2012 Disney Goofy Challenge: 2 Races, 39.3 Miles, 3 Shirts, 3 Medals, 1 PR, Lots of Fun!

This weekend, I did the Goofy Challenge at Disney, which consists of doing the Half Marathon on Saturday and the Marathon on Sunday.  It was one of the hardest things I have done, and at the same time, I had so much fun, I cannot wait to do it again.

This challenge came in 5 weeks from my last marathon, the West Palm Beach marathon, which is my current PR.  I have been dealing with the asthma and trying to race so that I can determine what level of fitness I am currently at and whether the asthma is going to make my slower pace permanent.

So, this was going to be an event for fun.  Easy half marathon and an easy marathon.  But, after I ran a 5K the weekend prior where I was very close to my PR and where the asthma didn't bother me, and after looking at the weather forecast for the weekend and noticing great weather for Saturday and Sunday, I decided to shoot for a PR on the Half Marathon.  Any PR was OK with me, but secretly, I was shooting for 2 hours.

Training:

Since the WPB Marathon, I have been taking it easy.  I participated in the Reindeers/Gobblers challenge, but I refrained myself from running too much (I actually asked Van to lower my goal by 20 miles).  I behaved and was able to run very low miles for me.  I did not even do a long run longer than 13 miles.  However, I did a very tough trail half marathon that lasted 3.5 hours, so at least I felt I had enough time on my feet.  I also took 3 days off last week, which is unheard of for me.  I was itching to run, but I knew it would be worth it in the end.

Pre-Weekend:

The week prior to the Goofy was very busy, as I was stuck at depositions for two days, plus I had court and stuff.  I had no time to properly hydrate, we went out to dinner too often during the week and none of them were pasta. In the end, this is the worst taper I have ever done.

On to the weekend....

My husband wanted to come with me and I had mixed feelings.  Whenever I travel with my husband, I don't hydrate, we have no time to do any rest and we never eat pasta (since DH does not like it). But, I made sure he understood that I must eat pasta on Friday and Saturday or he would end up finding another house to live in.  Ha!  I gotta say that DH did not stress me too much this weekend and, as this was a trial trip to practice Berlin, I guess I'll let him come with me for the Berlin Marathon.

Expo:

We got to Orlando on Friday at 4pm and went straight to the expo.  I was hoping to meet a fellow forumite from the Marathon Dailies (KMH Maniac) and he was actually waiting for me.  We met, I introduced him to my husband, and Kevin just blurted out: My goal is to do 40 marathons before I am 40!  I thought was husband was not listening but later asked me whether I would be shooting for 40 before I am 40.  Eh, I'm 36 and I am on # 6, so I better get to work.

Anyway, the expo was disappointing.  ING Miami has an expo almost three times in size and I guess I am spoiled because I found Disney's expo lacking so we left within 5 minutes.

Goodies (aka, the 3 Shirts):

I was assigned Corral C and I thought I was properly placed, but later you will find that it was NOT the case.

So, we head to the Coronado Springs Resort, checked in, looked at the facilities, and went back out.  We had dinner at a nice restaurant where I was able to order a pasta.  We went back to the room and I fell asleep at midnight.  No biggie, right?  I only needed to be up by 3am, pfffttttt.

Asthma:

I had spoken with the doctor and she agreed I should take my Symbicort immediately upon waking up and the rescue inhaler 30 minutes before the race.  That is a total of two medications in one hour, but since I was only doing it for the races, we thought it was fine.  It worked (at least for Saturday, more on that later).

Half Marathon (Saturday):

I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 1:30 to use the bathroom.  I walked very carefully so as not to trip and BAM, I hit the bone right below the knee with the toilet.  It was still hurting yesterday.  Notwithstanding that, I woke up at 3am and I am at the bus stop 50 steps away from the room by 3:20am.  I was actually limping thanks to the bathroom encounter but I was planning on PR'ing nonetheless.

The Half Fanatics picture was scheduled for 4am and I barely made it (that's how long the bus ride, walk to the baggage check area is).  We had a couple of Half Fanatics pics and we went to our respective ways.  I was able to meet another forumite from the MRT forum (Turtle Room thread), Desiree, and off I went.

Temps were gorgeous for a PR attempt (51-54F during the race) which for me is the coldest I've ran since January.  So, I wore an old pair of Zensah arm warmers that I was willing to let go if and when it got too hot.

I get to the potties and start my walk to the corrals.  That walk is horribly long; it's almost a mile long and it took close to 30 minutes before we head there.  I took my iPhone with me to contact my friend who was supposed to pace me but he got stuck on the bus traffic and barely made it so I never saw him.  I had my iPod, my playlist, and a burning desire to race a Half Marathon with or without my friend, so I did.  It was nice to race a Half Marathon; I had not done that since November, 2010.

And off we go.  When they let the Corral B go, I hear the announcer say: There goes the 2 hour pacer, and there is the 2:15 pacer.  I was like oops, I'm one corral behind and stuck with the 2:30-2:45 crew.  Fuck!

Anyway, as soon as we head off, I start weaving and passing people as much as I could.

Pace for Miles 1-4: 9:23, 8:49, 9:04, 9:10

I was running along minding my own business, listening to Pitbull and Daddy Yankee until Mile 4 (somewhere on the Magic Kingdom) when damn it, the sock is all bunched up.  I am wearing compression socks, for crying out loud, this was supposed to resolve the issue.  Anyway, I hang on until Mile 5 or so when the pain is too much so I stopped, threw away my arm warmers and fixed the sock.

Pace: 10:18

Here is me somewhere along there:

And off I go again.  Paces for Miles 6-7: 9:25, 9:30 (first and only gel around mile 6.50 so I walked the water station while I ate).

