not fun work, I wouldn’t be able to have the fun later.

I had a blast running the ZEN House and putting on shows in college, just thinking about the shows I did is fun. But doing the work to make it all happen wasn’t fun most of the time. In fact, it usually sucked.

Most of the time, you need to do things that are not fun in order to have fun. You have to choose the less fun option up front to have more fun in the end.

Having the sense of accomplishment from completing a long race or making a new personal record is fun. Getting there may not have been fun, but without doing the unfun stuff, I couldn’t have had this fun.

Having fun is the goal and to have the most fun, you must have a goal.

Yesterday, I ran a marathon. A full one. 26.2 miles. It was physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it was worth every bit of the pain that I’m currently in as I type this.

Less than a year ago, I was training for my second half marathon, the Walt Disney World Half Marathon, and I had absolutely zero interest in running a full marathon. Full marathons are crazy! 13.1 miles was tough enough. How do people do 26.2? But after that race, my feelings quickly changed and I started wanting to do a full marathon. I convinced my wife and we signed up for the Philly Marathon and instantly started worrying about what we had gotten ourselves into.

Training officially started on July 4th with the Cranford Firecracker 4-miler that we run every year and the last four and a half months have been a crazy roller coaster ride. My tendinitis still wasn’t fully healed and my wife and I were still planning our wedding (we took this into account by starting training two weeks early). Since July 4th, we had our bachelor/bachelorette parties, wedding, honeymoon, and three other weddings to attend. All of this made finding time on the weekends for our long runs very difficult at times. The training plan we had picked out was supposed to be intense, but because of injuries we were still trying to kick and lack of time, that plan got altered significantly. Training for a full marathon becomes your entire life and takes up all your time, but we didn’t always have any time to give up in the first place. I would have liked to be running five days a week and get three 20-mile runs in before the marathon, but that wasn’t a reality. I ran three to four days a week and did two 20-mile runs, neither of which were easy.

The first time you run a full marathon–and maybe subsequent times as well, I wouldn’t know yet–is insanely nerve-racking. You’re constantly doubting yourself and worrying that you can’t do it. Every minor little pain or soreness suddenly becomes this big deal as you find yourself slowly turning into a hypochondriac. In the weeks and days leading up to the race, this only gets worse. You know you trained and put in the work to do it, but you still can’t quite figure out how you’re actually going to finish this thing in once piece. A marathon sounds like an amazing idea when it’s still months away, but when it’s days, hours away, you realize it may have actually been the worst idea you’ve ever had. People will ask you if you’re ready for it, but there is not being ready for it and it doesn’t matter if you are or not. Race day comes quickly and the race isn’t going to run itself. There is not being ready, just doing.

Somehow, I actually got a good night’s sleep the night before, which was probably helped by the fact that I went to bed at 8:30. Once we got over to the starting area, I made my way over to my starting corral and tried to find a good spot within there to place myself. I saw the 3:20 pacer and placed myself right behind him. I felt like this would be a good place for me and decided I would park myself right next to the pacer for the next three and a half hours of my life. A 3:20 finish would put me at a pace just a few seconds slower than I did my last 20-mile run at so it seemed attainable, but it also seemed like it would be a good way to help keep me on track and prevent myself from starting out too fast and dying later in the race.

When the race started, there was this insane feeling, “this is happening and there’s no turning back now.” There was a lot of energy in the beginning, everyone was pumped up, but there were a lot of people all huddled close together. It was hard to find room to run, some runners ended up on the sidewalks, and I had to actively work to keep near the pacer.

By the time we got to the third mile, things started to even out a little, but it was still tight and I still had to fight to keep my own space. I heard the pacer say we were 22 seconds ahead of were we needed to be and I was feeling great so far, except for my left ankle, my tendinitis was starting to act up. I was actually a bit shocked, even though my ankle hasn’t been bothering me much for a couple months, this was still very early in the race for it to be a problem. I tried to stay focused though, my ankle was going to have to hold up now. Luckily, this pain didn’t last more than a mile or so.

At this point, we were coming down Columbus Blvd and then made a quick turn around the block to get onto Front Street. By now the group around me was thinning out a bit more, but Front Street isn’t very wide and there were still cars parked on the sides of the street. This felt like the most dangerous part of the course, but it was also right about this time that I got pulled in with a couple guys running near me, Jonathan and Doug. We started talking a bit and the three of us stuck together for a while. There was a lot of camaraderie among the three of us as well as the rest of the 3:20 group as we came around the corner onto South Street. We were all pretty pumped.

