Race Report: Donald Duck Half Marathon (Goofy Challenge Day 1)

It's hard to believe that a week ago today I completed my first full marathon and was out celebrating with my fellow Goofy runners.  Awesome.  But how did the half marathon go, you ask?  Well let me tell you...

After setting out all my stuff so that it was ready to go in the morning, we shut off the light and tried to go to sleep early...

Problem was, my roommates and I had a hard time shutting up.  After two nights together already we'd discovered that we all shared the same kind of sense of humor and bedtime was more like a sleepover where we laughed and made fun of stuff.  We knew we had to get up early but it was tricky falling asleep.  I think we finally nodded off somewhere between 10 and 11pm.

The alarm went off bright and early at 2:45am since we had to be over at the bus stop by 3:30 to catch the bus.  The last bus was at 4:00am and we all had to get there and be in our corrals by 5:00am.  I was so excited that even though it was a ridiculous hour to get up, I was pretty pumped and ready to go.

The bus ride to the race start was pretty quick and we snapped a couple shots walking in towards the bag check.

And here's almost our whole group before splitting up for our corrals...

I had plans to meet up with Cori and Leana and it wasn't too long before we all found each other.  Another couple photos, dropped our stuff off at the bag check and then we were off to the start line!  There were lots of warnings about how long the walk to the start line was but nobody warned us how crowded it would be.  This part was kind of dumb.  There were so many people and we all had to bottleneck through this little space, it took forever.

We eventually made it and found our corral.  By this point I was pretty excited.  It was already super warm so the wait in the corral wasn't bad and slowly we advanced toward the start.  The first corral left at 5:30 and ours would be ready to go about 6:00am.  We enjoyed the fire works as each corral started...

And I love this pic of everyone looking at the fireworks going off behind me...

Eventually we got to the front and off we went!  I was so excited to start running.  This was the first day of Goofy Challenge and I was doing it!

We started off at a comfortable pace and carried on.  We didn't really have much of a plan other than to go easy and not wear ourselves out for the main event, the full marathon.  Those first few miles were just super fun.  I was so excited to be there, we just ran along and took it all in.  There were a few spots that were kind of narrow and congested but it didn't take long and we were already making our way into the Magic Kingdom.

We ran through the gates and past the speedway.  The next bit was kind of highway-like as we ran along towards the actual park.  It was kind of boring but I enjoyed this stretch because this is where we got our first glimpse of Cinderella's Castle way off in the distance.  This was also the part where we went under this overpass that had a DJ guy wearing HUGE Mickey Mouse hands dancing to the music.  I really love DJs on a race course and I loved this part so much.

It felt like all of a sudden we made a turn and then were in the park itself.  We had decided before we started that we weren't too crazy about stopping for a million pictures.  We said that if the need struck us we'd stop but otherwise we took lots of pictures of the characters from the side, just not with ourselves in it.  Some of those lines were seriously long!  And while we didn't have a time goal in mind, we didn't really care to stand in a bunch of lines during our half marathon.

My favorite part of the whole half marathon was when we ran onto Main Street towards the castle.  We kind of entered from the back side and then all of a sudden we were on a street lined with people and it was amazing.  I totally teared up, just so proud and happy to be there.  I grabbed a ton of high fives and we stopped to take a couple pictures as we ran up to the castle...

This part was just so cool and I was glad because we would get to run through the same place again tomorrow.  Now everyone told us to be prepared to take a nice shot coming out of the castle but it was all for not.  When we exited the castle everyone just stopped dead in their tracks waiting for a photo and the whole thing was kind of dumb.  We all tripped on each other and there were so many people that you could barely spot the photographer let alone get a nice shot in front of one.  Oh well.  Figured I'd try again tomorrow during the marathon.

From here we wound our way around a little bit, exited the park and started heading back towards Epcot Centre.  There were some points along the way that again, were super narrow and crowded but otherwise, I don't remember a whole lot about the course but I know that Cori and I were enjoying ourselves and just ticking along.

Shortly before Epcot we ran into some of Cori's TNT teammates and it was nice to catch up and offer encouragement.  At one point we ran over an overpass and runners from the last corral were just making their way underneath us.  The interesting thing was that there was a ton of distance between where they were and how much farther along the course we were and we wondered if they'd even be able to finish in time before the course closed.  The whole thing had a 3hr time limit from when the last corral crossed the start line.