...until Mile 8 when the same bunching thing happens and I stop again before it gets too painful.  I am not going to include another censored smiley here because there are too many already, but you get the idea.

Pace: 9:53

At this point, I am still running very easy.  The pace feels great and I have energy to give away.  The only thing stopping me is the stupid foot.  Come on!  I need to solve this already.

And since I want to bore you with pics, here is another one of me at this point, although I should have punched that guy for taking my picture time away! 

Pace at Mile 9: 9:07

And then again at Mile at Mile 10 (sigh), another shoe issue.  This time, I took my shoe off and everything hoping to hear the end of it.

Pace: 9:53

At this point I am not too worried, since I know I am going to PR nonetheless.

Miles 10 through 12 contain the hills of this race.  Bridges that are nothing like the Miami causeways but they come back to back.  At this point my water bottle is empty so I start walking the water stations to fuel.  I have two more shoe issues, and you will see it in the paces.  Apart from that, I was running 9-9:15 whenever I was running during these miles.

Paces: 9:29, 9:37

As we head into Epcot at the end of Mile 12 and going into Mile 13, I need to fix the shoe one more time and I end up running the last mile at 9:46.  As I head into the chute, I see the crowd and I try to break 2:05 (thinking I was close to finishing at 2:05) and I end up crossing the finish line in 2:04:31...limping and with a sore calf from the changed gait I did trying to run through this bunching.  Here is me celebrating:

And yes, it's 54F and that's all sweat.

Apart from the foot issue (which I must resolved soon), I was very happy with my performance.  I never got tired and ran what felt like an easy tempo run.  When I ran, I was running at 9mm or thereabouts.  So I know I can break 2 hours any time...so long as the foot behaves.

I spent the rest of the day shopping and eating mofongo at our favorite restaurant outside of Puerto Rico.  Note the lack of carbo loading I did.  Ugh.

And on to Sunday:

If I slept 3 hours on Saturday, I slept 4 hours on Sunday night.  I actually fell asleep in the car on the way to the mofongo.  But, I knew I would catch up on my sleep at some point in time.

I did the same routine, and got to the Marathon Maniacs picture with 5 minutes to spare, woohoo!

Before the MM picture, I met another Turtle member of the forums, tennesotans and we took the required FE pic:

I also met two other forumites from the Marathon Forum (Daily Runner thread), jodirunningforautism and runnrchic, one of which was running with me for a bit and the other one brought me the most delicious red velvet cupcake, which of course I ate as breakfast before the race, pfffttt, carbo loading, OK?

Oh, as Jodi has mentioned before, her hubby broke his toe, so she asked Disney for permission to run the marathon instead of her hubby.  The bib has his name but the chip is hers.  You can tell her hubby is super fast as she has the A corral bib, LOL.  Jodi had a great shirt with a nice message about her weight loss journey.  She got comments throughout the marathon and lots of congrats.

And off we went on the same cattle walk to the corrals, barely making it into the corral C.  And we were off.

As soon as we crossed the starting line, Jodi asks: Did you use your inhaler? Fuck, no!  So, I take it out and used it...except the stupid inhaler was empty and gave me a little squeeky sound and quit.  Oh, this day is going to be tough, I can tell.

My calf was still super sore from the changed gait from the day before and the ball of the foot had the biggest bruise you can imagine.  I am surprised I did not start walking earlier than I did.  I was going to take it easy and I did, but I was tired and achy.

We had a blast for the next 20 miles.  We stopped to use the potty twice, we stopped to take pictures three times, and we had a blast getting to know each other.  Here are some pics of those miles:

I am even teaching Jodi the Smoking Hot Mammal sign:

We also stopped to take pictures with some of the Disney characters.  The highlight of my day were the following:

And

Miles 10-20 were for me a struggle.  I was breathing heavily (I had no asthma medication, remember) and my leg was sore.  So, we were running half a mile and walking a bit, rinse and repeat.  I finally sent Jodi off to do her thing, as I knew her hubby and family were waiting and I was just slowing her down.  After she left, I walked for 0.25 miles and took out my iPhone.  Pitbull and Daddy Yankee are back on!

At Mile 20, I looked at the FB update of my race and I see Venomized's comment; GET YOUR BUTT MOVING!  So I did.  Between Pitbull, Daddy Yankee, and Venomized, I got a second wind.  I did not walk any other portion of the marathon.  I ran the whole way from Mile 20 through the finish.

As soon as I started running, the foot started complaining, so I stopped several times to fix it.  I also had to stop at the medical tent at Mile 23 for 5 minutes to clean myself (OK that sounds bad).  I had used some vaseline (that sounds worse) and I had my hands all sticky (OK, I'll stop).  Anyway, I had an issue with the skirt staining with the vaseline, so I had black marks all the way down my legs and hell no, I would not look dirty in my pictures, so I stopped and fixed it.

As I head into Hollywood Studios, I start taking pictures of the sights and posting them on FB...while running.  I took the last 3 miles very slowly and had the time of my life.  I enjoyed the sights I was not able to enjoy during the HM in search of my PR.

And there we were.  The finish line.  I had completed the Goofy and the first thing I thought was WHERE IS MY GOOFY MEDAL?

I brought 4 gels, ate 3 and ended up with 5.  I guess I shopped too much at the gel tables.

So, I am done, I get my three medals, and I texted my husband with: I'm done.  Him responding with: About time!

Oh, and he has kidnapped my medals:

Seriously, this is the most fun I've had on any of my marathons ever.  I finished with a second personal worst and you know what?  I don't care.

And if you read this far, no, I ain't giving you your money back.

Next: 10K race this weekend.  Goal: TBD!