The course is only on South Street for a few blocks, but there was a ton of energy packed into those blocks. The streets were lined down both sides with people cheering. This got me into a bit of trouble. I had just finished telling Jonathan that I wanted to stick with the 3:20 pacer to help keep me from going to fast, but the energy down South Street really started pushing me forward. I wasn’t doing it consciously, but I soon noticed that the pacer, who was just off to my right for the last few blocks, wasn’t there anymore. I turned my head a bit more and didn’t see him. From this point on, I was on my own. I had lost Doug and Jonathan, and I didn’t see that pacer again for another eight miles.

From here on, I tried to keep my pace in check, but I was full of energy and focused as the course turned onto Chestnut Street for miles six and seven into University City. The course had thinned out a lot at this point and I was practically running by myself at certain points.

Now, it was time to turn onto 34th Street and begin three miles of seemingly endless climbing, with a quick flat spot near the Philadelphia Zoo (which stunk like animal crap). Just after crossing the 9th mile marker things got rough for the first time. We hit the biggest climb of the course and it was a bitch. In reality, it probably wasn’t straight up, but it certainly felt like it at the time. At nine miles in, I had plenty of energy and leg strength to tackle it, but a conscious effort needed to be made to not blow too much energy on a section of the course just barely a third of the way into the race.

Things kept pretty steady through mile eleven, but I was starting to feel my pace catching up to me. I started to fear that I wouldn’t be able to hit that 3:18 finish that I was now targeting, but I also knew I still had a bit in me before I needed to start slowing down. The next two miles along the Schuykill River remained pretty uneventful, I just kept on doing what I was doing and thinking about my strategy for the rest of the race.

As we began to approach the Art Museum at the 13th mile and where the half marathon splits off, I started to keep a look out for my family. The area around the Art Museum was filled with people and energy to propel us into the second half of the course. I saw my parents right before the 13th mile marker and that helped pump me up a bit and my pace, which had been very slowly slowing down over the previous few miles, picked back up a bit.

It was also at this point that Jonathan caught back up to me…or rather I slowed down to him. He came up along side of me and we started chatting again. I asked how far ahead of the pacer we were and, much to my disappointment, it was just a matter of feet. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, I guess I had slowed down a little more than I thought I had.

From this point on, the rest of the course was an out and back down along the opposite side of the Skuykill. Jonathan and I spent the next four miles talking about running and staying just in front of the 3:20 pacer. We passed the leaders of the race heading back down to the finish line as we were coming up on the 15th mile (they were approaching 25). As much as an out and back can suck sometimes, this was was a nice benefit of it. Those guys were flying.

These four miles were the last good ones I had. By mile 17, I knew I wasn’t going to be finishing at the current pace. I knew I didn’t need to take it down yet, but I wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. As we came up to the 18th mile marker, the pacer let us know that we had about a mile and a half to go until the final turn around of the race. This mile and a half was the longest mile and a half I’ve ever run. It felt like it was never going to end. It was definitely the longest feeling section of the race.

The 19th mile was a bit of a turning point for me. Things started getting harder faster and faster and I knew I needed to drop back a bit. I could keep the pace up for a little while, but I wasn’t making it to the finish line if I didn’t slow down a little. I decided that now had to be the time and I slowed myself a little as we started to get into Manayunk. It was tough watching the balloons on flag the pacer was running with get further and further off in front of me, but the slow down had to happen.

I was all alone again and focusing on just keeping my pace decent and not dropping off too much, but things started going to crap quickly, just as they had in my training runs at this point. As I came down Main Street in Manayunk, I tried taking in as much of the energy from the crowd as I could, but it wasn’t enough, I was starting to struggle. There were people handing out beer to runners here and that sort of blew my mind. I guess the liquid carbs could be helpful, but beer was the last thing I wanted right now.

As I was coming down Main Street, a few of my wife’s friends screamed out my name and that gave me a small boost right before the final turn around. I came back up Main Street and saw them again as I climbed the little hill I had just come down. I wasn’t feeling too good and, even though they said otherwise, I couldn’t have been looking too good either. At least I knew the rest of the course was almost entirely downhill.

I crossed the 20th mile marker and it was time to enter new territory. I’d never run more than 20.25 miles before, but it was time to change that. I knew it was still a little too early to start pushing, but I was quickly running out of stamina. I had the energy, but my legs didn’t have the ability to use that energy anymore. All my legs wanted was to just walk for a bit, but I knew that wasn’t an option. If I started walking, even for a few seconds, that would have been it. I would have never started running again. I had to just keep on going.

