“From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it… from the inside looking out, you can’t explain it” ~Author Unknown
That quote is exactly how I feel about the marathon. I just can’t come up with the words to explain what the experience meant to me. But I will try.
In 2004 when I was working at Walt Disney World, I worked the days leading up to the marathon at the All Star Cafe at the Wide World of Sports and encountered many people picking up their race bibs. And a few days later, they came in with their medals. I never told anyone at the time, but in the back of my mind, I knew I would someday run the WDW Marathon. Over the next few years, I made several attempts to tackle Couch to 5K and would quit around whatever week it was that I would have to do a 20-minute run without walking.
Then in 2008, I moved to Delaware and joined the Y, where I made a few more attempts at Couch to 5K and eventually “graduated”. I completed several 5Ks and a 5-miler in 2008 and 2009. After that 5-miler, I decided to complete something bigger. I signed up for the Disney Princess Half Marathon. Then, the NYC Half. After two half-marathons, I felt confident I could at least finish a marathon. And reading Caitlin’s, Megan’s, and Meghann’s recaps of the WDW Marathon motivated me so much! So in May 2010, I signed up for the WDW Marathon! My dream was finally going to come true. But after the NYC Half, I gained back the 25 pounds I had lost in 2009 and dealt with knee problems and plantar fasciitis. I had to take several months off from training and only trained a few weeks for the Philly Half, which was November 21, and I recorded my Personal Worst time. A bad run in Philly left me with a bad attitude about running, but I got over it and spent December training for the full marathon. Although I didn’t train thoroughly and long enough, I felt I could at least finish this marathon. I came to Orlando feeling ready and confident. I told everyone my goal was just to finish, but in the back of my mind, I wanted to have a sub-6 hour marathon.
When I woke up on January 9th at 2:30am, I was so excited! I quickly took a shower, threw on my gear, and bandaged up my feet in the places where I normally get blisters. We were ready to head down to the lobby a little after 3am.
Isn’t that the craziest arrangement in that vase? Mom and I both giggled about it.
To our surprise, the lobby was filled with encouraging Hilton employees and a large spread set us just for the runners.
One of the employees in the lobby was Catherine, who had been emailing me the past few weeks. They were there to support me and all the other runners… isn’t that sweet?!
I love that they had a mock finish line set up.
The marathon package at the Hilton included complimentary transportation to the race… thank goodness! I wouldn’t want to worry about making it to the race on time with all of the road closures and traffic. The bus dropped us off, and we made the 10-15 minute trek to the reunion area. I waited there with my mom until a little before 5am and then made the 30-minute slow walk with all of the other runners to the corrals. I made it to corral H and found Bethany and her dad. I was originally in corral F, but I dropped back to be with Bethany. Even though she’s faster than me, and we wouldn’t be running together, I wanted to have some company in that long, cold wait before our corral would start the race.
It took about 23 minutes from when the first corral went to when we started the race. I stuck with my training and did 2/1 intervals (run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute) right from the start. I stayed to the right and dropped off of the pavement and on to the grass to walk.
We made our way to Epcot and through the toll booths. (sorry for the picture quality. They’re from my iPhone)
By mile 2.6, we were going past Spaceship Earth.
We ran past the countries and made a left after Norway and then out and behind Epcot to the backstage area. By mile 4, we were out of Epcot and on to a 5-mile stretch headed towards Magic Kingdom with nothing to entertain us besides characters and other runners with funny shirts. We passed by the Magic Kingdom toll booths around 8.5 miles.
Right after the mile 9 marker, my stomach started getting upset. But thankfully, my mom was at the Transportation & Ticket Center, and there was a glorious, clean, public bathroom. Unfortunately, the potty break cost me about 5 or 6 minutes, but really, time was of no importance. Finishing was important, and going to the bathroom in my pants would not guarantee a finish. Mom had a bottle of Gatorade waiting for me, so I picked that up and headed off to the Magic Kingdom!
Right before Magic Kingdom was the mile 10 marker, and I was feeling awesome. I kept up with 2/1 intervals pretty much to a “t”. Running through Main Street was awesome. It was lined with spectators and cowbells! I found my mom in the same place she was for the Disney Princess Half, which is right in front of the castle in the bend going to Tomorrowland. I stopped there to give her a hug, hand back my Gatorade because it was too big of a bottle to carry, and to grab a picture!
I couldn’t believe that I was 10 miles in and feeling so strong! If you remember from the Disney Princess Half, this was the point when I had to call Jeff and cry about how I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’ve obviously improved!
