Tighurt's Walt Disney World Marathon Report
I registered for this race last summer, long before I was in any shape to run a marathon again. I figured the legendary Disney Marathon (and the equally legendary Mickey finisher's medal) would get me motivated if anything would. Add in the fact that this was the 15th Anniversary of the race and I had to be there! I even scheduled another marathon before this one (Chickamauga) as a training run for Disney. Anything with that much build-up is bound to be disappointing once it actually arrives. Thankfully, the Disney Marathon was anything but disappointing!
Packet pick-up is held at the Expo in Disney's Wide World of Sports complex. Complex indeed - I could not believe how big the facility was. I grew up in Florida and have probably been to Disney a hundred times or more, but had never had the need to go to WWoS. Imagine an endless stretch of yellow buildings with Spanish (?) architecture, dozens of athletic fields, a minor-league baseball stadium (in the same style as the buildings), and a large gymnasium called the Milk House (home to the Expo itself.) Disney is a master at leading people through lines. The packet pick-up was an example of this art. There was a line for everything! You went in circles picking one thing up here, another there, testing the chip here, checking this there. You finally wound up on the floor of the gym swimming upstream through everyone shopping to get goodie-bag and shirt pick-up at the far end. Considering around 30,000 runners or so run the half and full marathons, it was crowded indeed. Disney had lots of lines, though, and things moved very fast. The shirt was worth waiting for: a silverish technical shirt with a sharp logo on the front and the individual logos from the theme parks down the sleeve. Nice! The Expo itself was great with lots of top vendors, some fun freebies, and great race merchandise. Also high race prices - but that was expected. Pushing through the crowds got a little tiring, but it was overall a positive experience.
Race day began with me arriving at the Epcot parking lot at 4:00 AM. Now that's early! I had decided to run the race in costume as Tigger (orange running cap with a Tigger ears headband, orange technical tank with striped painted on it, an orange and black tail, black Race Ready shorts, and orange reflective gloves. Needless to say, I was getting many odd (and some appreciative) looks from the beginning. One lady even came up and pulled my tail. I wasn't sure how to interpret that one!
The staging area for the race looked like a tent city for refugees of a natural disaster. There were tents everywhere - a regular sea of white canvas. The tents were labeled, but figuring out what was where could prove quite a challenge. I had walked through this area the afternoon before and was glad I did! There was even a band blasting out tunes! I found a fellow teacher from my school and set out on the age-old quest to find the port-a-lets. We found them - probably 100 or more stretching off into the distance. This was my first race with THIS many participants, so I was unprepared for that many outdoor toilets. Each one had 15 or so people in line too. At about 5:00 they took down the gate at the back of the staging area and herded us out to the start. I mean the herding very literally. In fact I was actually mooing loudly (much to the mixed amusement and terror of the people around me) as we walked through a spooky Disney graveyard: abandoned pieces of rides and other things sitting by the side of the road shrouded in fog. It took almost 20 minutes to get to the starting corrals - the race has 8 of them, each holding roughly 2000 runners, corral placement based on anticipated finishing time. I headed for Corral C after finding yet another bank of dozens of port-o-lets. In the corral the runners camped out, watching various live interviews (including one with Jeff Galloway who was running the race) and music videos on the jumbo-tron screens near the starting lines. (There are two starting lines for Disney: corrals A-C head out around the side of Epcot and through World Showcase, corrals D-H along with the elite runners go through the front gates and exit near Mexico. The two groups join up again backstage and follow the same course for the rest of the race.) The entertainers seemed to be the same folks from the 5K - only now without their British dialects.
After the Star-Spangled Banner it was finally time to get started. The starting gun for this race dwarfed the 5K fireworks. These were pretty sizeable fireworks, lasting longer than I expected and shooting off right from the overpass by me, with the added fun of flame jets shooting up over the starting line. As always with giant marathons it was a long, slow walk to start - about 5 minutes for me. When I ran across the timing mat I started my Garmin and simultaneously realized that I had forgotten to put my timing chip on my shoe. There in the middle of 16,000 runners I felt completely alone - the only one left out of the party. I considered dropping from the race right there - I was that let down by my own stupidity. Still, I had invested a lot of time, training, and money to run the race. Run it I would.