The next few miles progressed about the same, I just kept going as best I could and by mile 22 I started looking for my wife coming up the other side. I finally saw her around mile 24 and she was looking pretty good, but I was fading quickly (and she was just barely past mile 14 so she had a long way to go still). I had already been doing a serious countdown to the finish in my head.

Somewhere just before the 25th mile marker I caught up with Doug. He wasn’t looking too good, but I wasn’t either. He was running with a couple guys who seemed to be in great shape still. They were cheering him on as they were going and really trying their best to pump him up (he needed it). I was unaware before, but apparently it was his birthday and the guys he was running with were making sure everyone watching the race knew about it and were cheering him on. The energy around these guys is what helped me push to the finish line. The four of us stuck together for just about the rest of the race. Doug and I pushed it out as best we could while the other two guys seemed just fine.

Besides seeing Doug, the 25th mile marker also brought about the realization that at this point, if I just started walking, I could still finish by my target time. It was really tempting, but I had come too far, I had to keep going.

As we got up to the Art Museum, I started making my final push. Both sides of the road were lined with people cheering and I started throwing everything I had left at it. I was running as fast as I could after having been running for almost three and a half hours. I was passing everyone I could and using each person as extra motivation to just keep on going. By the time I got close enough to see the clock, I was starting to feel relief that I was just about done and it was over.

I didn’t even really see the clock when I finished. I had a rough idea of what was on the display, but I wasn’t looking at it. I was just focusing on getting across that finish line and staying on my feet. Doug came up right behind me and we celebrated for a minute while trying to make our way over to water and food. Before we even made it there, Jonathan, who I didn’t notice passing at any point since leaving the 3:20 group, had also finished and met us in the line. We spent a few minutes lamenting about the pain we were all feeling, but it was an insane feeling and seeing these guys at the finish was a nice way to end the race.

After I finished, I could barely walk. Everything below the waist hurt more than it ever had in my life. The pain and tightness was insane (even as I type this, it still is), but it didn’t seem to matter. I had done it. I completed a full marathon…and I did well. I couldn’t have been happier. From here on out, I spent the next hour and a half walking around trying to find my parents and then trying to find a spot at the finish line to watch for my wife. The walking was awful and slow. I must have easily walked close to another two miles after finishing while trying to find them and not a single inch of it was pretty.

I ended up finishing the race at 3:24:09 with an overall place of 1059 out of 10213 runners. Not bad at all. That time fell right into my target zone. I was looking at finishing between 3:20 and 3:30 and I nailed it.

Yay! And ouch.

*Thanks to my friend, Dan, for a few of the photos of me looking like crap around mile 22!

Yesterday was hot, so very hot. So what was a good thing to do? Run a race! Right? No, I know. It was rough and hot, but the fiancée and I run this race every year. It’s in her hometown and there’s pizza at the end, how could we not do it?

Each year seems to be hotter than the previous one so this year I was smart and set my expectations a bit low. Given that we’re in the middle of a heatwave and the humidity is always awful in New Jersey in the Summer, I gave myself a goal of 22 minutes. I thought that felt fair for me and my ability.

I started off with a quick first mile (mostly uphill) at 6:35, but that wasn’t sustainable and I knew it. Even that first mile was hard with the humidity. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I was pretty much willing to pay someone to inject some oxygen straight into my lungs. Being way ahead of where I wanted to be for the race, I decided to pull it back a bit, not that I really have a lot of say in the matter anyway. It was much more of my body’s decision than mine. It turned out that I pulled it back way too much and finished with a 7:15 minute/mile pace overall. That’s quite a drop for a 3.1 mile race.

Some days you just don’t have it and the weather has no interest in helping you out. Yesterday was one of those days. Even with all of that considered, I was pretty disappointed with my time. I’ll get over it though. I mean, that time still put me at 190 out of ~2200 runners. Not bad.

On the plus side though, the fiancée earned herself a PR at 23:50 (chip). Hot diggity!

On a side note, this was also the last run in my Vibram Five Fingers KSOs. They are officially retired now–from running, at least. They got me just about 470 miles of road running which isn’t half bad at all. They still could have some life in them, but a few of my toes have worn through and I can feel the asphalt through the holes. It’s time to move onto my second pair of Five Fingers, this time the Bikila model which is specifically designed for runners and has a bit of tread on the bottom.