As we realized how close to Epcot we were getting we started to get pretty excited.  We'd done it!  We were almost finished day 1 of the Goofy Challenge!  That thought put a bit of pep in my step as we entered back into Epcot.  We ran along some of the same route as the 5k the day before and made our way toward the finish line.  Again, there were so many people in this area cheering us all on and it was awesome.

All of a sudden we were at the gospel choir which everyone said was the signal you were almost done. It was great, the music was lovely and the elation was building knowing we were so close to the finish. When I finally saw the finish line ahead I decided to try and film us coming across but the video is pretty bouncy.  Ha ha.  I tried to smile for the cameras as we crossed and then just like that, it was done!

Cori and I grabbed each other in a huge hug, tears flowing.  It was a pretty fun finish.  We walked along and tried to grab pictures as we were given our medals.  I know it was just a half marathon and my 13th half marathon at that but I was just so proud to have done it, I was feeling pretty emotional.  I looked at my medal with tears in my eyes and smiled away.  So fun.

We headed on down the chute and collected our food before heading over to the TNT tent so that Cori could check in.  Their coaches are required to stay out on the course until all runners have checked in so we wanted to make sure we did that right away.  I went off to collect my checked bag and somewhere along the way acquired some ice bags taped to my quads which felt heavenly.  I wasn't super sore but figured the extra icing would compliment my upcoming ice bath and felt it couldn't hurt. It actually felt super good and I enjoyed the ice while we ate our snacks...

I also changed into a pair of thongs and they felt so good on my feet.  Everything was in the name of resting and recovering for the full marathon the next day.  The plan was to get back to the hotel for an ice bath before heading out for some shopping and dinner with Cori but we snapped a couple medal shots before leaving...

At this point I headed off in the direction that I thought would take me to the event busses.  I guess I didn't pay enough attention to where they dropped us off because unbeknownst to me, I was going in the totally wrong direction...

When I snapped this picture I had no idea I was well on my way to the Epcot bus loop which was way farther away than the event bus pickup area.  Oops.  Another runner told me this was okay because the event bus lineups were crazy so that made me feel a bit better.  Then, I guess since I was on a high from my race I wasn't paying attention and waited for and boarded the wrong bus!  I couldn't believe it when I finally realized I was going the wrong way!  Oops.

One very long loop on the bus later and I was back at Epcot and i made sure this time I was waiting for the right bus.  Duh.  It ended up taking me about 1.25 hours to get home in the end, but I finally made it.  As soon as I got back I set about getting my ice bath ready but it wasn't until I jumped in that I realized the water in our hotel didn't get very cold and my ice only lasted a short while.  Not nearly the full 20 mins I usually ice bath for at home.  Oh well.  It would have to do.

Cori and I met back at Epcot later that afternoon and headed out to grab some supplies at the Super Target.  We had quite a bit of fun roaming every single aisle in the store before heading over to Olive Garden for a carb-y pre-marathon dinner.  Yum.

My original race plan was that I wanted to put in my best effort - I didn't want to "race" it but I also didn't want to waste a bunch of time standing in line for pictures.  For me this race was more about being my first marathon than about being a Disney experience.  So originally we had planned to run the marathon separate but after the half marathon and being so well matched pace-wise, we decided we would run the full together after all.  I'm not normally one to change my race plan at the last minute but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.  I was scared that in all the excitement I'd go out to fast and end up crashing part way through the marathon.  And being that this was such a huge race for me I didn't want to risk totally blowing it and then ruining the whole experience.  I thought I'd have a better chance of pacing myself smartly if we started off together.  Cori and I thought we'd be able to finish in about the same loose goal time so we decided we'd start out together and split up along the way if we needed to.

So after our dinner we hopped back in a cab and headed back to Epcot and onto our hotel busses.  This was it!  One more sleep before I'd become a marathoner!

Next up, the Mickey Mouse Marathon race report!

In case you missed them...

• WDW Marathon Expo
• Disney Family 5k Race Report
• My invite to the TNT Inspiration Dinner