The first part of the course took us through the darkness for a mile or so and then into Epcot. I was in the group that ran World Showcase. It was eerie running through the empty park, but beautiful to look across at all of the buildings lit-up just for us. What was not beautiful was the humidity. The temperature was comfortably in the 60s, but the humidity was at 96%. We were all quickly getting soaked in sweat and the sun hadn't even come up yet. Not a good sign.
We exited Epcot and ran through the backstage area - under the speed test portion of Test Track and around other buildings. We emerged back at the corrals - and ran this section of the road again. The bright spot - the big crowd at the starting line had hung around to be the big crowd at mile 4. A little further on we curved onto a big exit ramp that looped everyone under the Epcot road, heading towards the Magic Kingdom. It was amazing looking down from the top of the overpass looking at runners heading in an unbelievable line off into the horizon. Incredible! Speaking of incredible, a couple dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Incredible came running by sometime along this stretch. Anyone who can run 26.2 miles in a spandex costume impresses me! A series of signs had started to appear by the side of the road. These were sponsored by Sharpie and were full of funny comments, trivia questions, and off-the-wall facts. One of my many favorites: "When everything is going your way, you're in the wrong lane!" These signs were on the roads connecting the parks all through the race. What a great idea!
We ran up World Drive towards the Ticket and Transportation Center, skirting by the race track, and into the largest parking area at Disney. In the middle of this lot was the strangest thing: I noticed that we were being split into two paths up above. I had read nothing about this in the race literature. When I got close to it I found a sign telling me to choose my music: Country to the left, 80s Hits to the right. I sprinted to the right before it was too late and was rewarded with Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus". Sweet!
As we reached the TTC we found a huge crowd waiting for us. I had almost forgotten I was dressed as Tigger. The crowd certainly didn't let me forget it ever again. It seems every step I took someone else was cheering for Tigger. The people running near me said it was like running with a celebrity - some even said they stayed near me so they could hear all the cheers. It was an unbelievable experience. As we ran by the ramps leading up to the monorails the crowd got a little overwhelming. The path for us had narrowed slighly and it seemed like there were screaming people going on forever. It was both exhilarating and a touch daunting at the same time. The crowd slowly thinned out some and we were running down Topiary Lane towards the Contermporary Resort. I met a really nice guy named Rusty from Dalton, Georgia. He needed someone to help him pace and I needed someone to talk to -- we quickly teamed up. A quick trip under the lake, a few turns, and we were running through the backstage area of the Magic Kingdom. The noise was really building up ahead. We had reached Main Street U.S.A.
The Magic Kingdom still was not open, but Disney allowed marathon fans in for free to line the left side of Main Street U.S.A. These people were seriously vocal! I enjoyed the Tigger cheers again, but had my eye out for my father who had come along as race support. This was the only place on course I would see him, and I desperately wanted to tell him I had forgotten my chip. My family and friends were planning to track me via my chip on the internet and through text messaging. No chip meant no tracking and lots of worries if I didn't get a message through. Thankfully, Dad had staked out a great spot and I passed the word on to him. For the first time, I really started to relax about forgetting my chip and settled into enjoying the race. We headed into Tomorrowland - no spectators here, just cast members and characters cheering us on. In Fantasyland I remarked to the other runners that I was relieved that Disney had let me (Tigger) out of the Pooh ride for the day! The carousel was spinning for our entertainment as we headed towards Cinderella Castle. Up on the balcony Ariel and her prince along with the Fairy-Godmother were waving down at us as royal trumpeters welcomed us into the back of the castle. We emerged from the front to cheers from the crowd and many of the professional photographers. A quick jog and we were running along Frontierland. I saw Liverlips McGraw - one of the bears from Country Bear Jamboree - and told him that I had all of his albums. He jumped up and down for joy.
We headed out of the Magic Kingdom through the Frontierland parade entrance. At the train tracks one the trains that transport people around MK was waiting right by our path with the engineers waving at us. Disney really didn't miss any chance to make us feel special. Here we had the chance to see the backstage area of the Magic Kingdom - really cool, especially the open air storage where all of the parade floats live.
