After the fun and relative ease of the 5k and 10k, it was time for things to start ramping up with the half marathon race. It was time for me to wear my comfy trainers as I’d worn an older (still comfy but less springy) pair for the 5 and 10k. Ideally you would alternate but I wanted these ones for the longer two distances.
This race still started at 5am, so we had to be parked at around 4am. Again the road closures were not happening until we were in the car park, but we could see some support stations being set up as we drove past. We noticed the large wave and knew it would be a character meet but could not figure out what it would be (spoiler- Jack and Sally- I knew we recognised the wave!).
Mid run photos including a character meet and the finish line picture
The route began near Epcot but took us out the Magic Kingdom, and then through Epcot on the way back, so knowing that there would not be park toilets for use until at least mile 6, I queued by the bathrooms by the entrance (near the monorail station) rather than use the port-a-loos in the village or on the first few miles of the course. There was a big queue of people waiting so in the end I told Andy not to wait for me as he had to get to the bag drop before his corral closed (he needed to use the bag drop as he would finish first, and as he was in the next corral up, his one closed a few minutes before mine). In the end that turned out to be the right decision as when I got to my corral, they turned the light off on the B corral balloon, so had Andy waited he would have missed his start time. Again I didn’t have long to wait around before the waves were starting to be sent off.
The stage in the starting area keeping us entertained while we waited to begin/ the balloons in our corrals about to be turned off/ Jack Skellington meet on the half marathon course, and the water pageant lit up for us!
For my training I had used an interval timer app on my phone, but I don’t like wearing headphones in races (I like to take in everything around me but also they get uncomfortable on my ears after a while) so I could not decide what to do. There were Jeff Galloway pacers, but they were doing more walk breaks (eg 1 min run, 1 min walk) and as I am a slow walker I’d been doing 4 min run, 1 min walk. However, I wanted to approach this with a slightly different strategy to see if that would work for the marathon. The mile markers always have great themes, and there are water stations around every 1.5 miles. There were also some motorway on/off ramps that we had to run up, and a few points where the course narrowed (we were warned of this with an automated voice saying “caution athletes, course narrows ahead” over and over- I just liked being called an athlete!). So I decided I would run gently, and walk at every mile marker (to take a photo) and walk though every water station and ensure I would have a drink. If there were characters that I wanted a photo with, I’d stop there, and if there was a ramp then I’d walk up part of all of it. Far less regimented than my usual interval runs, but hopefully something that would work in the race.
As they have so many walkers, the course etiquette was to run on the left and walk on the right. If you were about to walk, raise your hand and look behind to check you had space to move over and slow down. They also asked people to not run or walk more than two side by side, and I only saw this not happening once (and someone did ask the people walking in the running part of the path to move over).
I also had a think about glasses for the marathon, as up until this point it had been dark for the races so my normal glasses were fine. However I knew that with the sun coming up at 7:30 (and of course it gets light before then) more than half of the full marathon would be in the sun and I really feel hotter if I don’t have sunglasses on. I had considered whether I could put them in a pocket of my shorts in a soft case, I’d experimented whether I could safety pin them to my visor, and my dad had even given me some loops of velcro to see if I would attach them in any way, but nothing worked. For the half I wore my normal glasses and a visor, but even as the sun was up for the last little bit I was wishing I had sunglasses on, so that was the decision made. Again, very useful to have the shorter distances as a rehearsal for all these things.
The route below- from Epcot you looped around outside the park, onto some roads and up to the MK hotel area, into the back of the Polynesian hotel, around the lake past the Grand Floridian hotel, into Magic Kingdom, along Main Street, through some of the other lands and then through the castle from the back, out towards Tron and then out towards the TTC, through the car park, onto the roads again and then into Epcot for the final section.
So, onto the run itself.
Some of the mile markers
As it was a sort of love story themed race, the songs were love songs or couples songs (including Helpless from Hamilton- something I didn’t think I’d ever hear at Disney!), and the characters tended to be in pairs (eg Flynn and Rapunzel, Jack and Sally), although there were some on their own like Lilo (of course I had to stop and see her). The first part of the route didn’t look that inspiring on the map as it was pretty much onto the big roads towards Magic Kingdom, but of course it being Disney there was lots of entertainment- from various bands, high school cheerleaders performing, and even big screens (we had the Muppets cheering us on at points), and with the mile markers and water stations it felt like there was always something around the corner or just up ahead.
There is a lot of construction happening at the moment by the Polynesian car park, but some of the construction workers were doing little stand up comedy sets as we ran past- asking people to climb into their wheelbarrows and telling jokes. There were also sections of the course with signs showing apt Disney quotes (about digging deep, going the distance etc) so again there was just lots to see (and of course more excellent costumes).
As we ran around the lake towards Magic Kingdom (if you know it, it is the lake that Grand Floridian and Polynesian hotels are on) the Electrical Water Pageant was out (this is loads of floats that are lit up and flash- it’s usually there in the evenings)- someone commented that it was missing the music and then the music started playing from the speakers that were lining the course. This was so unexpected and just brilliant.
Earlier in the week Andy and I had been talking about the monorail, as the ones in Disneyland (California) always honk their horns (and it’s amusing as those monorails are tiny and the horns are so loud)- we were wondering whether the ones in Florida even have horns. Well, we found out on the race that they do, as at one point we were running under a monorail bridge and the monorail honked at all the runners! Everyone whooped and waved- so great! (Clearly this was a long way from the hotels as no guests wanted to be woken up at 5:30am by the horns!) I tried filming it but didn’t catch it, but when I saw Andy when he’d finished he had seen it happen too. Phew.
