What: Walt Disney World 2010 Marathon Weekend
Where: Orlando, FL
When: 1/7 – 1/10
Who: Nick Fisher, Alison Fisher, Andy Joynt, Steve Joynt, Judy Joynt
Thursday, January 7th – Boston to Orlando
Thursday night I met Alison at Logan to fly down to Disney for our ½ marathon. Without a doubt, this was the most prepared for a race I have ever been, and most prepared for a ½ marathon without question. This was my 3rd ½ marathon, but I had not ever run from start to finish – I had to walk at the 2 previous events, once because of injury and once because of poor training.
We arrived in Orlando at around 10.15 pm, and waited a few minutes to meet up with Steve who was arriving at 10.45. This was going to be Steve's first ½ marathon. Andy and Judy had arrived at Disney earlier that day, and we were meeting them at our hotel room.
We got to the Hotel (Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village) at around 11.30. Andy and Judy had already checked in, so we went straight to our room. As soon as we got off the plane, the reality that the weekend was going to be colder than it should be became a reality. It wasn't freezing cold, but it didn't feel like Florida.
Friday, January 8th – Hollywood Studios, Marathon Expo, Magic Kingdom
On Friday morning, the 5 of us woke up and had breakfast in our room – we had a 2 bedroom Villa at the Lodge with a Savannah view, however we were at the corner of the Savannah and rarely saw any of the wildlife, which was a minor disappointment. We had cereal in our little dining area, and gathered up our stuff in order to get out and hit the parks as quickly as possible.
We were at Hollywood Studios for the opening of the park, in order for us to all ride Toy Story mania. We went directly to Toy Story first, followed by walk over to the Muppet 3D show, which was pretty much empty. After that, we took our time walking out of the park to head to the Marathon Weekend expo to pick up our goody bag and race numbers. We did make a slight detour to watch little kids fight Darth Vader in the Jedi Training sessions at Star Tours, which actually were kinda funny.
At the expo, the crowds were big, but manageable. Everything in the expo was warning us it was going to be cold, but that switch in your brain that tells you that the reality is actually true wasn't clicking for me…it wasn't going to be THAT cold, and no way was there going to be sleet, it just wasn't possible!!
After picking up our race numbers, we went directly to the Magic Kingdom to spend a few hours before heading back to rest and relax for the race. Our first stop in the Magic Kingdom was Cosmic Ray's for lunch. After that we went to what I consider the highlight of the trip (aside from the race), which was the new Hall of Presidents. The updates were major – the video is new, the narration is new, the overall feeling is much more of a realistic and optimistic patriotism – it talks about a few of the key Presidents and how their actions shaped our country. Of course, the new Barack Obama animatronic was cool, but it was by no means the most impressionable thing in the update.
After the Hall, we wandered over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is always a big favorite of mine, and Andy's. When we finished Pirates, Andy, Alison and I grabbed Fastpasses for Thunder Mt., and we all went as a group to the Haunted Mansion, where Judy took a quick nap in the cars. I hadn't experienced this in a while, but they stuck all 3 of us in the same car, good thing we were in training mode – we barely fit!
After we exited Haunted Mansion, we remembered that the Muppets were debuting in the parade that day to celebrate the "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" promotion which gives guests a chance to do a volunteer service day anywhere in the US and get a free Disney Park pass. The pre-parade featuring the muppets was cool – Miss Piggy, Sweetums (Life sized) and Kermit were in the parade, Andy let me take video on his flip, hopefully I'll be able to download it soon. Alison was star struck seeing Kermit, she really was…
After watching that parade, we shot up the whole town in the Frontierland Shooting Gallery, and then ran over to use our Fastpasses for Thunder Mt. Again, they jammed all 3 of us in those little cars, I don't understand how we all fit but we did. It was cramped, but fun. And friggen cold. So cold. Steve and Judy took in a rousing show of the Country Bear Jamboree while we enjoyed the Mountain.
