Walt Disney World Marathon 2013 Race Report Part I

**See the second part of this race report here**

BLUF: The trip was wonderful.  The race was awesome.  I took it very easy, and had a blast.  I’m considering doing the Goofy Challenge (1/2 marathon on Saturday, Full on Sunday) next time.

First off, you’re probably wondering what “BLUF” means.  It’s a common Army term for “Bottom Line Up Front”.  I figured I’d add that one as this will be a long post with way more pictures than my normal.  Ok, here goes….
Background:  This race original started as a tag-team.  Mrs. Runner’s Bug and I planned to run the race together, at her pace, but compartment syndrome in her leg killed that idea.  She had to drop from the race, leaving me high and dry.
Travel and Race Expo:  We flew down on Friday, arriving in Orlando fairly early.  First things first, get the rental car.  We arranged for a compact, and boy was this thing compact.  It was a “Lime Squeeze” Ford Fiesta.  We named it Kermit.
We hit the race expo, where Mrs. Runner’s Bug had a secret rendezvous to ditch her bib since she couldn’t run it (Sssh.  That didn’t happen).  We walked around a bit, I’m not a fan of spending a long time at expos, but she likes them.  We did happen to run into Jeff Galloway.  We had a brief chat, and he remembered by name the owners of my local Fleet Feet, where I occasionally do group runs.  Soon after seeing Jeff, we headed to our hotel. 
We stayed at the Disney All-Star Movie Resort, amore budget-friendly hotel, but it was still nice.  Kind of like a movie themed version of a Comfort Inn.  We lounged around for awhile, then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner and music.  We came across a Yoda wearing Mickey Ears sock hat, which Jen bought for me to run the race with.  Challenge accepted, and completed!
On Saturday, we headed to Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure. Yeah, yeah, sacrilegious right?  We’ve been to Disney plenty of times in the past but never here.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was AWESOMEE!  That’s “awesome” with an extra “e” at the end because it was so worth it.  All I can say is BUTTERBEER!  The Jurassic Park Exhibit was wonderful too!  We left early to head back to the hotel for sleep.  A 2:45 wakeup call and 26.2 miles were awaiting!
   
Race Day:  Yup, 2:45 is not fun to wake up to.  It was a struggle to get out of bed, but soon we were up and getting ready for the day.  One ready, we headed to the lobby entrance and boarded the bus.  I had been in communication with the Facebook group called “Disney Pacebook Running Club” and I planned to meet up with one of the pace groups to stat with.  I wanted to go out at a nice and slow pace, and see how my knee felt.  Getting off the bus, we had a bit of a walk to the runner’s entrance, and once there, I quickly meet up with my group.  We stood around for awhile, got a snapshot of the entire Pacebook group, I said goodbye to Mrs. Runner’s Bug, then started the trek to the start. 

About half of us were slated for the last corral (H), but several were towards the middle corrals.  The plan was to hid the H’ers in the middle, and distract the checkers from seeing them.  We agreed on corral F and headed that way.  A guy walking near us from corral H tried to enter corral F He didn’t even attempt to hide the big letter H on his bib, and one of the checkers spotted him from about 15 feet away.  BINGO, I used that distraction to slip in, as did the rest of the group, except one lady.  She simply walked further up, then hopped the gate. Sweet!  With 45 minutes until the start, and even longer for our  corral, it was a sit and wait game. 
We were quite a ways back, but they had jumbotrons for us to watch Mickey and gang send us off.  First, the pledge of allegiance, some comments, then the wheelchair racers were off with fireworks.  Disney knows how to put on a fireworks display, and we had fireworks up front as well as behind us, pumping up our adrenaline for the start.  One by one, each corral was sent off with flair.  Soon, it was us and we were off!
 
The group I started with were doing 1:1 run/walks, slow and steady.  The pace group was for a 6:20-6:40 pace, typically, that would be way too slow for me, but with my knee, I wanted to go easy.  Little did I know that  I’d spend so long standing in lines, that I’d be within that range anyway. 
The first 4 miles were filled with chatting and several pee breaks.  Of course, there were no port-a-potties, so it was off to the tree line I went.  I don’t know why, but I peed a good 10 times by the first half of the race, not typical for me on race day. 
 
