Race Report: 2020 Walt Disney World Half Marathon
I am going to call this the Grumpy Half Marathon in honor of my spirit Disney character, Grumpy the Dwarf. In truth, Donald Duck is the character Disney chose to mascot this race, but Grumpy is better. Though, Donald is quite angry at times too. My mood for the race was grumpy. I've run the half marathon before several times, albeit the last time was 2012. I was really looking forward to this race, but the fates would not shine so brightly on me.
Race Week
This was truly a racecation. We had a whole week in Florida prior to the event. Originally, I was going down for the weekend. My wife was able to get off and extend for the whole week, so we decided to take a road trip. We started off a whole week prior from Maryland and drove to Hilton Head Island. We stayed for one night at the Disney Vacation Club resort there (which was very nice, and we'd never been). The next day we drove to Orlando and stayed with friends. The rest of the week was spent based out of St. Pete, seeing friends and visiting places we miss. I took my bike along and got three solid days of outdoor riding along my old training grounds. It was nice to see old friends and catch up. It was also nice to be away from winter. Friday we moved from St. Pete up to Saratoga Springs Resport in Orlando.
Race Day
No sleep. Literally none. The morning was powered by pure caffeine. I am a light sleeper in normal times, but I typically sleep even worse prior to races. Disney Springs did not help this. Apparently, Paradiso 37 club has live music and a dance party until 1am on Friday nights. Our room was a premium spot (on the water) but it faced Disney Springs and I could hear the music all night. Since the races were so early, I had a 2:30a wake up. Between being ticked at the music and my race nerves, I did not even go to sleep. I proceeded to get in the shower and continue on my routine. Coffee and caffeine would power my day. I met a friend for the early bus and off toward the start we went. Disney is always a production and we walked for nearly 45 minutes until we finally reached corral A.
The course had changed a bit since the last time I did the race, due to a large amount of construction happening at Epcot. Mostly, there were different directions within Epcot since the main plaza is all walled off now. It still followed the normal route from Epcot Center Drive to World Drive, around TTC, up to Contemporary, and into Magic Kingdom. Then it proceeds to go back past Grand Floridian and Shades of Green (a desolate, poorly lit section). Finally, it circles back to Epcot and takes a little detour through backstage and a small section of the park. Basically, it is an out-and-back.
I started in the A corral which allowed me to not deal with the crowds. There are almost 25,000 runners so it takes almost an hour or more for all of the waves to go off. I decided that despite my lack of sleep, I was going to just go for the race and try to nail it. After about two miles of normal race pace (around 7 min/mile), it was just over. This was not going to be my day. I knew it from the feel. What I didn't know, it how much I'd fall off during the rest of the race. I slowed up and took a short potty break near mile 3-4 thinking that maybe I'd just loosen up or get a second wave.
I spent most of the middle section nursing the stiff posterior chain and trying to maintain forward progress while not having anything legitimately cramp up. It was very weird in that every muscle in the posterior of my legs (calves, hamstrings, and glutes) were stiff and achy. It felt as if I had done a major stair workout the day before (Note: I did not). The lights on Cinderella Castle were pretty enough to briefly take my mind off of the stiffness. I do enjoy running through the park before dawn.
Around mile 9, I switched into survival mode. For me, survival mode is starting the run/walk intervals. I typically have my watch set to 4:1 that I can switch the alerts on audible. That is where I ended up finishing. I just didn't have the muscular stamina to continuously run. The run/walk intervals gave the calves a break and allowed me to make forward progress at a bit speedier clip. I missed my goal of finishing before sunrise by about four minutes. I always find it funny that I can run half marathon at Disney before the sun comes up. That, or we are absolutely crazy for getting up that early to run.
I was a bit disappointed that I didn't just call it prior to the start and run with friends who had started one corral back. It would have been nice to have company, but waiting for them after starting would have been a nightmare in the crowded field.
Overall this was not a good effort. While many have pointed out that I "still came in under 2 hours", "that's not a bad time", or "I wish I could run that fast", for me it's still around 15 minutes slower than my usual race effort. Perspective. For a training run, this wasn't half bad. I got the miles in and was able to run in warmer weather. It was better than the snow/ice combination back in the mid-Atlantic.
