Disney Marathon Race Report

I was up at 2:00 so I could eat, coffee and hopefully have "action" before catching the bus at 3:00. No action to start my day off--bummer--that's the first time that didn't work. Considering that 2:00 a.m. is really midnight in my normal time zone, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Caught the busses (we had to take 2) to the start. Used the restroom 2X but still no action. Disney does this type of crowd control well, lots of port-a-potties. Went to the start. It was humid and foggy, but warm. The fireworks were nice, but not all that impressive. Disney seems to have cut their fireworks budget based on previous vistits. Started the race, I decided I was going to do a 4:1 Galloway to see what it was like. My pace was pretty good with it, when I was able to run in the early parts. Lots of groups were running 4-5 across and add that to the crowding, it was really hard to get through quickly. Epcot was lit up well. Running through the parks was fun. The hard thing is that during some of the longer stretches, there were no water stations inside the park.

It was hard to get through the crowds in many places and I think there are more people at Disney who don't train adequately for it than in other races. There were people in my corral who had never run farther than 10 miles--and we were supposed to have to show proof of result to do this. TNT needs to talk to their people about not taking up the whole road when they run. Disney organized well, but the runners....oh well. My feet were good, I had some of the pains I expected. I got the cramps in the front of my ankle, but they were manageable. After the half, I started getting pains in the side of my knee (not ITB, but similar) I haven't had this bad since Denver Marathon. I was glad I was doing my run walk, which kept the pain manageable until about mile 16. We hit some steeply banked road that really set me off. I did see Jeff Galloway on the course talking people through the race.

So anyway, the steeply banked roads really set off this injury. I had to start walking until the pain stopped, and then would run again until it started. Biofreeze helped some. I noticed that the pain was affecting my gait, so I knew the running was pretty much done for me and started walking mostly by mile 21. I finished. There were times I was drippy wet with the humidity, and I was pretty hot by the end, but I drank enough that it wasn't an issue for me. Powerade is good for me. I had both Powerade and water at most water stations. This is the first race ever that I was stopped by the medical team after the race. It might have been the tears coming out from under my sunglasses. She asked me if I needed ice. I got an ice pack shrink wrapped to my knee and some tylenol. Went and found DH. The system had been down and he hadn't gotten any updates on me from mile 10 and was worried. The busses were close to the finish area (yeah) and the rain held off until I was off the course.