Walt Disney World Half-Marathon 2013 - Race Recap - Part 1

I knew it!  I just knew it would happen!  After the Princess Half Marathon last year, I didn't do a race recap and I was disappointed in myself for never bothering to write one up.  Plus, I figured it would come in handy as a way to kind of track my progress and keep track of my nutrition for future races.  But alas, I didn't do it.  So then I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon in November 2012 and I told myself that I wasn't going to let that happen again!  I just was NOT!  Well my friends, it happened...again.

I actually have some good reasons for why it happened though!  Very good reasons!  I ran the race on Saturday night, Nov. 10 and I had an interview at my number one choice for PA program that I wanted to attend on Tuesday, Nov. 13.  As soon as I was done recovering from the race, I had to focus on preparing for the interview and then actually going to the interview!  Then, naturally, I worried for days on end about how I did in the interview.  I went over and over the details of my responses to the questions asked and whether they were 'good enough' or demonstrated enough discipline to be granted acceptance.  Then on Friday, Nov. 16th I found out that I was accepted!!!!!  I then, of course, was distracted by the celebrations that took place!  And then, of course, Thanksgiving was upon me, heralding the arrival of the holidays...and, as we all know, that in and of itself is one GIGANTIC distraction!

And so, here we are.  January 15th, and I am going to complete an entry about my half marathon on Saturday morning at Disney!  This race was one of the all-time BEST experiences I have had as of yet running one of the Disney half marathons.  As anyone who has read my blog since September has seen, I was trying to raise money for Team ASPCA since I had pledged to become a member of Team ASPCA and run in the 20th Anniversary of the Walt Disney World Half Marathon.  The process started when I signed up to be part of the team in September, I think it was.  Since I would be a "Hometown Hero" and wouldn't need transportation to the race or hotel, my goal was to raise $950 just to be able to run in the race as part of the team.  If I wanted to stay in a hotel, I would have to raise an extra $200 per night of the stay.  I ended up getting together with a friend of mine and raising money as a team within Team ASPCA.  Together, our initial goal was $1,900, however, since she lives WAY out in the boonies, she really needed to raise the extra money for at least a one night stay in a hotel to avoid having to get up at, like, 1am and drive to the race.  (The funny thing is, as it was, she still ended up getting up at 2am to get ready for the race and we both stayed at the same hotel on Disney property!)

Thanks to enormous generosity from lots of our family, friends and co-workers (even the lady who does my pest control donated a hefty sum!), we were able to not only meet but exceed our goal and got separate hotel rooms for our stay at the race.  We even raised enough to earn upgrades to a premium hotel - the Animal Kingdom Lodge (Which was a big surprise to both of us!  We had no idea there was even a possibility of an upgrade!).

We saw several giraffes from our room balcony! It was so awesome!!

Okay, so we've gone over Team ASPCA and the fundraising, check! The upgrade, check! I guess now we'll go over the race weekend schedule.

I ended up having to take a half-day of work on Friday so that I could go home and pack, pick up my race packet from the Wide World of Sports Expo, check in to our hotel and get ready for our Team ASPCA reception at 6pm that evening.  It was a really good thing that I did, too, since Packet Pick Up was absolutely jam-packed!  The last two races I've done with Disney weren't anywhere near as bad as this one when it came to crowds and waiting in lines for stuff. (I think I read that there were over 65,000 runners participating in the races this weekend, which is why it was so crowded!)  For instance, this time, once I picked up my race bib and headed over to the Jostens Center to pick up my race shirt, I was re-directed to a loooooooong line, snaking around the Wide World of Sports and, finally terminating at the Jostens Center.  This had never happened before.  They had to wait until people left the Jostens Center before they could let more people in because it was so busy inside! The pictures below show the line to get into the Jostens Center (center of the bottom picture).  To get an idea of how long the line is, look at the placement of the yellow truck in both pictures...and where the picture is being taken from.  I am taking the pics while standing in the line, and I'm not even in the back of the line at this point!  Oh, and let's not even talk about trying to leave the Wide World of Sports!  The line of cars was insane!

Okay, so packet pick up complete.  Then, we head to the Animal Kingdom Lodge (AKL, for the purposes of this post) to check in.  I had no idea what to expect since I had never run a race as part of a team before and I had no idea how the reservations worked, etc.  I pretty much just expected that we were going to get a parking lot view from our room, which turned out to be a good thing.  What we got was SO much better!!  Upon checking in, I asked, "So I don't suppose we're going to have an animal view here, are we?" and the clerk said, "Welllll, it's a garden view." (Which I took to mean, it's pretty much the cruddiest view you'll get here.)  I accepted this cheerfully, gathered our paperwork and moved onto the room.  When Rob and I walked in, I immediately walked to the balcony to see if there were any animals that we could spot.  I saw some weird birds on a log and an ostrich.  I figured, well, that must be what they mean by "garden view": yes, you get to see animals, but it's not the highly coveted animals that you'll get to see.