I left Mom behind and traveled in to Tomorrowland and in to Fantasyland past the Mad Hatter and the Mad Tea Party! I love that he had “clappers”.
I made a video at this point about how good I was feeling, but it has no sound. Boooo. I made my way through Cinderella’s Castle (yay!!!) and remembered they had photographers in front of the castle.
By the time I made my way out of Magic Kingdom, my pace slowed a little, but I kept up with 2/1 intervals. I noticed that my time at 13 miles was better than my Philly Half time, which was 3:07 something, so that gave me a little push to keep going. The road between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom is really boring, but there was plenty of entertainment and funny signs to keep our focus off of how boring it was. I grabbed a banana around 14.5 miles and ate half of it.
At around 15.5 miles, it hit me. I had blisters on my heels that made every single step excruciating. I made the decision to fast-walk for a little while. It made the pain slightly bearable. I checked my pace, and it wasn’t too far off from my jog/walk pace, so I made the “smart” decision to keep fast-walking the rest of the way.
After walking past what seemed to be Disney’s sewage plant and Animal Kingdom’s backstage areas, I entered Animal Kingdom!
Once I was past Mount Everest and DinoLand, it was pretty much a blur until I got out in to the DAK parking lot. The course running through the parking lot and out past the toll booths felt extremely long and boring, and the sun was in my eyes the whole time. Once out of that area, it was a straight away to the 20 mile marker and an out and back to the 21 mile marker. Luckily, some funny signs by the Sharpie people made me laugh along the way like “the people who know the least, know it the loudest” and “why is the word ‘abbreviation’ so long?” and “did you know Albert Einstein didn’t know how to drive?”
Finally, we made our way in to the backstage area of Hollywood Studios where they were giving out chocolate! The time spent in Hollywood Studios was short, but I was glad to know the race was almost over.
After Hollywood Studios (oh how I miss calling it MGM), we traveled to the Yacht & Beach Club by way of the trail between MGM and the resort. It was a nice, scenic route, and knowing I was almost done was exciting.
We made our way in to Epcot by way of a backstage area behind United Kingdom. The course took us around all of the countries (except Canada). This part seemed painstakingly long, and I couldn’t wait to be done with it. I was texting friends with “WTF was I thinking?” and they were texting back how proud they were of me. It helped push me along!
And finally, my mom caught me coming around the corner to the finish!
See me by the girl in the yellow?
See me in the screen above?
And I finally finished after 6 hours and 53 minutes.
I found my mom at our tent from earlier that morning. Can you tell I’m walking a little pigeon-toed?
For a while, my results didn’t show up, and I was getting emails from friends along the lines of “saw your results, you ok?” At first, I just thought they saw how slow I was and wanted to know if I was okay. But I checked the site, and it looked like I quit after 10 miles. How embarrassing! I had to email the Disney Endurance team with what I wore, what corral I started in, etc. so they could find me and post my results.
My splits
I like that I stayed pretty consistent for the first 9 miles. The 10th mile involved a potty break, and then it went downhill from there.
I wish I could tell you I felt proud or happy about the marathon. Over the past few days, I’ve gone from proud to really unhappy. I’m so disappointed, and I feel like I failed myself. I feel like I did a 15 mile run with a really long walk at the end. I feel like I didn’t try hard enough, but I have to remember I gave it everything I had. Whenever someone asks me my time, I have to preface it with why I did so terrible. I’m embarrassed, and this is not how I wanted to feel after my first marathon. When one of my mom’s friends asked me all about the marathon, I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t even really want to talk about it. I hope this feeling of disappointment goes away, and I can start to feel like I really accomplished something so many people don’t even set out to do.
It doesn’t help that I look absolutely gigantic in my pictures. Never again do I want to run a marathon at this weight.
Even though I feel like a failure, I can’t help but feel incredibly motivated to keep running. I will make 2011 a great running year, and next year at this time, I hope to be writing a more positive WDW Marathon recap.
And now I’d like to thank all of you for being incredibly supportive throughout the past few years and in the recent months leading up to the marathon. Thank you to my mom who has braved some of the coldest weather to cheer me on! You’re my rock! And to Ellen, you’re an amazing friend for never doubting what I could do and for being in NYC and Philly, cowbell and all! To Jeff, you have no idea how you make me feel when you tell me you’re proud of me. And to the rest of you who sent me the most heartfelt, thoughtful texts, Facebook messages, and phone calls, I couldn’t ask for better friends. You are all amazing! You all made a 6-year long dream come true!