Following that, we made our way to Fantasyland where we rode Small World & watched Philharmagic, it was nice to be warm in the theatre. We didn't have much time but the 5 of us squeezed into a Tomorrowland Transit Authority car and once again braved the cold to see the sights in Tomorrowland, before we went as a group to Tony's on Main St. to meet Alison's coworker Ainsley and her fiancée Rich who were both running the ½ Marathon.
The 7 of us had a great dinner at Tony's, spaghetti and sausage as well as a fantastic Butternut Squash soup got us prepared to run.
At this point, we finished dinner and went straight back to our hotel room to prepare for tomorrow's race day. Most of us were in bed around 9 am, as our wake up alarm was set for 3:00, in order to be on a bus by 3:45 or so.
Saturday, January 9th – ½ Marathon Race Morning, Animal Kingdom Lodge
Our alarm went off at 3am, and our first test was the weather. We had all spent a TON of time putting together our layers. In January of '07, the first time Alison and I ran this race, we left our hotel room at 3:30 am or so wearing only a tee shirt and shorts, it was beautiful. This day was much different. I had on the following layers: Long Sleeve running shirt, short sleeve running shirt, long sleeve running shirt, long sleeve running shirt, Jacket poncho on top. Compression Shorts, compression tights, shorts on bottom. As well as winter hat and gloves. And we all were freezing. We got off the bus and gave our bags to the bag check, and just had to wait. We huddled like penguins for about 1.75 hours before heading to our corrals, at which point the Sleet started coming.
Sleet, in Florida. It was 5:40 am when the wheelchair division kicked off and then runners in Wave 1 started going. Alison and I had dropped back to Steve's corral in order to all run together, and we didn't start running until about 6:10 or so. The first place runners were more than ½ way through the race before we started, while standing and waiting in the sleet!
The race started, finally, and all was well. We spent the majority of the first 2 miles bobbing and weaving through the slower runners in our Wave/Corral – it was tough to land on a pace and we actually started out a bit too quick. I don't remember my splits exactly, and my Garmin, unfortunately, had a bit of a fit during my run, adding some mileage to everything, so that was a bummer, but Alison had her watch. We were running very consistently the whole time, usually keeping a 9:45 or so pace, but slowing down at times based on traffic patterns.
I had a stretch goal of running in 9:15 pace – around 2:02 for the entire race, but that was really stretch and pie in the sky. We ended up coming in just under 2:10, 2:09:35 to be exact, which is 9:52 pace. I am very happy with that. Steve, Alison and I stuck together the whole time, we didn't have to walk, we didn't have to even really ever slow down, we just kept going and going and going, it was a fantastic feeling. I am 100% convinced the weather and crowds had something to do with our time, in other words, I really could imagine running a ½ marathon in that stretch goal of 2:02 or at the very least, 2:05 some day. It just won't be at Disney, most likely, because of the crowds.
After the race ended, we had a very tough time getting our bags we had dropped off – the system seemed scrambled and completely hectic. People had lost their bags, the lines were essentially non-existent, it was just mass chaos. It was the lowlight of the trip, I would say, and very unlike the Disney race series – we couldn't figure it out. We stood freezing, literally freezing, for about 15 minutes waiting for our bus to come to get us back to the hotel, but once it did it was glorious.
