A Magical Day!!

A Walt Disney World Marathon Race Report

Dee Dee's watch went off at 3:00 AM in the morning. She got up and got in the shower. It's her thing. I prefer to be "un-bathed" for my races. Don't stand down wind from me in the morning of a race. This, of course, was followed by my watch alarm, then the hotel clock, and finally the wake up call. No way we were going to sleep through this race start!

After Dee Dee got out of the shower, I crawled out of bed and got dressed. Everything had been laid out in different places. My clothes, shoes, Garmin, and race belt were on the closet shelf. My hotel keys, nutrition, and "Be Strong" band were on the night stand. With forty minutes until it was time to leave, we sat down and ate our carefully planned breakfast. The night before, we had bought two banana muffins at the pastry shop, milk and sugar donuts at the store. I had no trouble eating, but Dee Dee was too nervous to eat. This did not make me happy and I told her so.

Once breakfast was over, we gave ourselves a good checking over and headed out the door. It was a short, quarter mile or so walk to the lobby to meet the bus. As we walked along the dark misty side walks, other ghost like runners moved down the walk ways and paths towards the lobby. Our fellow runners we up and active. We were one of the first ones at the bus stop, but it didn't take long for twenty or thirty people to join us at 4 AM. We waited, maybe, fifteen minutes before the bus arrived.

The ride over to Epcot was rather uneventful. We could see the bright lights and sky lights from our hotel, and as we got closer, traffic picked up. We made our way into the parking lot and there was a line of near twenty buses dropping off runners. It was amazing to see. Dee Dee and I disembarked and made our way into the staging area. It was really cool. They had a live band and big screen TVs. We realized once we got there that our legs were going to get tired if we stood there for two hours. Unfortunately, we didn't bring anything to sit on. We borrowed a catalog from Champion and immediately broke it up into pieces and used that to sit on the concrete. Thanks Champion! We loved your singlets by the way :-)

Sometime around 5 AM, some dude who was green from head to toe started barking out orders about moving to the assembly area. I guess he was the sergeant from Toy Story. I think like ten people moved at the first try. Dee Dee and I decided to head over to the information tent where we had agreed to meet Kelly. We hadn't been there long when Dee Dee decided she need to use the bathroom. I told her that if Kelly came while she was gone, I would meet her at the exit door of our bag drop off. She agreed and headed out. Well, a few minutes later she came back because she was scared she would lose me in the crowd. We gave Kelly fifteen minutes past the time we agreed to meet and then headed out without her. We stopped at the port-a-potties for Dee Dee and waited for what seemed like an eternity.

Runners, its time!! It's time to move to the assembly area and on to the starting line...

Over and over the sergeant blared out his commands. Dee Dee was taking forever, and I got tired of watching for little sis to come by, to no avail. I noticed there were very short lines closer to the exit. I grabbed Dee Dee and we headed over to exit and got right in.

The starting line was about a quarter mile away. We joined the long queue of people and made the trek through the darkness to the starting line. The anticipation and excitement was palpable. They did something interesting at Disney. They had two starting lines, one for faster runners, and one for everybody else. We would run seperate routes for 3.4 miles, then the routes would converge. I thought that was neat.

Dee Dee and I made our way to corral F and climbed over the flimsy fencing at the head of the corral. We didn't know it at the time, but little sis was at the back of the corral, looking for us. We only had six minutes until the race started. Mickey, Minnie, and Donald were on the starters platform to count down the race start. With two minutes until start time, the crowd counted down the start for the wheel chair racers. It was awesome, the enthusiasm for the wheel chair athletes. In honor of the fifteenth anniversary, Mickey and crew counted down from the fifteen seconds. With a boom, the fireworks went off in front and in back of us, and the race started.

I'm going to pat myself on the back for this one. What I can't do for myself, evidently I CAN do for others. My pace was almost perfect for the first 16 miles. We started out along the highway between Epcot and our hotel. The first two to three miles was a big loop. We spent a lot of time trying to find some space and dodging the walkers. Of course, we were doing the run walk thing too. We weren't complaining. Just trying to find space when we wanted to run.

Starting out, we ran around the front of Epcot and entered the park by the big Silver Ball. As we headed around the lake, Dee Dee and I decided to take advantage of one of the bathrooms about a hundred yards off the route and stopped for our first bathroom break. I think we were at mile 3 at this point, because I noticed on my Garmin that our average pace had climbed to 14:28 by the time we started running again. I told Dee Dee not to worry about it. We would make up the time gradually, and not all in one mile. We exited out at the back of the park and found ourselves running down the same road we walked to the starting line. Sure enough, we were back on the highway again, following the same route.

This time, instead of getting off at the underpass, we headed down the road past mile 5 and began the portion of the run that took us to the Magic Kingdom. I really enjoyed this part of the run. By now, the sun had come up, and I got to see a lot more of Disney than I did riding the monorail as a child.

