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This will be my final Walt Disney World Marathon recap post for this year.  I wrote this article for the newsletter at work, so I thought I would post it here.

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?

I was fortunate enough to be one of about 40 runners who got to attend a “meet/greet/tweet” at Walt Disney World during marathon weekend.  The celebrities included Olympian Jeff Galloway, P90X creator Tony Horton, Survivor Africa winner Ethan Zhon, and Survivor Amazon winner Jenna Morasca.  The best known mouse in the world was also there along with the guy responsible for the entertainment at Disney races.

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!

This has not been a good month for technology at my house.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my Macbook would no longer charge.  Then I discovered that my cat had chewed through the power cord.  No biggie — I was a little ticked off (especially since this is not the first time that its happened), but I ordered a new one from Amazon.  Small setback.  Nothing major.

On Tuesday, I we discovered that we couldn’t channel surf past channel 20.  We technically only pay for channels 2 – 19 for a measly $16 a month.  A long long time ago, when we had high-speed internet installed, the tech “forgot” to put the trap back on.  The lack of this trap allowed us to go all the way up to channel 70.  That’s $52.00 worth of cable for $16.00 a month.  Do the math and that is $3168 for savings since we moved in.  Of course, we are very dependent on those upper channels — CNN and History for me, TLC and HGTV for Kimberlie, and of course, Disney for the kids.  Restricting us to local and public access channels really sucks!

We went tubing in Helen two years ago and had a great time.  This Saturday, we decided to do it again.  I wanted to take the small point & shoot camera and my beloved iPhone with me.  I knew it was risky so I took a ziplock bag to keep them safe.  On the way down the river, I took photos and tweeted and checked email and facebooked.  Everything went fine.  At the end, it was time to get out so I put the camera and phone in the bag and proceeded to get out of the tube and wade to the riverbank.  The water was only about a foot deep so I put the bag in my pocket.  All of a sudden, the river got really deep.  The water was so cold that I wasn’t concerned with my technology.  Somehow, the water seeped through the bag and ruined both: my $170 camera and my iPhone 3G.

Needless to say, this has not been a good month for technology in my house.  It looks like we will be going with Dish Network in the very near future to get our channels back.  And, since I’m eligible for an upgrade with AT&T, it looks like I’ll be getting the iPhone 4!  To cover the costs, I’m dropping my $30 data plan to a $15/month plan.  The only problem: there is a 3+ week wait to get the new phone.  I am about to lose my mind here!

My sister got the opportunity to ask Clark Howard a money question . . . and get her two minutes of fame.  This was obviously before she had her baby.  Check it out:

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we attended part of the taping for the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade.  I also included a few of the 500 pictures I snapped and one of the videos I shot.  Here is a tilt-shift video, created by Disney of the Christmas parade.

As you can see, tilt-shift is a cool technology.  I consider it analogous to HDR photography, but even cooler.  Here are links to two other tilt-shift videos with short explanations by Disney if you are interested in the technology:

Magic Kingdom Tilt-shift
Epcot Tilt-shift
Tilt-shift Explanation

Here are some screen shots from the video, so that you can see where to find us in the parade.  It airs tomorrow, Christmas Day, at 10:00 AM on your local ABC channel.

For the second time in my life, I was able to take part in the taping of a very popular Christmas special.  In 2007, Kimberlie and I were a part of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” and were showered with overpriced merchandise by a television diva.  Other than that, there is only one other holiday television special that I would love to be a part of, and somehow I managed to pull it off this year.

This past weekend, we were invited to be part of the taping of the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade.  Basically, they entice you to come be a part of the crowd with free entry into the Magic Kingdom for the day.  We were unable to make the Kris Allen (American Idol) taping on Thursday or the Celine Dion taping on Friday due to work and school schedules, so we decided to go down for the Jonas Brothers on Saturday. 

The Jonas Brothers sang a three minute song called Summertime Anthem, but it took us four hours to shoot the performance.  The director made them sing it no less than 10 times.  Part of that was teaching the 5000 member audience to break out into a flash-mob style dance routine towards the end of the song.  It was awesome!  By shear luck, we ended up at the very front of the stage!

The parade taping was another grueling six hours, because performers had to perform over and over and over for the perfect camera angles.  Steve Rushton (singer) and the Santa Buddies (dogs from a new Disney Christmas movie) were there and all of it was hosted by Kelly Ripa.  No Regis this year due to surgery!  And by shear accident, we ended up on center street, where the performers performed.

Of course I shot over 500 pictures and 3 videos.  Here is a small sample:

Check out the video to see how close we were to the action!