Pace: 7:15
Overall time: 22:34 (gun) / 22:32 (chip)
Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 468.84

Yesterday was the annual Firecracker 4 miler in Cranford which my fiancée and I run each year. It’s a fun race, but being that it’s on the 4th of July, it can be very hot and humid. Luckily, yesterday wasn’t too bad. I enjoy the course quite a bit and there are generally plenty of people sitting on the side the road spraying you down with a hose to keep you nice and cool. Very appreciated. The race is also pretty well organized and you get a pint glass along with your t-shirt. Good stuff.

Yesterday also marked the two year anniversary of the first race my fiancée ever ran. However, in those two years, we’ve never once actually run together for a race, so I decided we should give it a shot (there was some prompting from her for this). It was fun running a race with her and she kept a good pace too, I was impressed. She ended up with a new PR for 4 miles at 32:49. As we approached the finish line we held hands and I stopped just before line and let her go across first.

Generally, I try to give it everything I have when I run a race and shoot for a new PR each time, but with the ankle still not fully healed, it seemed like a good idea to take it easier and not shoot for anything crazy. I would like to run a 4 mile race again soon though for a PR, I think I can do close to 26 minutes. Which is crazy because my time for the Firecracker last year was only 1:06 faster than yesterday with the fiancée. This says a lot about how far we’ve both come in the last year. She took almost two minutes off her time and I’m not looking at running 5-mile and under races at close to 6:30 minute/mile. Crazy.

This race also kicks off the official start of our marathon training. Exciting.

Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 421.67

Today was my third official half marathon. It should have been my fourth, but last month’s RU Unite Half Marathon was an abbreviated course due to some flooding. Actually, the shortening of that course was the reason for signing up for today’s race in the first place, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

If you looked outside at all today, you would know how gloomy the weather was around here. Luckily, during the race, there wasn’t much active rain, just a constant misting. Though, to be honest, I don’t think I would have minded some rain. I was hot and sweaty anyway so it probably would have just felt good. Besides, the course was already completely soaked as it had been pouring overnight. More rain probably wouldn’t have hurt much.

The Superhero Half Marathon is run through a double loop course in Morristown, NJ and is in its second year. The race is a rather low-budget affair, but is still organized well-enough that that actually becomes a bit of it’s charm. The race is open to both individual runners and two person relay teams.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from myself. My ankle still isn’t 100%, though it’s getting close, and I wasn’t as trained as I would have liked. My training pace has been considerably slower than where I was six months ago, but my speed, stamina, and power are starting to come back a bit. Slowly. My goal for today was simply to beat my first half marathon time (1:47:11) by a couple minutes and finish under 1:45. I figured that shouldn’t be too hard.

I started off the race right near the front, but I didn’t take off nearly as quickly as most of the other people near me. I didn’t really think about this beforehand, but one of the weird things about running a race that also has a relay is that the relay runners just kind of take off since they don’t need to conserve much energy. This threw me off a slight bit as I was looking around at people passing me when I felt I was keeping a decent pace.

Pacing myself was actually a bit interesting because I ran without my iPhone. This is not something I’m used to at all. I always run with music and RunKeeper to keep track of my pace. I can deal without the music because I generally tune it out while running, but I’m still terrible at pacing myself so I rely on RunKeeper as a crutch to let me know where I’m at. However, with the wet weather and the likelihood of more rain, I didn’t want to have my phone strapped to my arm so I decided to just run without it. Early on, this was a bit weird, but I very quickly grew to appreciate running with just me and the course and nothing else. I didn’t have RunKeeper chiming in my ear and telling me some pace that would have just cause me to feel like I was either running too slowly or was way ahead of my target and therefore could ease up. The course itself didn’t have any clocks anywhere so when I finished, I really had absolutely no idea what the time was going to be. I had about a 10 minute window in my head of what to expect. But I really did like this. I was able to just run and adjust my pace solely on how I was feeling and not based around the clock. To be honest, I think this helped.

The course is interesting because it’s two laps around a big 6.7 mile loop (the second lap is 6.4 miles as the finish line isn’t exactly at the start line). This is kind of a double-edged sword. It’s cool because when you start the second lap, you know what to expect. You know the course ahead and you can use this to your advantage. However, it’s also a little boring in the second lap because there isn’t new scenery to look at and you sort of dread certain uphill sections of the course for the second time around.

The course is billed as being fast and flat, but I felt like it was anything but that. Somehow the course felt as though it defied physics and the entire loop was uphill. It was like running in an Escher painting. It just didn’t make sense. Hills are an interesting thing because I destroy short steep hills and actually pick up speed on them, but longer, more drawn out hills completely kill me. The course had mix of these so some were easier to handle than others.

Overall, I had a love/hate relationship with the course, but I would definitely run it again.