My SUPER-yellow race shirt and race bib, and the view from our balcony!

Oh how wrong I was!  After getting unpacked a bit and generally organizing things a little more before relaxing, what came wandering by our room???  A giraffe!!!  In fact, there were 3 or 4 giraffes that came wandering over, looking for food!  This made my evening!  From here on out, I just knew this was going to be an unforgettable weekend, and it was!

My FAVE!!!!

Around 5:45pm, my Team ASPCA partner (S), Rob and I headed over to the Coronado Springs Resort for the Team ASPCA reception.  It was a really informal event with some light appetizers and a few giveaways.  We received our Team ASPCA singlets at the event, which I was SUPER excited about!!!  We also received goody bags that had some snacks for race day in them (banana, bagel, gatorade, etc), which was really sweet of them to do for us!  We got back to our hotel around 8pm and I started laying all of my stuff out for the race.  Finally got to bed around 8:15 and, most likely, didn't actually get to sleep until around 9 or so.  Since this was the first time I had stayed in a Disney resort prior to a race, I had no idea how it would affect my sleep pattern before the race.  Well, let's just say, I must've had a TON of adrenaline prior to the race because I only managed to get about 3.5 hours of sleep.  I woke up at 12:45 to use the restroom and then I couldn't get back to sleep.  I'm usually not so nervous or excited for a race that I can't sleep, but I must've been this time.  I forced myself to lay there in bed until 2 am, when I finally allowed myself to get up and start getting ready for the race.

3:10 am, all ready to go!

The morning of race day is electric to me.  There's no feeling like it!  Typically, even despite having trained excessively, I still feel nervous and excited all at the same time and I can't wait to start!  Now, here is where I have a confession to make.  You remember me giving all of those perfectly logical and sane reasons as to why I never wrote a race recap for the Wine and Dine??  Yes well, these are some of the very same logical and sane reasons for why I didn't really train for this race after the Wine and Dine was finished.  Like, at all.  As in, zero running from Nov. 10 - Jan. 12.  Zip.  Yyyyyyeah, so, this led to a bunch of added nerves for me.  Though I know I am strong and I probably could easily finish one of the half marathons without any training, it's always the recovery that becomes the issue without training.  As I drove to packet pick up Friday afternoon, this thought rolled over and over again in my head.  What if I don't finish?  What if I can't finish?  What if I get injured?  What if my knee acts up and I have to stop at a medical tent and be bussed back to the finish line??  What if...?  Though I firmly told myself to stop this nonsense, I'm fairly certain these thoughts remained in the back of my mind that night, which is probably why I couldn't sleep.  The morning of the race, I didn't allow myself to think anything but positive thoughts.  No negativity, no what if's!!!  Just have fun!  This is Disney!!  No one knows how to put on a more entertaining race than they do, hands down!

Outside S's door before meeting up with the rest of Team ASPCA

Team ASPCA in the lobby at 3:15 am SHARP!

What a mouthful of granola bar and complete surprise looks like

Getting on the bus to go to the race....eeeek!

A word about my pre-race nutrition for myself for future races.  (Feel free to skip this part all of you out there who are not me and will be bored by this...)  ;-)  Okay, so I ate a banana upon waking up and brought a granola bar, the Clif bar provided by runDisney and the half a bagel provided by Team ASPCA in the goodie bag.  I ate the granola bar as I was walking toward the bus (see oh-so-attractive pic above) and I ate 1/4 bagel on the bus.  I ate the rest of the bagel when we got there and ate the Clif bar walking to the starting corral.  Once the race had started, I ate a Gu.

As I stood next to my Team ASPCA fundraising partner, S, I was beaming with a smile and I'm pretty sure I was talking her ear off with useless chattering about other Disney halfs I have done: stuff that didn't really matter but filled the time. I half believe that she probably wasn't listening to much of what I said anyway because she was focusing on and mentally preparing for what she was about to do: run her FIRST half marathon.  That was a comfort to me since I figured, otherwise, I was probably pretty obnoxious to be around!  We barely made it to our Corral E prior to the 5 am cutoff since the lines for the port-o-lets were so long, but we made it!  Phew!  Now, we just stood there waiting until it was our turn to start the race.  Every once in a while, I would turn to her and jump up and down with excitement and she would just smile and sort of roll her eyes.  I don't blame her! :-)

This is where I'll leave off for now.  Guess I'll have to split this into 2 parts since it's already been an hour and a half and I'm almost out of time!  I WILL return here to finish with Part 2 of the Walt Disney World Half-Marathon 2013 Race Recap!!  Promise!  (Hmm...maybe I shouldn't promise...)