Around mile 4, I was feeing great.  We were getting closer to the Magic Kingdom, my knee was giving me zero complaints, and I was itching to speed it up.  I said goodbye to the pace group, and headed out.  I increased the  intervals to a loosey-goosey 2-3 minutes of running per minute of walking.  As we entered the Magic Kingdom, the festivities were picking up.  We had loud music, dancing guys with HUGE fake hands, and many other oddities.  There were several characters, but at this point I was feeling good and didn’t want to break for a photo.  Coming through the backstage area was pretty cool.  I enjoyed seeing what Main Street looks like from behind. It sure put a different spin on the magic! 
 
It was There were two pivotal moments in the race that stand out regarding spectators.  Coming into the Magic Kingdom, and coming into EPCOT.  All I can say is the feeling of coming onto Main Street and seeing a HUGE crowd cheering everyone on was an amazing feeling.  It reminds me of running down Constitution Ave. during the Army Ten Miler, but with different associations.  Mrs. Runners Bug was held up at the turn in front of the castle.  I saw here, ran up, and gave her a big kiss.  Snapped a few photos, then said my goodbye and headed to Tomorrow Land, and yet another potty break. After some relief, I was back on track through the newly remodeled Fantasyland. To be honest, I didn’t even notice a difference.  There was a construction wall on the right, but the rest of it looked quite as I remembered it from 2010.  From there, we ran through the castle.  That was another awesome experience, coming out of the castle to a big crowd, not near as much as Main Street or EPCOT though.  This was the moment I made the decision to screw any potential good race time and simply enjoy the festivities.  I made a quick turn off for photos, handed my camera to a crewman and posed for my first of MANY photo ops.  A blur through the rest of the park and we were on the way to Animal Kingdom.
  
For the sake of long posts, I’m going to stop here.  Stay Tuned for Part II of my Walt Disney World Marathon Race Report!!

Embrace the Experience

I'm back from a fun few days in Florida.  It was a great trip, and yes, I finished my third marathon.  I'll get a race report out soon, but for now, just know that I fully embraced the experience and cared nothing about a finishing time, it's the only way to go Disney. Here's a photo for you visual-holics, to tide you over.  :)

Finally, A Good Run

If you’ve been following my blog, you’re aware that I’ve been having some knee issues for awhile.  It started with minor irritation just inside of my left knee cap, which only surfaces after running for several miles, then subsides after a mile or two.  Then, during the Stone Mill 50 Miler, I experienced some fairly string pain directly on the outside of the same knee.  Then, after a few weeks of relaxing, it immediately came back after a few minutes of running, the diagnosis, iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS). I’ve been seeing a physical therapist for a few weeks ago, and have been doing twice daily stretches, with little improvement in running, that is, until today.

I am two weeks out from the Disney World Marathon, and haven’t been able to really run in 6 weeks (SM50).  I was determined to get in a good distance, no matter if it was mostly walking or not.  I elected to stay around the house, just in case my knee acted up, and to go out very cautiously and just see what happened.  I told Jen I had no idea how long I was going for, I might be back quickly, or a few hours.  Thankfully, it ended up being the latter.

Typically, when I do a run/walk, I prefer to do a longer run interval, but with the nature of ITBS, I thought a short interval might be better, so I went with 1:00/1:00.  Also, I found my knee compression sleeve, that I haven’t run with since SM50.  I don’t know which did the trick, but I made it eight miles with my ITBS acting up only during the last quarter mile, and that was because I dropped the run/walk for straight running.  It only slightly acted up, at that.

The one drawback, the original minor irritation did surface about mile 4, but only lasted about half a mile before going away.  Other than that, and the fact it was FREEZING out, the run went quite well.  I went out at a conservative speed, and picked it up some the last half.  I ended up just shy of 13 minute miles.  Yeah, nowhere near what I’d like, but definitely good enough to finish Disney where I must maintain at least a 16 minute pace. 