Early in the race, I didn’t feel great. I started fatiguing very early and started to dread the miles ahead. By the time I got through the first 5k, I was not feeling good at all. But somewhere after that, I picked it up and got a boost of energy. I ran the middle of the race strong and I even stayed strong through most of the second half. I think I actually felt better later in the race than I did early on. Still, I was glad to see the finish line when I got there.

When I finally got close enough to see the clock at the finish line, this was the first indication of my time or pace that I had all race. I was expecting somewhere in the low 1:40s, but I was elated to see that I was actually at 1:37. I hauled ass to the finish line and finished in an all out sprint at a very respectable 1:37:14 (79 out of 1160 finishers). To be honest, I’m extremely happy with this time. It’s more than four minutes slower than personal record from Disney and at 7:25 minute/mile, my pace was actually just slower than my training pace was for Disney. Still, given the injury problems and everything there is to take into account, today was a very good day for me. I couldn’t be happier, I mean, come on, I was just looking to run 1:45.

So now that this race is finished, I’m going to take a couple weeks to let my ankle finish healing and then it’s time to start training for the Philly marathon. I’ve got a nice long training program laid out so I can try to run it strong. Exciting!

Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 420.26

Yesterday, I set out for what was to be my third half marathon over the course of 364 days. I wish I could say that I actually ran 13.1 miles though. Unfortunately, due to some pretty torrential downpours on Saturday, one of the parks that the race runs through was flooded. Thanks to this flooding, the course had to be adjusted to just 9.55 miles.

While I only had a month to train for this race after two months off from tendinitis that I’m still not fully recovered from, I really wanted to run the full half marathon. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my body given the circumstances, but I was hoping to at least repeat my 1:47:11 from the same race last year. The RU Unite Half Marathon last year was first half marathon ever and even though I said I didn’t think I’d do it again after that, I’m now addicted. Three months ago, I ran my second half marathon, the Disney Half Marathon, and pulled off an incredible time of 1:33:05 that I’m still extremely proud of…especially considering that I ran in pain. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to touch that time yesterday, but I did feel good enough to at least know that my time from last year was doable again.

Like everyone else that ran yesterday, I prepared for and woke up for a 13.1 mile race. I think just about everyone was disappointed when they heard the announcement that a large portion of the course was flooded and the race would have to be scaled back. We paid for 13.1 miles. We trained for 13.1 miles. Some of us ate (or were planning to eat) for 13.1 miles. A lot of things were done expecting 13.1 miles. Obviously, no one can control the weather, but it is no secret Johnson Park in Piscataway floods often. It really doesn’t take much, a little drizzle can make that park flood. My unscientific estimate based solely on anecdotal evidence would be that Johnson Park floods at least 3-5 times each year. It’s just something that’s expected by anyone that lives here. It is a wonderful park and I really enjoy running through it, but if you’re going to plan a race that runs through it, you have to have a plan B. You just have to. You’d be silly not to. Unfortunately, CGI Racing did not have a plan B for yesterday. Again, I know they can’t control the weather, but this was something that should have been planned for. I know putting together an event this size and getting road closures and such are not easy, but when you’re putting that much work into something, you need to plan for things like this.

What made the length of the race even worse was that at the start, runners were told over and over that the course was shortened to 10 miles. 10 miles, not 9.55 miles. That’s not a huge difference, but it’s enough to make a difference. I think most people felt lied to about this. I know I did and I know my fiancée and our co-worker also did.

Not cool.

Alright, enough complaining, right?

The weather was sunny for most of the race and the temperature was nice, if not a little on the warm side, but the wind was strong. The wind was so strong that it was a definite factor for everyone. Parts of the course were with the wind at our backs, but it felt like the majority of the time was spent with a strong crosswind that noticeably moved runners around. At two different points, gusts were so strong that they blew my left leg sideways into the back of my right leg mid-stride as I was pulling it forward almost causing me to face plant. It also seemed that every uphill portion was straight into the wind.

With a significantly shorter course, I adjusted my expectations and my plan. I ran faster than I would have for a full 13.1 miles, but still, I didn’t feel as strong as I would have liked. In fact, I felt downright weak early on. It took me a while to get my stride on and settle into the run, but it never really felt quite right. I averaged a 7:32 mile which is pretty respectable, but that’s still 10 seconds slower than the 13-mile training runs I was doing four months ago and almost 30 seconds slower than my pace for the half marathon three months ago. But with an injury, you’ve got to be happy with anything and I am…ish.