Now I had seen that spectators could come into the parks and cheer, and by the hotels there were small groups of people who were out and cheering, but I was not expecting the massive crows as we got into Magic Kindgom. I got totally overwhelmed here, by the crowds but also by the occasion. Even though Epcot is my fave WDW park, there is something so special about MK, and when you picture running around Disney World, you picture running towards the castle, so it was just one of those moments that I’d pictured and thought about. There were loads of photo pass people but you can tell I am crying in them all because it was just so much. I didn’t queue for the official picture but then I saw other people taking pictures with their phones so parkrun pop up style I asked if someone would take a photo for me.
I know there are other people in it but it was a busy race so of course there will be. At least I’d recovered from my tears at this point.
I was also so pleased to see the Christmas tree up. Officially their Christmas celebration ended on the 31st December (although we did manage to go on Jingle Cruise- a Christmas themed version of Jungle Cruise- on the 1st January), and in previous years the Christmas period has lasted into January. I’d seen photos of the marathon with the tree up, but I didn’t know if that was going to still be there this year because of the shorter official Christmas period. Something about the Christmas lights and Main Street all lit up is just so pretty and magical, so again it was something else to be grateful for.
After the castle we ran around the park a little, so I popped into some toilets as I knew once we left the park we would be back on the big roads again, and I wanted to make sure to keep drinking at the water stops.
The water stations were really good, with both water and powerade (each to their own)- the cups only had a small amount of water in them as I think they didn’t want to encourage hyponatremia (drinking too much water and diluting salts)- but you could ask for more and they had people filling up your water bottles/ hydration vests if you preferred. For fuel we had ended up with a mixture of fruit bars from decathlon, and Kendal mint cake bars- these bars contained electrolytes so definitely good when sweating, and the minty flavour was a nice fresh change to the usual fruity flavours (and I do not do gels and yes I have tried them).
At around 7 miles you exited Magic Kingdom and began the run back towards Epcot. The sun had started to come up and it was definitely warming up.
A few more mile markers and Main Street all lit up as viewed from inside the castle.
Lilo was in the car park on the way out, so I decided to stop for a photo as Lilo and Stitch is one of my favourite films. I tried to make sure I moved my legs around while in the queue so I would not be too stiff as I started running again. There was the most incredible sunrise and as the air is so humid there were huge patches of mist hanging over the verges which made for even prettier views.
Meeting Lilo and enjoying the sunrise
At times you looped up a ramp and then ran over the road with runners below, so I took a few photos to show how many people were running. At one point there was a meet with Joy by the road, with the gorgeous sunrise behind her- it felt very joyful in that moment. There was a Pizza Planet themed truck with a DJ to help power you up one of the ramps, and more bands and entertainment.
The Pizza Planet DJ truck and all the runners below me on the bridge
At around mile 10 Epcot came into view, and the sun was just getting higher and hotter. I was still enjoying the colours of the sky so I took many many photos.
Seeing Joy, and the sign says “I’ll distract them while you run” (an Olaf quote), more mile markers and the sun coming up behind Spaceship Earth.
Running through Epcot at the finish was brilliant as there were people out cheering, people with signs, and after the relative peace of the roads between the parks, it felt such high energy again. As well as running past some of the attractions, you also did a bit of the “backstage” area, but again these had entertainment in them as well as cast members cheering us on. There were even singers pretty much on the finish line. I really could not fault the entertainment level.
Why yes I did get excited when the mile marker for 13 was a Duffy one! The people in purple were a gospel choir singing Queen songs as I ran past- this was just before the mile 13 marker so right before the finish/ A heart for the photopass person
Just before the finish line there is a mat you cross over which must tell the person announcing that you are coming, so I got a shout out which made me laugh- it went something along the lines of “Maria from Well-win Garden City in the UK, what is it with these funny place names in the UK? So long and hard to pronounce – well done Maria!” so I was laughing as I crossed the finish line.
Andy had finished ahead of me and collected the bag, so I met up with him in our usual spot by the benches, and had some photos before the mile walk back to the car.
My time was around 2:42, so I was pleased that I had run it gently but hadn’t been on my feet for way too long. The strategy of walking at the mile markers and water stations had worked well, I had enough space in my shorts pockets for the fuel I’d taken, and had some spare (and some spare space if I wanted to bring more the next day)- all in all a successful day. Race 3 done!
Race 3 complete! And the medal on a later day.
This was a non-park day, specifically chosen as we did not want to do loads of steps ahead of the marathon. We took our time making breakfast (porridge), having showers and washing our kit (we had a washing machine in our apartment). I had a bath with some epsom salts, and we made sure to drink lots of water and coconut water and tea (etc). We did pop out to the expo as I wanted to look for a t-shirt (this was the final day of the expo)- there was not much left but I found a Goofy Challenge t-shirt that I liked (way nicer fabric than the race shirts that came with the entry) so I got that and we got a takeaway pizza for an early dinner.
The expo had a sign about conditions, and all week it had been alert level Low, but it had changed to Moderate, with “less than ideal conditions, recommended actions- slow down if necessary” so we did get a bit worried about overheating or losing too much salt.
At the expo/ the corral closing times- mine closed at 4:25am and my start time would be between 4:41 and 4:45 (depending on which wave I ended up in within the corral). But more on that in the next post.
I absolutely loved this race though – a proper challenge but so much fun to be had out on the route, and running down Main Street with the Christmas decorations still out was just magical.
