A Little Goofy?

What were you doing Saturday at 4:30 in the morning? What about Sunday? Sleeping? On both days, I had already been awake for two hours, and was standing on the side of a Central Florida highway, waiting for fireworks to send me off.

This past weekend, I completed Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge at Walt Disney World, which consists of the WDW Half Marathon on Saturday and the WDW Marathon on Sunday — a total of 39.3 miles.  Over 56,000 runners competed in the weekend events, including which about 7,500 of us participating in Goofy’s Challenge. This was my fourth year conquering the challenge.

Both races have a spectacular fireworks start on a road right outside of Epcot. The half marathon takes you to the Magic Kingdom, where you run all through the park, including right through Cinderella Castle.  Then you head back to Epcot, through the park and around Spaceship Earth (the big ball) and to the finish line in the parking lot.  13.1 miles of fun.

The marathon takes you past all of Walt Disney World’s icons. First, you run through Epcot’s Future World around Spaceship Earth. Then, you’re off to the Magic Kingdom where you run through Cinderella Castle.  After that, you head over to Animal Kingdom where you circle the park and the Tree of Life and then to Hollywood Studios where you pass the Earful Tower and the Sorcerer’s Hat.  Finally, it’s back to Epcot for a loop around World Showcase before finishing in the Epcot parking lot. Another 26.2 miles of fun.

The races also take you through many “backstage” areas of the parks, which regular guests never see.  Some of the areas include the parade float storage facilities, recycling and maintenance facilities, horticultural areas, and animal care areas.

Along the courses are all types of entertainment to help the miles go by.  Local high schools send cheerleaders, bands, and dance teams to entertain the runners. DJ’s, rock bands, choirs, jugglers, and other entertainers can also be found along the course. Disney puts random parade floats, hot air balloons, animals, and other props along the course.  Also along the course are all of you favorite Disney characters.  You run past princesses, dwarfs, Mary Poppins, several incarnations of Mickey, and many more. And with so many participants, there are also thousands of spectators and cast members to cheer you on both in and out of the parks.

There are all types of runners who participate each year.  There are world-class elite runners who compete for cash prizes, walkers, and everything in between.  Some people run to raise money and/or awareness for their favorite charity while others dress as their favorite Disney characters.  You won’t find me wearing Mickey ears or Tinkerbell wings though. I find it hard enough to run with a camera!

All finishers receive a Donald medal for completing the half marathon and a Mickey medal for completing the marathon.  Goofy Challengers also receive a Goofy medal for finishing both races.  And when the volunteers put the medal around your neck, you temporarily forget how much pain you are in (and how hungry you are).

My strategy for these races, other than finish, is simply to have fun along the courses.  The first few miles of each race are pretty crowded, so much so that it is nearly impossible to get much speed.  And, I made lots of photo stops.  There are many awesome photo opportunities that are just not available to other Disney guests.  There were also lots of interesting people to talk to along the way, including celebrities.  Last year, I found myself running next to TV weatherman Al Roker.

Along with these two races, there are other events during Marathon Weekend.  My wife ran a 5K through Epcot Friday morning.  My 8-year-old son ran the “Mickey Mile” and my 5-year-old daughter ran a 200 meter race at Disney’s Wide World of Sports..  Each of them received finisher medals as well.

Somehow, out of the 56,000 runners, I managed to be one of only 40 who were invited to a “meet, greet, and tweet” and “training run” with former Olympian Jeff Galloway.  It was held early Friday morning at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, before the park was even open.  We had the entire theme park to ourselves!  We were joined by P90X creator Tony Horton, as well as Survivor winners Jenna Morasca and Ethan Zohn, who also later ran the half marathon. We were able to mingle and take photos with the celebrities and I even got to ride Tower of Terror with Ethan and Jenna.  Of course, I bought that ride photo and they were nice enough to autograph it for me.

So how did I do? I’ve posted much better times in non-Disney races because I took them seriously, trained right and ate well. With the Disney races, I’m pretty much the poster child for how not to run. (Besides, it is even possible to “eat right” in the months leading up to January?) So while I’ve done better in other marathons and half marathons, I haven’t had nearly as much fun!

So, who’s with me next year?