I finished up with a semi-sprint and crossed the finish line at 1:11:53 (chip time) to place at 290 out of 2881 participants. My knees felt like they were going to give out during that last little push. It was awful. I ran 12 miles last weekend and felt stronger at the end of that than I did yesterday. What gives? At mile 8, I had a nice little second wind boost, but that didn’t last long, only about a mile. I came home and felt dead, the rest of my day was shot. Even taking into account how much harder we all had to work because of the wind, I shouldn’t have been beaten up like that for a sub-10 mile run. I really shouldn’t have. I hadn’t felt like that since the half marathon last year. I could make excuses for it like my injury and the wind and whatever else, but I was just off and that’s that.

Despite not feeling strong at the end, I still wanted a 13.1-mile race. I wanted to get a third half marathon under my belt. I really did.

So the fiancée and I have decided that we’re going to sign up for another half marathon next month that we were on the fence about. I want it, but I do want to be careful about my ankle. It’s still healing and, while it does feel better than it did a month ago, it has a little ways to go still.

More importantly, we signed up for the Philly Marathon in November. It’ll be our first and we’re super excited, yet insanely nervous about it. A year ago, after my first half, I said I would never run a full marathon, but here I am, already signed up for one.

Finally, after over two months of not being able to run, I’m getting ready to start again. My last run was the Disney World Half Marathon in early January, which while being a huge success, I was in a bit of pain during due to tendinitis in my ankle. Since that run, I’ve been to the orthopedist twice, rested a lot, and been visiting a physical therapist. Sadly, I’m not pain-free yet. Instead, I actually have pain in places that I didn’t have pain in before I stopped running. I don’t know what happened or what to make of being in arguably worse shape than I was before I stopped running, but I do know that I ran for four months with the pain in my ankle and it didn’t get better or worse during that period. Based on that and the fact that I’m no better than I was before I stopped running, I’m just going to start training for the Rutgers Unite half marathon next month. Screw it, right?

Some may say that this isn’t a smart idea, and it may not be, but I’m hating this no running thing. While I’ve enjoyed the extra free time, I do miss running a lot. I feel like something’s missing and when I see other people running outside, I get jealous. And let’s not forget the fact that I am signed up for next month’s race already, so I’d really like to run it rather than have that go to waste (yes, I realize that injury could be much, much more costly than a single race).

So the plan is to start running again this weekend with a very short run and build up quickly. I’ll train for a month, run the race, and then take off time again for my ankle if it’s still hurting. At that time, I won’t have any races I’m signed up for, except for maybe the Philly Marathon in the Fall. Before my ankle decided to start being stubborn about healing, I was hoping to run my first marathon in mid-May, but clearly barring some miracle, that’s just not going to happen, so November it is!

While training for the Disney half, I had been targeting to break under an hour and a half for this race (1:35 was my target for Disney and I beat that by two minutes), but I’ve come to terms with that not being realistic now. With only a month’s training after two months off and with what may be slightly more pain, I’ve accepted that this race will be slower instead of faster. My only goal is to not be slower than my previous time for this race, 1:47:11. That should be doable, but we’ll have to see how I feel throughout all of this. I am going to be very conscious of how things feel and I’ve promised myself that if things don’t feel right, I’d stop and not make things worse.

As usual, you can follow my very uninteresting running log, but that doesn’t show up on the main page of my site.

So, uh yeah, wish me luck?

Oh boy, half marathon number two. I clearly remember thinking to myself during the last few miles of my first one that I would never do that to myself again. However, it’s become apparent to me that long races are similar to childbirth in that they both must trigger the same chemical in the brain that makes you forget the pain and want to do it again. For people who have been doing this kind of thing for longer than just a couple years and who have run more long races, this must already be an accepted fact, unless maybe I’m alone in this feeling.

Anyway, once the fiancée and I found out that our group trip to Disney World just so happened to span Disney’s Marathon Weekend, we knew what the deal was. This needed to happen. Once we were signed up, we started a long training process. We knew that we’re both the kind of people that don’t know how to just run slowly and enjoy the scenery, we both run for time and are constantly trying to improve that time. With that in mind, we knew that we’d to really have to up our stamina so that we could run hard for 13.1 miles after three full days of walking around Disney and with another three and a half more days of the same following the race. Unfortunately, the four months of training we did leading up to the race was littered with injuries for both of us, more so for the fiancée than myself, but my ankle has been in bad shape for four months now. With all of the injuries, we didn’t get to do the training we wanted to do, but somehow we did it.

