I ran Disney the two years prior to 2006 and was not going to run in 2006 till I saw the "Goofy" and just could not resist the challenge.
Needless to say I had no idea how you would train for this event but felt OK as I had ran seven marathons in 2005 (I did ten in 2006).
My initial plan was to take as much of the 3:30 Disney allowed for the half and save myself for the full. That was the plan but we know how that goes. I started in corral A so I was near the front and I really tried to go out at a ten minute pace. That lasted for about one mile as I just could not deal with all the people passing me. As for any marathoner who runs high mileage 13 miles goes pretty quick. Before I knew it I was finished, heck I was back at the hotel before my wife and son even woke up. They packed up and went parking and I hung out by the pool. Really didn't do too much on Saturday at all.
On Sunday I was a little nervous as my legs were a little tight. Again, not sure what to do I just went out and ran. I run a lot on tread mills so I am very good at holding pace. When I came through the half way mark I was only 12 seconds different than Saturday's race. The pain did come though...somwhere between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Started to tell myself that this was maybe not the brightest of ideas that I ever had. At that point you just kind of suck it up and keep going. That lagoon prior to Epcot was awful, all the people yelling "looking good"
when not only aren't you looking good but you feel like death. It got worse in Epcot when you can look across that lagoon and see Mexico way over on the other side. I ended up giving up about 6-7 minutes over the last half which is odd for me as I normally run a negative but heck I never ran a 13 mile warmup the previous day. When I caught up to my wife she asked how it was and I simply replied "I don't think that I want to do that again".
Well....come summer time this year I started to ponder it and just could not resist the urge to sign up again. I guess runners have short memories. It is cool though just realize that your time will suffer but heck you are in Florida in January so who cares. Good luck and have fun to all the Goofy crazies this year.
Chris Paretti