Read about previous WDW Marathon weekends: 2009 | 2010 | 2011

This year, they let way too many people into the half marathon.  I couldn’t even get more than a 10:30 pace.  Of course, it could be because they assigned the same corral for both races, I don’t know.  It was pretty bad though.  So bad that I wasn’t looking forward to the marathon the next day.

The marathon was awesome though.  I enjoyed it more than any other marathon so far, even more than the other 3 Disney marathons.

Below are some of my favorite pictures:

So what’s next? A half-marathon on Saturday of course.  As always, you can follow my running saga here.

It was warm enough at Disney for a dip to play around with it.

I have tons of others.  And, the underwater video is also amazing.  I can’t wait until our Disney Cruise this summer!

If you want one, here it is on Amazon.

Back in the day when we watched a lot of TV, I was a HUGE Survivor fan.  In fact, I watched both of them win their seasons!  I’m surprised nobody offered Jenna chocolate and peanut butter.  If you watched Survivor back then, you would know why!

After a 1.5 mile or so Galloway-style training run, we listened to each celebrity talk about various things, asked questions, and then we got to take photos.  I skipped Jeff and Mickey, since this wasn’t the first time I had done this sort of thing.

Ethan, me and Jenna

Me, with Tony Horton

After that, we were invited to experience The Tower or Terror.  I’ve been on the ride literally hundreds of times, but never through the VIP entrance without waiting in line.  Me and my tweep Jen from Eat, Sleep, Run Disney (who was also at the last meetup) hovered around Ethan and Jenna to be in the same elevator.  We were successful!

Me, Jen (in front of me), Ethan and Jenna next to her (bottom right)

I’ve never purchased a ride photo in my life, but how could we not purchase that photo?  I think half of the people on that ride bought a copy.  I swiped a sharpie from a cast member and waited around for Ethan and Jenna to autograph it.  The photo above is a digital copy because I’m lazy. I need to remember to scan it so I can post that copy!

The weather was perfect again this weekend!  Last weekend, we let Tristan spend the night in his playhouse outside.  This weekend, we saw The Lion King in 3D, and then spent lots of time outside — running, playing soccer, visiting the local park, etc.  Here are a few photos:

I’m really torn over whether to do the Goofy race again next year.  The Disney races are truly magical.  They print your name on your bib, so while you are running you hear complete strangers calling your name and cheering for you.  I’m no professional athlete, so where else am I going to have complete strangers cheer for me by name?  I also love it when the little kids lining the course reach out to give you five along the way.

The only reason that I didn’t enjoy the races this year is because I wasn’t feeling 100%, thanks to Kimberlie who was sick the week leading up to the trip.  It does, however, take a lot of “ching ching” to get all of that “bling bling”.  I’m definitely going to sit on the decision for a while.

Everyone had a great time, and I fully intend to post more pictures soon.  But, for now, here are some photos of characters I met along the course.  My strategy this year, since it will likely be my last Disney race, was to take photos with characters that I hadn’t been photographed with in the past.

You can also see the finisher medals below as well.

We went on a four-night Disney Cruise in 2003 for our honeymoon and a three-night Disney Cruise in 2007 because we got a fabulous deal on it.  We can’t wait to go back!

Those of you who know me are aware of how much I love all things Disney.  In fact, I share the same story told in previous newsletters by several other Macon Tracks members:  one main reason that I started running almost three years ago was to run the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon. Of course, I didn’t stop with that race.  In fact, I’ll participate in my third Disney Marathon this January. 

Disney is packaging their race series under a new “brand” called runDisney and Jeff Galloway has signed on as the official training consultant.  When Disney announced that they were combining the Tower of Terror 13K with the Race for the Taste 10K to create the new Wine & Dine Half Marathon, and I knew I had to participate in the inaugural event!

A few days before leaving for Orlando, I saw a twitter post that said “Check the Disney Parks Blog at 11:00 for an opportunity to go on a training run with Jeff Galloway”.  I checked the blog, quickly submitted my name, and waited.  At 2:00, I got the confirmation that I was one of only 20 people chosen!  Needless to say, I quickly modified my travel plans to be there.

On the morning of the training run (the day before the half-marathon), the other participants and I arrived at Epcot at 6:30am.  We checked in and signed waivers allowing Disney to photograph and video the activities.  We also received a nice moisture-wicking runDisney shirt, which is currently not available for purchase.  Then, Jeff Galloway arrived.