Today was an encouraging run after nearly a month of disappointment.  I’m anxious to tell my physical therapist and see what she thinks it was, the stretches, the knee support, or the shorter intervals, probably a combination of all three. I’ll take it either way. 

Tonight, I picked up “The Stick” to give a try at loosening up my it band even more.  I have a foam roller, but it’s cumbersome to use.  I’ve heard good things about “The Stick” so we’ll see!

Lastly, to get an idea of how I was able to stay within half a mile of our house, while running eight miles, here’s my Runkeeper track of today’s run.  Just look at all those twists and turns! A good run to end the year, as I highly doubt I’ll be getting in another run tomorrow!

State of Affairs

After taking three weeks off post 50 miler, I tried to ease back into running, hoping the knee pain I experienced during the race would be gone…it wasn’t.  That first run I made it about 1/2 a mile.  I had just started physical therapy, so the next session I discussed this with the therapist, and was diagnosed with IT band syndrome, along with the previous weak hip flexors and tight hamstrings. 

I’ve since been a stretching fool.  I’ve noticed quite a bit of progress on the hamstrings, at least with leg raises and touching my toes.  I’ve tried running a few more times. First, I made it almost a mile before noticing it, then at the 1.5 mile mark, I decided to stop.  It’s better than the 1/2 mile before, but far from recovered.  Next, I got KT taped at physical therapy, and was able to go 2 miles before it started bothering me, stopping at 2.25 miles.  More progress, but I was hoping the taping would give me far more relief.  I did notice the tape seemed to be too high up though. 

Today, the physical therapist said my it band is slowly loosening up.  Yay!  We tried some new exercises which I’ll be incorporating into my routine.  Balancing is something I really need to work on as well, so that’s also on the agenda.  I don’t intend to keep going to PT forever, but I’m thinking these stretches will become part of my routine exercises.

  I've been giving the Disney World Marathon a lot of thought lately.  As it stands, I'm doubting I'll be able to run the entire thing, unless my it band shows some great improvement over the next couple of weeks.  That being said, I've not run much since mid November.  Will I be able to handle that great of a distance with two months of little-to-no running, after coming off of a 50 miler?  Who knows.  Therefore, I've made a command decision. 

The race time limit is a 16 minute per mile pace.  If I speed walked it, I should be able to still finish the race even without running.  I’m hoping for the IT band to be better, but I can’t count on that, and without getting in much training, I wouldn’t want to push running too much on it.  Therefore, I’ve decided to kick into gear with speed walking.  My it band doesn’t bother me with walking, so I think I can get some decent speed walk distances in over the next few weeks, and come race day, does as much running as possible, with speed walking when/if the pain hits.  This certainly isn’t my ideal, but I’ll take it. After that, I’ve got four months to prep for the Blue Ridge Marathon.  That should be plenty of time for my IT band to fully heal, and train back up to run it strong.

Time to get my speed walking on!

And the Winners Are…

I’ve tallied up all the entrants and used random.org to pick the winners.  Here they are:

1.  Beth Dickhute-Mickens - Wins a free 8 oz bottle of Harmless Harvest Coconut Water.

2. Chicas On A Mission - Wins a free 8 oz bottle of Harmless Harvest Coconut Water. 

3. Kathy Kyle Ryan – Wins a free Harmless Harvest t-shirt.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all for entering!

To the winners, I’ll be contacting you shortly for an address to send the prizes!

Today’s run did not go well.  I opted for a short run on the treadmill at work.  After about 3 minutes of running, my outer left knee was in pain.  I stopped after about half a mile.  It was the same feeling I had towards the end of the Stone Mill 50 Miler.  At first, I was fearing the worst, a stress fracture.  My thinking was that how quickly it resurfaced after a 3 week break, it wasn’t likely to be muscle related, but after some further research, my original assumption from the race was plausible, IT Band syndrome. 

Coincidentally, tonight was my second PT appointment.  After telling the DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy), she checked out the area, and surmised that was likely the case.  My IT band was quite stiff she said, then proceeded to kneed and massage the area.  After that, it was additional stretches for IT band, then some TENS unit and cold therapy.  I sure hope that’s the issue, and it cooperates well with the therapy!  Boo!