Disney Marathon Race Report

I’ve never been to Disney in Florida so this whole trip was pretty cool.  It all started when Laura and I were spending Memorial Day weekend with an old rowing buddy down in Virginia and after a couple of beers he convinced me to run the Disney Marathon with him.  At the time I had been crossfitting for only a few months at the NYSC on 73rd street.  I hadn’t found the black box yet.  The first thing that popped into my head was oh man how can I keep strength training and get the running in, there aren’t just enough hours in the day.  A few months passed and the marathon took a bit of a back seat trying to get some summer rowing in.  I joined the box sometime in July and then one Wed morning I see this red headed guy leading a bunch of people outside and I followed them but then was told that the regular WOD was happening inside. hrmmm…. so what are they up to?  Enter Brian Harkins and Crossfit Endurance.  I was hooked.  Train the muscles during the WODs, train the lungs and the skill during CFE.  My Wednesday mornings were spoken for.

Handstand in the magic kingdom

After a couple of months of CFE I figured I should try a race and see what happens, being as I haven’t really run more then 2 miles since high school.  A half marathon sounds good right, right?!?  I completed the half, but boy did it hurt, a lot.  I had a ways to go.  Had to dial in during race nutrition, race strategy, pace, sneakers, lots of reading to do.

Fast forward to 2 months ago, when I started dialing my workouts in for the Marathon.  It worked out to really preparing for the marathon 6 weeks in advance.  In the future i will start this at least 10 weeks out for a full marathon.  I had picked up a pair of Inov08′s.  Time to try them out.  These sneakers are light as hell and I would recommend them to anyone, but not this model.  This is the urban model and does not fair well at all on wet surfaces.  Go with the trail one, the blue ones that Torch and Anthony H wear.    My workouts included:

8 x 200m with 1 min rest
4 x 5k with 5 mins rest (hard)
5-10k tempos
2mile, rest 4 mins, 2x 5k (hard)
tabata
5 x 800′s
75 min tempos
Mainsite WODs

The last couple of weeks Brian threw a 20lb vest on me for the sprints.  That was actually pretty fun and it kept me warm, training was coooooold.  But I was headed for warm-ish Florida right? Wrong. I was in no way prepared for the weather that was to come.  I had picked up some throw away sweats from Salvo to leave at the starting line, but other then that had just planned on running in shorts and a Tshirt.  Then the weather predicted high 20′s low 30′s, crud.  Thankfully the race expo provided what I needed: Gloves, handwarmers, wool hat, long sleeve reebok spandex, and arm gauntlet… things… which ended up keeping me pretty warm.

Anyway, on to the race, which was really cool.  We got to run through all of the Disney parks for a hale mile or so. then a bunch of highway. then another park etc. When i registered I hadn’t run a half or full marathon (the only distances they would take for a seed time, so I ended up with bib 24 thousand and something, in the last corral, no good.  I had emailed disney a few weeks ago and they said that because the bibs had already been printed, the race officials at the expo would take care of it.  So, I talked to them and they said just to go to corral C which was where the 4hr pace guy would be starting (I was aiming for 4 hours).  The guy guarding Corral C though had other ideas, I didn’t have the magical sticker to let me in, so I hopped a fence and was at least able to get into G instead of J. Oh, and 27 degrees.

The gates over the starting line launched off a huge fireworks display for the start of every wave. Epcot was by far the coolest because it was still dark (I crossed the start line at 6:02 am) and everything was lit up with fire everywhere and lots of music. Huge torches lit our way and the music was booming, really intense. I was able to ditch my hoodie around mile 2.5.  At mile 3 the supporters realized that most of the water had frozen, fun times.   We had to crush the cups to get at the water and the road in front of the tables was all ice.

Finished!

Some bon jovi at mile 9, some journey around mile 13 or 14, Marky Mark and the funky bunch, and at some point a family of spectators was blasting rocky from a boombox. not as many spectators as ny, but the crowd really got into it, and there was no shortage of Disney characters in costume cheering us on,  If you wanted to, you could stop and take photos with all of the random Disney characters cheering you on.  I wouldn’t mind doing the Goofy challenge and take the marathon at a stroll and get some cool photos. I ran through the magic kingdom next and when you come through the castle is where the best photo op is supposed to be, but alas when I got my photos that location wasn’t there.  At some point I’ll go through the untagged ones. Then, on to more highway and animal kingdom.  Up until this point I felt really strong, only got really hungry twice but both times were within 5 mins of scheduled fueling (Hammer gels every 4 miles),  and my lungs were doing great, take that asthma.

I was able to hold a pretty consistent pace until around mile 22 at which point my legs cramped up horribly and I slowed down to about a 1min 30 second slower pace then I had wanted.  Up until now I (think) I was able to hold a pretty good pose form.  Not so now, it hurt. I had to walk 3 times at this point for about 3 seconds but then that would make the pain worse so I pushed on.  Closer, closer, closer, wondering if the finish would be after ever turn.  Finally saw it and managed to sprint the last 300 meters to the finish, cross the finish line, and immediately stumble over to the first aid tent for ice for my knee.

I was quite sore after the race and gimping around a little but but recovery was pretty good. After the race I rested for a bit, had a cupcake, mmmmm, took a shower, and then went for never ending ribs.  That night did a quick bodyweight workout to try to push some of the acid out of my legs.  This combine with The Stick that I picked up at the expo made me feel instantly better.  The next morning my muscles were fine and the only real pain i was experiencing was in my ankle joints and feet which took a few days to go away. I really couldn’t believe that my legs themselves weren’t sore.  Thank you CFE.

Special thanks to Coach Harkins for prepping me for this (in really only 6-8 weeks of serious training, next time, I’ll buckle down earlier) and thanks to everyone who trained with me on those cold wed mornings. Kirk – next time you wear the weight vest :-p

Loved relaxing in ice cold Disney the rest of the week, good times.

Final Stats:

Its over, its over, thank god its over!

TIM BRODER #21493
NEW YORK, NY
Age: 25 Gender: M

Distance MARATHON
Clock Time 4:21:16
Chip Time 4:08:27
Overall Place 2694 / 16883
Gender Place 1987 / 8731
Division Place 213 / 928
Age Grade 50.3%
5 Mile 45:05
10 Mile 1:30:54
Half Split 1:59:30
20 Mile 3:03:27