Goofy Challenge 2013 - Half Marathon

Not one to disappoint my dear friend, Ari, I'm doing my best to get my race recaps up before Wednesday because she's doing a post with links about first time marathon experiences. In the meantime, go check out her blog adorable blog, Ari's Menu. She cooks and bakes all sorts of amazing things including gluten free deliciousness for Tara and me.

Saturday morning began with an extremely long line waiting for the busses to get to the start. Since we stayed at the new Art of Animation, we were pleasantly surprised by how quick the ride to the Epcot parking/drop area was.

Considering it was like 4:00AM and we had gotten up at 2:45, we were in pretty good spirits and singing along to the music on the bus. You're welcome, fellow runners, for the free entertainment.

The runner area was the same as usual for a Disney race. Lots of hype, people, and loud music. The entrance had a Mickey arch, which I thought was pretty cool. On marathon morning, they rolled out the red carpet beneath it, but I forgot to take a picture that morning because I was so nervous.

The walk to the actual start is ridiculous. I actually turned on my Garmin to see just how slow we were going and it clocked us as shuffling at a 54 minute mile. I can't figure out why the marathon start moves so much more quickly. There were almost as many marathoners as half marathoners. Last year was the same way. The half start was painful and the marathon start moved quickly (I didn't run the marathon, but I did the first leg of the marathon relay which was not offered this year).

Finally, we got to the corrals, and the race started with its usual Disney brand of fanfare.

 

Having never run a full marathon (yep, still whining about not having run New York this year), we had no idea at all how to pace this race. I figured our best bet was to run as slowly as possible to save our legs as best as we could. That also gave us time for a few pictures.

 

The upside to running that slowly is that we ran (well, jogged) pretty much the entire thing. We only walked through water stops and a few picture stops. As we came in through the staging area that leads to Main Street, U.S.A., Tara had to do some damage control to the blisters on her feet.

Then we ran down Main Street, which is always my favorite part of the race, regardless of Disney race or coast we run.

I'm not very good at taking pictures of myself.

By the time we got to Mile 10, I actually thought to myself, "wow, that was quick." I can't believe how easy this half felt at that point. Granted, we kept ourselves really slow, but still. It felt easy, which just goes to show that even though I doubted some of my progress from this summer, it was definitely there. From mile 10 until the finish, we actually did pick up the pace quite a bit by almost 2 minutes per mile. There's a stretch of highway that includes a long incline to an over pass and we were cruising along at that point passing people left and right, which felt pretty awesome.

My traditional mile 10 picture

 

 

We crossed the finish line with a time over three hours, which was a okay, but a little hard to take since I PR'd and Disneyland which was my last half with a 2:39 (still slow, I know, but a PR is a PR, right?). Honestly, though, running slowly is the only way to get through the first leg of Goofy.

After crossing the finish line, we grabbed some food and ice and sat around icing various joints, which I think helped immensely.

It was warm at the finish, but not unbearable. The first day of Goofy Challenge was a success. We made it back to the hotel, rested for a bit and then went to Magic Kingdom for a few rides before calling it a night at about 7:00PM.

My body felt great. My legs were a little tired, but otherwise, I really felt fine. I certainly didn't feel as if I had run 13.1 miles that morning. Up next: Marathon Recap