Goofy Challenge: What it Takes

With registration for Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend opening today at noon for Disney Vacation Club Members and Annual Pass holders I thought I'd talk a little bit about my experience with the Goofy Challenge from this year. Note: Registration for the general public opens April 28 at noon.

Training for my first marathon as part of the Goofy Challenge was draining both physically and emotionally. I started too feel burn out a few weeks before the race. In the end the Goofy Challenge was an incredible experience and I wouldn't have wanted to run my first marathon any other way.

Mile 25

Credit

Training Plan
I started training on June 30. That is over 6 months of training! I modified Jeff Galloway's training plan that's on the runDisney website. My plan included 6 weekends where you run Saturday and Sunday with the longest being 10 miles and 20 miles. If I had to do it again I would not train for that length of time because I think I could get into marathon shape in a shorter period of time which would have then helped with some of the burnout I felt towards the end.

It's Going to Hurt
There's a certain pain that comes with training for a marathon. It's a different kind of pain than the pain that comes with injury. There's a burn in your muscles and bones as you push your body to run distances that you never thought was possible. Prepare yourself to be mentally tough to push past this feeling.

Dedication is Extremely Important
Logging the miles is the most important part of marathon training. The key to Goofy Challenge training is the back-to-back runs on the weekends. Those runs prepare your mind and body for race weekend. I never worried about pace for the long runs, just completing them.

Vision is Helpful
During my last few long runs I have envisioned running at Disney World and crossing that marathon finish line. It gave me just a little extra boost throughout my runs. At one point I told Em while running, "I keep forgetting we get to run at Disney for the races and it's not going to be this boring."

Any other tips for the Goofy or Dopey Challenge?

I'm still on the fence about what races I'm going to sign up for today (I've got 2 1/2 hours to decide)! The Goofy Challenge is definitely a strong contender.

That's all for now?

Baltimore Half Marathon Race Recap

We woke up at 6:50 race morning to get ready and head to the start line. Our race didn't start until 8:45, but we weren't sure how crazy it would be to cross the marathon course (they started at 7 am) to get to our starting line so we allowed a lot of extra time. We got to our start area in time to see the first male marathoner run by, so we stood and cheered the marathoners on for quite awhile. We then headed to the port a pot line which was ridiculously long and there were probably only 7 or 8 pots. We stood there for maybe 3 minutes then decided it would be faster to go back to our hotel, so that's what we did.

Pre-Race Pictures

Upon returning, 15 minutes before the start we got into our starting waves which we told would be enforced (they were not). We were so far back from the start line that we couldn't hear any announcements and had no idea when we were starting until people just started slowly walking forward. It was really strange.

This course was tough and definitely kicked my butt! Since I had been sick and didn't want to over exert myself I wanted to treat this as a nice, easy training run. I printed a pace band for 2:29 finish time and tried to stick to that. I ended up finishing in 2:26:44 so I was happy with that.

Miles 1-7: Hills on hills on hills is the main thing I remember about this part of the race. The first three miles of the race you run with only half marathoners, then after that the full and half marathon courses combine and you run the last 10 miles together. This was a pretty cool aspect of the race. At the beginning of mile 6 there was a great out and back stretch where there was a lot of cheering on the runner's on the opposite side. The "out: portion was downhill and the "back" portion was uphill, so you could mentally prepare yourself for what was coming.  I didn't listen to music for the first six miles because the crowds were so great. I wanted to take it all in and enjoy every minute of it. Even when I started to listen to music I only had one headphone in so I could continue to interact with the crowds.

Mile 7-8: This section was around Lake Montebello which was totally flat. It was a much needed recovery period for my legs.

The lake was huge! That helicopter just hovered over the middle of the lake.

Miles 8-10: Somewhere in this stretch of the course we entered this adorable neighborhood that seemed to be full of hippies (don't take that the wrong way, it was awesome!). There was a tent set up with a person playing acoustic guitar, another drumming and a lot of singing. There was a sign on the tent with the name of the community/neighborhood on it and for the life of me I can't remember what it said.  There were also the cutest kids handing out dixie cups with gummy bears in them.

Mile 10-Finish: I decided to abandon my run-walk intervals and just jog at a steady pace for the last 5K of the race, it worked out pretty well. A lot of the last 3 miles of the race was downhill or flat. At about mile 12 we hit the part of Eutaw Street that you can drive on. I could see Camden Yards in the distance which meant the finish was just beyond the stadium.