The next section of the race is thought to be lacking by many runners. It takes quite awhile to get to Animal Kingdom - it's in the far southwest corner of Disney's property. The route there goes by the Grand Floridian, Polynesian, and Shades of Green Resorts with some decent crowds before meandering by golf courses and some fairly non-descript areas. I didn't mind this stretch at all. I enjoyed the music that was provided for us as well as whatever spectators had made it out this far. I had finally found Holly, the teacher from my school, and she joined Rusty as an "Official Tigger Guard". The Sharpie signs continued with me being appointed official reader of the signs for the group's amusement. That kept me entertained.
We ran past the infamous Disney waste water treatment facility and found that the wind was NOT in our favor. Let's just say it's a smell that's not on Disney's regular tour. Soon we entered Animal Kingdom and had a whole new set of smells with which to deal! I found myself running on the same access road that had held the out-and-back portion of the Disney 5K. We followed a similar route around the east side of Animal Kingdom (lots of curves and lots of fun), out the same side gate, and into the parking lot. A sharp right turn led us eventually to the outside of the entrance gate to Animal Kingdom where another large crowd awaited us. This crowd stretched all through the parking lot and were they ever vocal! My arm started to get tired waving to all of the Tigger fans, but it was so much fun I couldn't stop. Sadly I lost both Holly and Rusty in the next few miles to sore legs. I really enjoyed running with them, but headed on solo (but certainly not alone.)
The only out-and-back section of this race comes about the 20 mile mark on another non-descript road. I had read many nightmare stories of this section. It was rather dull, but it was actually a nice change to see some of the other runners. We passed a high school band with a rather strange Tigger fixation. I thought I was going to need to find a body guard. I was hurting a bit in this section. I had decided early on to walk the aid stations to get plenty of fluids to help fight the humidity. On this stretch I took a particularly long walk through a station and had a little trouble getting going again. Finally the running motor started and I headed into Disney's Hollywood Studios (formally known as Disney-MGM). This park was already open for business so many park visitors stared at the unexpected parade of sweaty people running (or lurching, limping, and crawling) through the park. Running down New York Street was cool - it was like suddenly we were in the NYC Marathon. Not long after I saw Cruella DeVille by the side of the road. She remarked on seeing the pretty running tiger. I screamed and begged her not to make a coat out of me. By this time I was enjoying the whole Tigger thing WAY too much! We headed for the front gate, left the Studios, and started the finishing run through the Epcot Resorts: Boardwalk, Swan/Dolphin, Yacht Club, and Beach Club. These resorts are quite scenic, the people lining the paths were relaxed and very supportive. Soon we were climbing the hill towards the International entrance to Epcot. We emerged into the World Showcase area in between England and Canada and ran all of the way around. The humidity had me pretty tired at this point so I took a short walk break with a lady from Canada. We discussed the complexities of converting back and forth from the metric system - trying to interpret all of the mile markers was starting to drive her a little crazy. She decided she was going to extend her walk break to the finish line, I decided it was time to run as fast as I could. I made great time through the rest of World Showcase, into Future World, under the geosphere, and out a cast exit. Waiting around the corner was an amazing gospel choir inspiring us on to the finish line. A short trip through the parking lot and there it was: bleachers, a grandstand, and so many people yelling Tigger that I practically floated towards the finish line. I was so incredibly excited to finish the race - even without an official time.
The medal had been a closely kept secret. Supposedly it was going to be special for the 15th Anniversary. Special indeed. The medal is enormous - almost enough to put some of more tired runners off-balance. In color for the first time with incredible weight and detail the famous Mickey medal is absolutely stunning. For the first time I got one of those trendy finish line mylar blankets (not that I needed it with all the humidity). Finish line refreshments were ample if a bit unimaginative. The reunion area was massively crowded as runners and families searched for each other and numerous vendors capitalized on everyone's joy by selling souvenirs of the day. I wrapped my goodies in my blanket, took an official photo with my medal, and started on a long cool-down walk to find the truck several parking lots over. I will definitely be back next year - with my timing chip!