Be sure to watch the parade Christmas morning on ABC.  There is no possible way that they can show the parade without including some very good shots of us.  You should definitely watch for the shot of  Tristan and me dancing (above) during the “Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it” portion of the parade.

This weekend was certainly a busy and interesting one.

Saturday, we had two birthday parties — one at a skating rink and one at a farm.

Below are pictures from from Jameson’s party.  Jameson is a little girl in Tristan’s kindergarten class.  We didn’t know her or anyone else at the party, but we always try to go when he gets an invitation from a friend because 1: it helps meet people and 2: we usually return the favor.  Sometimes these parties are fun and sometimes not so much.  The one yesterday was great.  Before I start critiquing the party like its a new restaurant, I’ll just say that it was an enjoyable time for all of us.

This was Tristan and Mackenzie’s first time roller skating.  It was also the first time I have been in almost 20 years!

Stay tuned for Saturday Part Two and Sunday.  Desperate Housewives is coming on so they will have to wait!

Since my blog has basically turned into a photo gallery lately, I thought I would come up with something to write about today.  I haven’t wrote much of anything lately, because I’m still struggling with the “Should my blog go public?” question.  I don’t want to express my opinions too much and then have a potential employer read them.

So lately my time has been taken up by all of these season finales on TV.  Tonight is American Idol, which I could care less about.  I’ll go run or something.  But since my four favorite shows are over, I will make a few comments about them:

LOST:  That atomic bomb better not have blown them back onto the original flight.  That is really going to tick me off.  Besides, a lot of questions still haven’t been answered . . . like why Juliet time-travels when the other others don’t?

PRISON BREAK:  Not only was this the season finale, but also the series finale.  I can see why.  The first season was smoking hot but it pretty much went downhill from there.  But did they really have to kill off Michael in the end?

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES:  Another show that has started out great but has gotten more boring over the seasons.  The finale closed out a lot of storylines, but the ones that they introduced weren’t too great.  The new chick that moved in with Carlos and Gabby is the only thing that offers any potential.

24:  We all know Jack will live.  And the president is going to leave her sickly looking first-man and hook up with Ethan.  And the next season will continue to get the terrorists that were missed this time around.  I’m just glad that my hacker hero Chloe is back and has managed to survive … even if she doesn’t quite get the I.T. lingo right.

Since I’ve been slightly neglecting this blog lately, I figured its a great time for a life update.  In no particular order:

RUNNING: I ran 4 miles tonight. It’s the longest distance I’ve done since the Disney Marathon, which was almost 3 months ago.  I’m just over a 9 minute/mile pace at that distance.  I have five races scheduled in April/May so I’m really going to be hitting the pavement.  It feels good getting a trophy at the end of a race!

SCHOOL: I turned in my second C# project last weekend.  One more to go and then class number one of masters degree number two will be complete.  Summer semester is going to be rough because it’s less than a month and I have a work trip to Colorado scheduled right in the middle of it.

WORK: Work sucks lately.  I just hate being there.  Our worthless marketing guy is trying to take over technology and my boss doesn’t like to fight the political battles.  On top of all of that, four years of doing the same things is getting boring.  There is no chance of advancement in my current job and my boss doesn’t support formalized training (even when it’s free).  I would really like to get my expired CCNA back (which wouldn’t cost the University anything but time), but the boss believes that if you train someone, they will leave.  I’m not knocking my boss.  He’s a great guy both in and out of work, but I need challenges!!!  I would go for the CCNA outside of work, but I don’t have time.  I do have a 5 day weekend beginning tomorrow, so maybe I’ll be re-energized by Wednesday.  If things don’t improve over the next few months, I may jump into the job market.

TRAVEL:  Yes, we are hitting the road again Sunday.  Back to Disney World.  As annual passholders, we can book the value rooms for next to nothing.  Apparently though, too many of them have been booked, so someone from Disney called me today and gave us a free upgrade to one of the Deluxe Villa Resorts (Old Key West).  It should be a great weekend.

TELEVISION: LOST is really slow-moving this season.  Some questions are being answered, but there’s not much new.  I’m ready for more action.  24 is pretty much the same old thing.  Some [insert hostile county]ian terrorists plan to detonate a [insert WMD type here] weapon in the U.S. and Jack is going to save the day.  Been there, done that.  The best part of the entire show is Chloe!

We spent this past weekend at Walt Disney World to celebrate a few things: the grand opening of the American Idol Experience, Valentine’s Day, and my 30th Birthday (but not President’s Day).  Disney lets you in free on your birthday, but since I am a passholder they gave me a $75.00 gift card instead which I used to score some overpriced merchandise.

Here is a picture of me with Pinnochio, who is also celebrating a birthday this year — his 70th!

I’ll post more pictures soon.