Selfie Does the Run Disney WDW Marathon
Just straight-up, there are no races that compare to a Run Disney Race. I love the atmosphere, the camaraderie and the overall joy that comes with running at the Happiest Place on Earth. I’ve written about my first half which can find here so it should come as no surprise that the WDW marathon got added to my bucket list pretty shortly after I finished my first half as part of my “before I turn 30 list”. Five years after my first half-marathon, I was super pumped to get back to the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend. Mere seconds after I crossed that finish line, I vowed to never run one again. But four years later, I proved to myself that I could bounce back from a chronic injury by...running another marathon.* So, if you’re looking to do a marathon, this is the place I would do it but…these are also the things I wish I had known when I went from doing many half marathons to the full.
1) Pick the Right Program
I think everyone can do a half marathon. or whatever race length they want but I also think people have a sweet spot. I hate 10ks (not long enough to get into a groove, long enough to get boring) and love half-marathons. The marathon though, at least in my experience, is life consuming. The training is rough. I’ve had issues with dehydration and motivation in the beginning of our program. The program that I picked was WAY too difficult and I ended up skipping training and feeling guilty about it. I had a little bit of running hubris and picked a Hal Higdon program with high mileage and craziness because I felt I had outgrown my original program. The thing is, a half is not a full. That sounds pretty straightforward but apparently, I failed to grasp that. So I ended up on the original program almost to peak mileage (20 miles) and I only kind of wanted to punch myself for doing this and only on Saturdays.
2)What? Like it’s Hard?
Another note about marathon training people failed to mention? It hurts. A lot. Maybe some people have a natural marathon ability and build but that’s not what I have going on. So, fellow half-ers hear me: It hurts!!!!! …But it’s doable. However, peak mileage of 11 miles takes me a little less than 2 hours. Peak mileage of 20 miles? Takes 3+ hours. THREE HOURS. On a Saturday. And you still need to go to grocery shopping, meal prep, do your laundry and be a human** for 16 weeks.
3) Be Realistic
Especially for my first half marathon, the journey was a little different than I expected. Having a minor meltdown and being away from training for family emergencies the month before really shook my confidence in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. I knew that I could run but I didn’t know if I could do it well.
4) Seriously…be Realistic About Your Timing Goals
The race itself was a lot more difficult than the half but it was weird, unexpected things that threw me off. For instance, in my first full, I failed to anticipate how much road racing wears on your body versus running on the mix that is our trail. By mile 20, it hurt to put one foot down and pick the other one up from the pavement which is, you know, kind of the whole game for a marathon. Or that bathroom breaks take time or that I’d even need to take bathroom breaks. Or how tired I’d be at mile 15. I had to throw out my plan of running 30/1 or 60/1 and just start with 5/1 and put as many together as I could. It was a real game of mental endurance: “You CAN do this! Indomitable Will! Warrior Princess!”***
5) Be Able to Assess Your Goals
For my first race, it really as about achieving a goal. And then somewhere during training, I decided it was critical that run under 5 hours. And for 23 miles I did. And then, I got to Mile 20 and had to reassess. It was really counting down the miles that helped. “You are 6 miles from achieving a life goal. “Just 5 miles from achieving a life goal” and so on. Running the full has been on my bucket list for the last five years and while I’m glad I did it, I’m also glad it’s over. But then again, the crazy runner part of my brain has been that I COULD do it better…
6) Strength Training is Critical
In my second race, I was sick to the point that I slept something like 14 hours the day before and spent my day in bed, high on cold medicine while everyone else admired the zebras you could see from our balcony. Standing there at 4:45 am, freezing and trying not to cry, for the first time EVER in my running career, I wanted to call it. But one real thing about Run Disney races is that you have to get there so early and it’s nearly impossible to leave via any route but the race route because they close the roads. This worked out great, actually, because the shortest way to my hotel was to run to it and by mile 1, I was already on pace to PR because my legs had all the muscle memory they needed to just go. And I did PR by 30 minutes.
7) Run Disney Puts on the Best Races
I know part of this post seems like a bummer but in reality, if you want to run any distance at all, and you can get to Disney, you absolutely should. Both of my marathons were kind of rough races but there are hundreds and hundreds of people cheering me on. And yelling my name. And telling me to keep going. And high school marching bands and Disney characters and fellow runners looking around in awe and even jumping on rides. It’s so much fun and so rewarding. It’s a wonderful community of runners meeting milestones and breaking barriers. There’s so much love and joy and support and music and glitter and excitement during the whole weekend and for a race length that challenges the heck out of me , I wouldn’t have had it any other way.