I guess I’ll talk about the course first. The race starts outside of Epcot and takes runners towards Magic Kingdom. There’s a lot of open road running for a little while, but eventually, the course leads runners into a crazy path through Magic Kingdom. Once you enter the park, you’re right on Main Street and there are people cheering everywhere. It’s intense and it’s loud, the adrenaline starts pumping like crazy here. The race continues into Tomorrowland and then around through Fantasyland. To exit Fantasyland, it’s a run right through Cinderella’s Castle. After Cinderella’s Castle, the course goes through Frontierland, but skips Adventureland. Instead, runners are taken out of the park by Splash Mountain and start the trek back to Epcot along some dark roads (the sun still isn’t up yet, but more that later) that don’t have a lot going on. Here it’s easy to lose a some of that adrenaline that was pumping through Magic Kingdom. There are random cheer spots and DJs that help with that though though. At one point the course double back on itself as it gets a little closer to Epcot. Here, I was able to see the last wave of runners going by in the opposite direction only a couple of miles into the race. It was kind of cool to see the very end of the pack and the cleanup crews right behind them.

The conclusion of the race takes the runners right into Epcot and around Spaceship Earth. Runners head into Epcot and do a 180 around the Christmas tree at the entrance to the pathway around the World Showcase Lagoon. With less than half a mile left here, it’s time for the final push to the finish line. The course goes down the other side of Spaceship Earth and out into the parking lot for a huge finishing area with bleachers and tons of people cheering.

Even though the half marathon only hits two of the parks, it’s a great course. The full marathon course is even better and hits all four parks, but none of that for us…this trip.

Okay, so with the course out of the way, let’s get to how I did.

The race starts bright (read: dark) and early at 5:35am. Not only is the sun still not up yet, but about 90% of the race was in the dark for me. With the race being this early, we had to get up at 2:45am to get dressed and catch a bus over to the starting area. The bus drop off was about a twenty minute walk away from the start so we needed plenty of time. We made sure to call it an early night the day before and tried to get in bed by 7:30, but I think I only mustered about three hours of sleep. Luckily adrenaline took over and the lack of sleep didn’t feel like too much of an issue. Surprisingly.

The race had eight waves of runners spaced six minutes apart, I was in the first thanks to an ambitious goal and a decent first half marathon time of 1:47:11. Once I got up to my starting coral, I could already feel a little soreness in my feet from being on them constantly for the three days before…and my right knee hurt which was a little worrisome since that’s generally the one that doesn’t give me problems. I tried not to worry about it too much though, I just needed to get through the 13.1 miles ahead of me.

The air was also pretty chilly. I ran the race in shorts and a t-shirt, but it was only about 50 out and I didn’t bring any throw-away clothes so standing around waiting for the race to start wasn’t very pleasant. I tried to warm up as best I could while the pre-race stuff was going on on the stage in front of me.

The race started off with a blast of fireworks and we were off. There were a lot of people around, but the road was wide enough that it wasn’t hard at all to get around people and find my own space to run. While I had read a few descriptions of the race before that said some spots get crowded, I never felt like I had to fight for my space. The beginning of any race seems to be a big struggle for me still as I try to find my pace while getting around people, I have a bad habit of starting out too fast because of it. This time I did a better job than normal, my first mile time was 7:22/mile which was my average pace in my training runs. From here, I kicked it up to about under 7 minutes/mile for a few miles. Probably more than I needed to, but I was able to keep the pace without feeling like I was pushing too hard.

It wasn’t long into the race before my feet felt legitimately sore. As much as I love my Vibram Five Fingers and as much as they’ve really helped me become a better runner, I probably could have used a little cushioning. The soreness mostly came and went throughout the race. My ankle proved to provide me with more pain than my feet did, but again, that came and went. The worst thing for my ankle was the curves in the road. Many of the turns in the course are along on and off ramps which are banked quite a bit. Not being able to land my foot with my ankle completely straight felt awful. I faced the same issue while training when turning at street corners (did I mention that my ankle pain started four months ago and I’ve been running on it since?). I tried to suck it up as much as I could though. I’ve been planning on seeing a doctor and taking a few weeks off so I knew that I just needed my ankle to get me through one last run before I could let it heal. I wasn’t going to hold back now.

When the course took me into Magic Kingdom, I was a little tired, I was keeping a 7:04 pace at this point, but I got a huge pick me up from all of the people and the cheering through the park. It was wonderful. I also felt kind of like I was doing a photo shoot since there was a photographer every ten feet on both sides for a while. This was kind of awesome and I tried to pose for as many of them as I could as I went by them. Just for fun.