Alison and I were in the King suite in our room and we had a Jacuzzi – which I took full advantage of. Boiling hot water…so awesome. We all spent the next hour or so showering, changing, warming up and thawing out. We didn't leave the lodge property the remainder of the day. Kidani Village is a very odd place – it doesn't have a Quick Service food area, so you have to go back to Jambo House, which is right next door but a very long walk, especially in the freezing cold. We were told we could get breakfast at Jambo, so we walked over at about 11:15 and found out that breakfast was over. We had been craving eggs so badly, and realized we missed it, so that was a disappointment. We made Andy come pick us up in the rental car b/c the walk was so long and we were exhausted…
After lunch, Alison and I drove Andy to the airport – he was heading to Nicaragua for a friend's wedding. It was actually really nice to sit in a warm car and just do nothing for a bit. After driving Andy, we stopped off in Celebration, FL to look at the town and see what it was like – we got a cup of tea at the Coffee shop, and just took our time getting back to our hotel room. At that point it was 3:15 and we didn't leave the room again except to get dinner at Boma, which was completely fantastic. Alison and I had been very careful with what we had been eating since Christmas, and it was an awesome departure to completely pig out on Saturday night at Boma, which is one of my favorite places to eat in all of Disney World.
After dinner, we watched some football but retired to our beds by 10am and slept straight through til 8:30. It was a fantastic day with great experiences all around, running with Steve & Alison the whole time, crossing the finish line as a group was so amazing, and we had so much to be proud of for the run.
Sunday, January 10th – Epcot
Sunday morning we woke up at 8:30, refreshed, relaxed and warm…however it was still freezing cold outside, probably colder, albeit more dry, than Saturday. Our first order of business was to pack, eat a breakfast in the room, and get ourselves out to a park. We chose Epcot, and eventually got there after some road closures due to the full marathon. The runners were doing their best in the freezing cold – it was so hard to watch some of these folks in pain and struggling at mile 17 or so, I didn't envy them at all.
We got to Epcot and had to fight our way through race crowds, but finally went straight in to Soarin, which had a :45 wait or so, but still had Fastpasses available. We grabbed fastpasses and then rode Livin' With the Land, which was fun. Our next stop was over at Nemo to do the ride and see our old Manatee pals, Kringle and Lou, who were eating. They are huge, and only eat lettuce. Weird.
After the Seas, we went back to Soarin' to ride what may be the best ride in Disney World, it is what I think may be the perfect ride. Following that we set our sights on Canada, to watch the new Martin Short version of the Canada video, much improved over the last one – made us all want to book a trip, which I know the Canadian Tourist Board would love to hear. By this point it was lunchtime, and we were eager to get to the Rose & Crown in the UK where we had dining reservations, to get out of the cold. We watched some last minute stragglers about 5.5 hours into their marathon, at mile 24.5 or so. They looked tired, awful, sick, beat up…but some were in great spirits.
The Rose & Crown was a sad one for us – they seated us outside, yes, outside, covered by an awning and a plastic walls that somewhat protected us from the wind, but not really. My legs remained frozen, and I don't feel like we had a chance to really enjoy the Pub b/c we didn't even go inside at all. The food was good – nothing incredible, but the burger hit the spot, and I hadn't had French Fries in a while, so that was a big win for a guy like me. I want/need to go back to the Rose & Crown in order to feel satisfied with the experience.
It should also be noted that Disney World is not really Disney World when it is freezing. A little cold here and there, maybe a night or two where you need a long sleeve, that's one thing. But to be frozen, chilled to the bone by biting winds, it just makes it feel so odd, not right. Andy put it best when Alison was murmuring to herself, while freezing before the race started, "Think of a happy place, think of a happy place…" and Andy said, "Yah, Disney World." Something just didn't feel right all weekend when it came to the weather.
After lunch, we started went back to Future World where Alison tasted Coke from all the crazy countries, we took a look at Sum of All Thrills, the new Innoventions ride where you create your own ride, then ride it, while in a giant pod – hard to explain, but it looked fun. However the lines were long, and wanted to make sure we got on Spaceship Earth, which we did as a closer to our day in Epcot.
Our last mission was to find ice cream, so we decided to go over to the Polynesian where we hoped we'd find some, but we didn't. Time was passing so we decided to get to the airport early and went our separate ways to get back to reality. The airport was crowded, but all in all it was relatively smooth. Boarded the flight, got back home, and I immediately signed up for a 10k in late February.
I am going to crush it.
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