Forward onto the rest of the season. I'm not one to have a bad race so I'm due every once in a while. On a high note, I did have a blast with friends doing parks all day until 10:30pm (still with no sleep since Friday) so it wasn't a wreck of a day. And thanks to this run, I won the daily friends step challenge (almost before we got started), though I did not win if you take of the race.
Race Week
This was truly a racecation. We had a whole week in Florida prior to the event. Originally, I was going down for the weekend. My wife was able to get off and extend for the whole week, so we decided to take a road trip. We started off a whole week prior from Maryland and drove to Hilton Head Island. We stayed for one night at the Disney Vacation Club resort there (which was very nice, and we'd never been). The next day we drove to Orlando and stayed with friends. The rest of the week was spent based out of St. Pete, seeing friends and visiting places we miss. I took my bike along and got three solid days of outdoor riding along my old training grounds. It was nice to see old friends and catch up. It was also nice to be away from winter. Friday we moved from St. Pete up to Saratoga Springs Resport in Orlando.
Race Day
No sleep. Literally none. The morning was powered by pure caffeine. I am a light sleeper in normal times, but I typically sleep even worse prior to races. Disney Springs did not help this. Apparently, Paradiso 37 club has live music and a dance party until 1am on Friday nights. Our room was a premium spot (on the water) but it faced Disney Springs and I could hear the music all night. Since the races were so early, I had a 2:30a wake up. Between being ticked at the music and my race nerves, I did not even go to sleep. I proceeded to get in the shower and continue on my routine. Coffee and caffeine would power my day. I met a friend for the early bus and off toward the start we went. Disney is always a production and we walked for nearly 45 minutes until we finally reached corral A.
The course had changed a bit since the last time I did the race, due to a large amount of construction happening at Epcot. Mostly, there were different directions within Epcot since the main plaza is all walled off now. It still followed the normal route from Epcot Center Drive to World Drive, around TTC, up to Contemporary, and into Magic Kingdom. Then it proceeds to go back past Grand Floridian and Shades of Green (a desolate, poorly lit section). Finally, it circles back to Epcot and takes a little detour through backstage and a small section of the park. Basically, it is an out-and-back.
I started in the A corral which allowed me to not deal with the crowds. There are almost 25,000 runners so it takes almost an hour or more for all of the waves to go off. I decided that despite my lack of sleep, I was going to just go for the race and try to nail it. After about two miles of normal race pace (around 7 min/mile), it was just over. This was not going to be my day. I knew it from the feel. What I didn't know, it how much I'd fall off during the rest of the race. I slowed up and took a short potty break near mile 3-4 thinking that maybe I'd just loosen up or get a second wave.
I spent most of the middle section nursing the stiff posterior chain and trying to maintain forward progress while not having anything legitimately cramp up. It was very weird in that every muscle in the posterior of my legs (calves, hamstrings, and glutes) were stiff and achy. It felt as if I had done a major stair workout the day before (Note: I did not). The lights on Cinderella Castle were pretty enough to briefly take my mind off of the stiffness. I do enjoy running through the park before dawn.
Around mile 9, I switched into survival mode. For me, survival mode is starting the run/walk intervals. I typically have my watch set to 4:1 that I can switch the alerts on audible. That is where I ended up finishing. I just didn't have the muscular stamina to continuously run. The run/walk intervals gave the calves a break and allowed me to make forward progress at a bit speedier clip. I missed my goal of finishing before sunrise by about four minutes. I always find it funny that I can run half marathon at Disney before the sun comes up. That, or we are absolutely crazy for getting up that early to run.
I was a bit disappointed that I didn't just call it prior to the start and run with friends who had started one corral back. It would have been nice to have company, but waiting for them after starting would have been a nightmare in the crowded field.
Overall this was not a good effort. While many have pointed out that I "still came in under 2 hours", "that's not a bad time", or "I wish I could run that fast", for me it's still around 15 minutes slower than my usual race effort. Perspective. For a training run, this wasn't half bad. I got the miles in and was able to run in warmer weather. It was better than the snow/ice combination back in the mid-Atlantic.
Forward onto the rest of the season. I'm not one to have a bad race so I'm due every once in a while. On a high note, I did have a blast with friends doing parks all day until 10:30pm (still with no sleep since Friday) so it wasn't a wreck of a day. And thanks to this run, I won the daily friends step challenge (almost before we got started), though I did not win if you take of the race.
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