Magic Kingdom was a great mid-race boost of adrenaline, but having read about the course before, I knew I was in for a few miles of nothingness after that so I tried to mentally prepare myself for that.

Throughout the quieter and darker roads, I just kept on pushing myself to keep my pace. I slipped a little, but not much. My pace only lost a few seconds. If my feet weren’t in such bad shape, I think I could have stayed stronger through this section and actually picked things up instead of slipping a little. It really wasn’t so much my ankle here as it was the bottoms of my feet…though that’s not to say that I didn’t entertain the idea of stopping at the medical tent for a quick ankle taping in the 11th mile.

As we approached Epcot again, I was dreading the final hill which I was able to see coming for a few minutes before I got to it. It looked long, but surprisingly, my legs motored up it and sped around a few other runners. This was great a great pick me up for the end of the race.

At this point, I knew the finish line was coming up soon and, once I hit the 12th mile marker, I picked it up a little. I started pushing myself here but I was losing steam quickly. I just kept throwing what I had at course and knew I was getting close to the finish. Once I did the turn around at the Christmas tree at the World Showcase, I knew it was almost over. As I exited the park, I could see the finish line coming up and did one final push to the finish, but it wasn’t as big of a push as I normally do. At this point, I could see the clock ticking and knew I had rocked the race so I decided there was no need to really go for broke to shave for a couple more seconds.

I crossed the finish line at 1:33:54 clock time and 1:33:05 after actually crossing the start line. My goal was 1:35 so I was super elated. I had a HUGE smile on my face as I crossed the line and that smile stayed there for a long time after finishing. I was the 260th finisher out of 27,000 runners, but someone in a wave after me finished in a shorter time so my final place was 261. I will gladly take that.

This was such a great race. I really loved it and even though I was a bit sore from it, I felt insanely better than I did after my first half marathon. I could walk and kept no real downtime between the race and going back out for a day in the park. I actually kind of miss the race. I want to do it again, like right now.

The fiancée finished in 2:03:45 which was a little slower than her first half marathon, but insanely better than she hoped for. She suffered much worse injuries than I did and barely got any training in at all for the race. She still wasn’t fully healed up by race day and it had gotten to the point where she really just hoped to finish. All things considered, I think she’s a damn trooper and that’s a great time for her.

After the race, we wore our Donald medals around the park all day and kept a pretty big high going. Just like when we had our “just engaged” buttons on for our trip last year, we got tons of congratulations from people. On Sunday, we spent a few minutes watching part of the full marathon through Animal Kingdom which really just made me wish I was running that too.What we saw was one of the last waves of runners coming by at around mile 16, but it was still fun to watch because these were the runners that wore costumes and ran onto rides as they’d go by them. Some of these runners even congratulated us when they saw our medals for the half marathon. I thought they were crazy, but Disney’s Marathon Weekend definitely has a feel and sense of camaraderie unlike any other race I’ve ever run. I really loved this.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was just how many people did the Goofy Challenge which is both the half and the full marathon and nets you the Donald medal, a Mickey medal, and a Goofy medal. This seemed insane to me, but it seemed like a few thousand people most have done it. While it appeared that many of those people did more of a jog/power walk for one or both of the races, this is still pretty impressive.

We’ve decided that we have to do the Goofy Challenge, we can do it. I know we can. Even without having run a full marathon yet, I think we could train to do this. We’re looking at the 2013 marathon weekend to do this since 2012 may be tough on us with it only being a couple of months after our honeymoon. Either way, If we run this race again, I think we’re definitely going to cut down on the amount of time in Disney before the race so that we’re not already worn down a bit.

I’m still really excited about this race and like I said before, I’m kind of missing it. I want it again. I’ve got another half marathon coming up in April and I’m hoping to run even faster, but I’m taking some time to let my ankle heal first. If my ankle heals up, I think I’ll be in good shape to beat this time. My feet won’t be sore before the race even starts and I’ll probably have more sleep.

One other thing that I wanted to add is about a husband and wife that had run the race together previously, but could not this year. The husband is a part of the US military and is currently deployed in Iraq. Because they couldn’t run together and really wanted to, he set up a half marathon at his base in Iraq and got 500 other soldiers and military members to run with him. He synced up the start of the race so him and his wife would be running at the same time and they used the virtual partner feature of their Garmins to virtually run together. Before the race, they got to wish each other good luck via a live satellite feed. This was one of the most amazing things.

Below are are bunch of photos, some of us, some of the full marathon runners, and some of the medal we received. They were taken with a variety of cameras (my DSLR, a point and shoot, and an iPhone).