Dee Dee and I were making good time. We still had to struggle some to find room to run, our average pace began to decline and dip. When we ran past the contemporary resort and into the Magic Kingdom, it settled in at 14:08 per mile, the lowest point that it would get. I thoroughly enjoyed running through the Magic Kingdom. It was my favorite part of the race. There were plenty of characters out and about. Dee Dee and I ran through Cinderella's castle together, and we even paused to have our picture taken by the race photog. Running through Wilderness area where they have the Country Bear jamboree brought back such great memories of why I loved the place. We exited the park out through the back lot area. They had one more set of characters there, sitting on a ship. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean. That was cool too.

Once we exited the back lot of Disney at mile 11, things kind of got stale. We ran along a wooded road, without much to see or do. They had put up motivational signs by Sharpie, and there was music along the way. My favorite quote was, "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!" We danced and pranced a bit and got funky with it. At long last, we hit mile 13.1. Half the marathon was over.

I can't say enough about how well Dee Dee had been holding up. The difference between this race, Atlanta, and ING was amazing. She wasn't complaining about anything. She was having fun. You could see she was zoning in on what she had to do. I explained to her at this point that we would have to repeat the same level of effort to come in around 6:30:00. We had basically banked about twenty minutes ahead of the bus. She acknowledged me, and we kept on trucking.


Miles 14, 15, and 16 were dull and boring until we hit the Animal Kingdom. They had characters and live animals out to greet us there too, and that was just awesome. The public had started to visit the park now, and we found ourselves running through the park along with the paying customers. After running through the Animal Kingdom, the sun came out and it started to get warm real fast. At this point, I still felt really good. I had been drinking two cups of something at every water stop, and I had already had to stop and pee like four times (TMI!!). Dee Dee had eaten all of her Cliff Shot blocks, and I was right there along with her with my Clif Bars and gels.

The trip to the Disney Studios was HOT. We came to our only out and back portion of the marathon. We could see people coming back along the road. Dee Dee jokingly (I think) said to cross over, but I wouldn't let her. We were going to run the full 26.2 :-) Once we hit the end of the back, we had crossed mile 21. Dee Dee had been slowing down up to this point, but now she was really tired. As climbed the exit ramp to the express way at mile 22, I could see that she was pale and her freckles were standing out. Yes! I got worried about her. She was having a hard time taking in water and her face felt like sand paper. She was sweating though, on her arms and chest, so I wasn't really really anxious about her yet. At the top of the ramp, we ran into Jimmy and Matthew. Jimmy had taken the car and parked along the highway and climbed the exit ramp to wait on us. I thought that was really cool and a great boost for Dee Dee. Of course, Matthew told Dee Dee she looked like crap :-)

We made the long slow trek through Disney Studios. About half way through, I ran ahead, up and down the line of marathoners shouting, "Hey first timers! Who wants to be a marathoner today?" That got me some smiles and a few laughs. We exited Disney Studios and Dee Dee said we had just run through Epcot again. I said that no we didn't, that was the Disney Studios. At this point, Dee Dee said, "Read the sign, dumb ass!" I thought that was hilarious! I let it slide, and we grinded our way to mile marker 24. I asked Dee Dee if she could taste the finish line yet. She was going to make it! All she said was to leave her alone :-)

I really enjoyed running along the Boardwalk and through the Swan and the Dolphin. I had never ever been there before. We had slowed down to 17-18 minute miles by now. I got plenty of time to check stuff out :-) Once we exited this area, it was short skip and a hop to the back of Epcot. I kept telling Dee Dee the finish is right around the lake. She asked where? I, unfortunately, pointed to the wrong place. Dee Dee was about out of gas and could only muster like two running intervals.

Around the lake we ran, back by the Silver Ball, and out the side of the park. As you came around the final blind curve, there was youth choir just a singing their hearts out for the marathoners. They brought such joy to my heart. I flipped my hat around backwards and ran down the line high fiving all the kiddos. I turned around to wait for Dee Dee and laughed, cause she was doing the same thing! As we exited the blind curve, the finish line sprung into sight. There was Jimmy and Matthew hanging out by a tree. Dee Dee and I stopped to give them more high fives.

With less of a tenth of a mile to the finish line, I turned to Dee Dee and said, "Are you ready?" She said that she didn't want to run, and I laughed again. I said, "You HAVE to run across the finish line! There's no other way!" She groaned and started running. As we passed the grand stands, Dee Dee waved her arms in the air, drawing applause from what was left of the spectators. We ran together for the final race photo. I grabbed Dee Dee's hand. We raised our arms in triumph and crossed the finish line together.

I turned and gave Dee Dee a hug. She said, "Get off me!" ROFL!!!!!

Stay tuned for the final installment...