Some of us chatted informally with him, while others jumped at the chance to take photographs of the beautiful sunrise over the closed theme park.  After a little while, we were told to warm up for our training run.

The training run consisted of a run through Future World followed by two loops around the World Showcase, which was bustling with activity in the early morning hours in preparation for the first day of Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival. We had the option of running at our pace, staying with Jeff (and his run/walk/run method), or falling behind.  Of course, I stayed within earshot of Jeff.  It was amazing to be able to run in such a small group through such a beautiful place with an athlete like Jeff Galloway. Of course, you can’t run at Walt Disney World without Mickey Mouse.  He was on hand too to welcome us back to Future World. 

After the run, there were numerous photo opportunities.  The photos of our group with Jeff Galloway will likely be used for future race publicity.  It was surreal having my photo taken with the world’s most famous mouse and one of running’s best known athletes.

Jeff Galloway is a great guy.  After even more photo opportunities, he took over an hour to answer all of our questions and share tips and strategies.  The most popular topic by far was how to properly eat before a night race, because running in a long-distance night race is something that most runners have yet to do.  As expected, stretching and injuries were discussed as well.  Did you know that Jeff has not had a running-related injury in 31 years?  That’s my entire life span!  And as for stretching, Jeff doesn’t do it!  He told us that current research shows that stretchers are more likely to get injuries than non-stretchers.

Other Disney Sports administrators were on-hand as well, including Disney’s well-known race director Jon Hughes.  They told us that Disney is actually planning a fourth race for the 2012 series to complement the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, WDW Marathon Weekend, and the Princess Half Marathon.  That’s great news, but not for my wallet!

After the Q&A session, Jeff gave us each an autographed photo.  He even offered his email address in case we had any additional questions.  Then, we all exited the park, which was about to open to regular guests.  The training run with Jeff Galloway was, by far the highlight of my weekend.

Later that day, we were off to the expo.  Although it was smaller than the expo held during the regular marathon weekend, it was still very good.  That afternoon, my kids participated in the Disney Kid’s Races.  I constantly tell people that the kids’ races are the best deal at Disney.  For $10, each child gets a shirt, a nice finisher’s medal, snacks, a goody bag and lots of fun.

The next morning my wife Kimberlie, one of Macon Track’s newest members, participated in her first 5K ever: Mickey’s Halloween 5K.  It is currently the only short race that goes through the Magic Kingdom.

The Wine & Dine Half Marathon was later that evening.  With a starting temperature of 74 degrees at 10:00pm, it was the hottest long-distance race that I’ve participated in.  During the run, I actually caught up with Jeff Galloway at mile 11!  He was pacing someone using his run/walk/run method.  I ran (and walked) and chatted with them for a while before they left me at mile 12.  The race wasn’t my best half-marathon, but it wasn’t my worst either. 

The course started at the newly rebranded ESPN Wide World of Sports, and followed Osceola Parkway to Animal Kingdom where we ran through the park.  Animal Kingdom almost always closes to guests at 5:00, so it was extremely rare to be there at night.  There was a “Jurassic Park” feel as we ran through the darkness, knowing that animals were nearby but unable to see them from the darkness.  We then ran back down Osceola to Hollywood Studios and continued through the resort area to an Epcot finish. For those who have run the Disney Marathon, the last eight miles of this course nearly mirrored the marathon course.

The staging area and pre-race activities were surprisingly the best I’ve seen at Disney.  At that point, I was impressed that an inaugural race was that well organized.  However, the finish line area at Epcot was a logistical disaster.  To retrieve a bag from baggage claim, the tired runners were funneled into a very long line down a relatively narrow hallway. 

A post-race party was held in the world showcase and each runner was given vouchers for “one drink” and “one taste”.  However, when you divide 15,000 runners (and the many others who purchased party tickets) among only 26 food stands, those lines were excessive as well.  The lines were so long that I didn’t have the energy to stand in them.

Although overall I had a great time, I doubt I’ll continue participating in this race annually.  It always takes a few years for a new race to work out all of the problems, even at Disney.  Also, I typically do much better racing in cool mornings than warm, humid evenings.  Next stops for me: Chickamauga Half Marathon in November and back to Disney for marathon weekend in January!