WDW Marathon Weekend 2017

This past weekend Guy and I went to Walt Disney World to participate in Marathon Weekend 2017. Guy signed up to run the half-marathon. I signed up to run the Dopey Challenge. The dopey challenge involves running the 5k, then the 10k the next day, followed by the half-marathon the following day and ending with the marathon. In other words you run back to back to back to back over the weekend. We've spent the last 7 months training for this weekend. My parents and one of my sisters and her husband also participated.

The first day we got to Orlando we went to the airport to pick up our race gear. They had an expo there where you could check out all kinds of running gear and other merchandise. It was fun seeing all of the different vendors. We got to meet Jeff Galloway! Jeff Galloway is an olympic athlete who now writes most of the training programs for RunDisney. I trained for the race using his run-walk-run method. At the expo they had an inspiration station. Here people could make signs and the runners could get a temporary tattoo. We all decided to get one and

Finished the 5k

Thursday morning was the 5k. Because of how many people do the Disney races, each participant needs to be lined up in their corals before 5 am. This means a 3 am wake up call. Rachel, Keith, my dad and I got up and left to the race. The weather was pretty nice when we ran it. Along the race are different characters that you can stop and get a picture with. I didn't wait in line for any pictures but I did take a few pictures of the characters as I ran by. The 5k course goes through and around Epcot.

LtoR Guy, Allison, Keith, Rachel, Wendy, James

After the race we went as a family to the Magic Kingdom. We walked A LOT! Probably more than we should have. It was Guy's and Keith's first time though so we wanted to let them see as much of it as possible. Guy's favorite ride was Space Mountain. I liked that one but I also really enjoy the Seven Dwarves Mine train. One of the things Disney has started doing is making the wait queue more interactive. We ended up staying out until almost 10 pm. Pretty late considering we got up early the next morning

Finished the 10k

Friday morning we had a 2:30 am wake up call. Keith, Rachel, Dad and I got up and went to the 10k line up. The 10k course is similar to the 5k except you run more on the highway and the parking lot. We ran out for a mile from the parking lot then turned around and went back the way we came to get to the "course". After we finished running we met up with my mom and Guy and went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. There's not as much to ride in the Studios but there are a few. Guy's favorite ride was the Tower of terror. It drops you from a height than shoots back up and drops you again. Each time you ride it there's a different drop sequence so you never have the same ride. While there we also watched a few shows. We got to see Storm Troopers storm the park. The last ride of the day we did was called Toy Story Mania. It's a 3D game where you try and pop as many targets as you can to get the most points. Guy and Keith tied for 1st. Guy in a last minute effort beat me.

Storm Troopers

Later that night the weather started to pick up so RunDisney announced that they were monitoring the weather conditions. Typically a race is held rain or shine. There was a pretty strong thunderstorm moving in and because of the chance of lightning at 7 pm Disney decided to cancel the half marathon. I was kind of bummed about that since we had trained for it but it is what it is. Disney is letting us either defer our race or get park tickets or get a gift card refund. We decided just to defer to a different race.

Animal Kingdom

Saturday morning since the half was cancelled we all slept in. Once we woke up we went straight to the Animal Kingdom. It was pretty cool and rainy so it wasn't a ton of fun to be outside. One of our favorite things in the park was the African Safari. Disney had just has a baby elephant born and introduced back in to the herd so it was exciting to see her out! Disney drives you through the landscape and all of the area is an open safari ground so it was fun to see the animals eating breakfast. We saw two shows in the animal kingdom; Finding Nemo the musical and The Lion King. We wanted to ride Expedition Everest (an awesome roller coaster) but it was closed and we didn't want to stay around waiting for it. We did walk about 13 miles in the park though to make up for no race. We went to bed early that night since the marathon was the next day.

Baby Elephant chasing mom

Freezing before the final race

Sunday morning we woke up at 2:30 and left for the marathon. It was SO COLD! I think the temperature was 25 and the feels like was 20. Since you have to be in your corals for several hours we just about froze. I had as many layers on as I had packed but I was still cold. At the 7 mile mark we ran past the hotel we stayed in. I was able to shed a few layers and left them with Guy and mom. The marathon was a lot of fun! You were able to run through the parks and then on the highway they put different characters along the way. Some of the characters are those that aren't often seen. There's also a lot of people to cheer you on the way and a lot of people around you so you never feel like you are in no man's land. At mile 18 you run into the ESPN Sports Center and they have your picture on the big screen. I finished the marathon in 5 hours 32 minutes. A little slower than my practice marathon but I'm proud of it over all. I still got my dopey challenge medal and goofy medal (marathon and half-marathon) even though I didn't technically do the half-marathon.

Finished the marathon!

After we got cleaned up we went to meet mom and Guy who were already in Epcot. They went earlier in the day since it was going to take us longer to get there. It was still pretty cool in the park so we didn't stay to long. Plus we were hungry so we decided to bail after a little bit there. I wanted to take Guy to see the fireworks but we ended up skipping them since I was cold and we didn't want to go back out.  We ate at the buffet that night then all went to bed early since we were wiped. We got up early the next morning to head to the airport to catch the bus to our cruise.

A terrible picture but a brief look at all the medals. The castaway one is from our cruise.