I couldn’t miss this race.  It’s put on my my local running clubs, so every local runner I know was there.  And, it’s only 10 minutes from my house.  No getting up at 2:45am for this one!

Another medal for the collection!

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.

Mackenzie ran a 200 meter race at ESPN Wide World of Sports.

Tristan ran the Mickey Mile, which is timed.  He ran it in less than 8 minutes!

Kimberlie ran a 5K through Epcot.

Here are a few pictures:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  The kids races are the best bargain you’ll find at Disney.  For $10, you get a t-shirt (good luck finding another $10 shirt at WDW), a goody bag, a medal, snacks, and lots of fun.

At $25, the Mickey Mile is still a decent deal, considering it is timed and results are posted online.

And, although I ran the 5K in 2010, I can no longer recommend it.  They tripled the number of participants — to 8000!  It’s awfully crowded and it is not worth the $55 entry fee.  Find a local 5K to run instead.

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!

Why no pictures of me? Because I didn’t get anything!  I must have been a bad boy this year!

It was so much fun, that afterwards, Kimberlie told me that “we should have another kid just so we can do cookie day again”.  I’m not so sure about that, but I do agree that it was fun.

They turned out really good!