Not sure where this bridge was, but it was pretty cool

Camden Yards in the distance

Huge crowds outside the stadium

Cal Ripken Jr.was my favorite baseball player growing up

Running down Eutaw Street

Other Highlights: There was a tent set-up with "Good Morning Baltimore" from the musical Hairspray playing and a few women passing out gummy worms and bears. I saw at least 3 groups of random people that had set-up beer stations. One was offering shots of Natty Boh. There were countless signs with encouragement and humor. The two most memorable were, "Too legit to quit" and "Honey, now that training is over can we have sex on Friday nights?" There were so many kids out cheering and I tried to high-five as many as I could, because their faces would just light up after each high-five.

Post-Race: Upon crossing the finish you walked a short ways towards M&T Bank Stadium where you received a bottle of water and your medal. Then in the runner's only village they had post-race pictures and four tents with lots of snacks (bananas, oranges, chips and pretzels, fruit cups, protein and granola bars, gatorade, etc.). We then headed over to the Celebration Village. We basically got some free Naked Juice and our MD Double Medals and then headed back to our hotel so we could shower and check-out before 1:30. The only thing I can gripe about is that we don't have both of our medals in the professional finisher pictures because you couldn't go back into the runner's only area once you left. 

One of the food tents

Finisher!

Post-Race picture at the Inner Harbor

Other than the tough course this was an awesome race! 

That's all for now!

Baltimore Half Marathon Expo

This past Saturday I ran the Baltimore Half Marathon. Overall, Corrigan Sports put on a great race weekend that was well organized and very enjoyable. We arrived into Baltimore on Friday night and checked into our hotel (Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace) at 7 pm. Since Baltimore is about 2 hours and 15 minutes from where we live we did not want to have to worry about travel/traffic on race morning, so we got a hotel. I would highly recommend this hotel for those that run the half marathon. It is VERY close to not only the expo, but also the half marathon start line. They also let us wait until 1:30 pm to check-out, so we had time to come back to the hotel after the race and shower and we didn't have to worry about packing the car before the race.

     Bib distribution was clearly labeled by race and        bib number (which was on your pick-up card).

The expo was open until 9 pm Friday night. We walked a few blocks to the Baltimore Convention Center where the expo was held. We easily picked up our bibs upstairs, then headed downstairs where we picked up our race shirts. 

There were no lines for bib or shirt pick-up. Downstairs the shirt pick-up area was also well labeled by race and shirt size. There were plenty of volunteers on duty to help out. They had a shirt exchange area where you could switch sizes if yours didn't fit (Cam took advantage of this). The shirts are long sleeve Under Armour (a race sponsor) heat gear shirts. I'm not a huge fan of the color. In some light it looks grey and in others it looks dark green. I also find it puzzling that it's a long sleeve shirt, but it's heat gear (which is meant to be worn when it's hot out).

The next thing we came upon was the official merchandise area. They had tons of awesome stuff and a lot of it was Under Armour. Since I've lived in Maryland pretty much all my life I love the MD state flag and crabs. Needless to say, they had A LOT of merchandise with the MD flag and/or crabs on it. They had everything from pants, jackets, shirts, mugs, magnets, Camelbak water bottles, etc.

The shirt on the bottom left is the official race shirt. 

The MD Double Shirt and the Gray Quarter Zip were from the official merchandise section. 

The MD flag headband was from a vendor.

The blue t-shirt was from the Under Armour store they had set-up. It says, "Drop the Hammer."

We then headed on to visit the rest of the vendors that had set-up in the convention center. Cameron picked up some Bondi Bands to try out. They ended up working perfectly for him for the race. We stopped at a few other vendors and picked up some various things. Just as we were heading out we hit the Under Armour area they had set-up. Needless to say we spent quite awhile browsing their merchandise. 

We picked up some dinner from Noodles and Company on the way back from the expo. Ate dinner, laid out our outfits and turned in for the night. 

Check back for the half marathon recap!

That's all for now!

Tips for Preparing for an Afternoon Race

The last half marathon I ran started at 2 PM. I found this to be quite an unusual start time since all of my other races (5k's, 10k's and wdw half) started in the morning. There were a few things that I did the week before to prepare myself to run a race at that time of day.

1. Acclimate Yourself to Running in the Afternoon- The week leading up to the race I did all of my training runs at 2 PM. I really think this helped my body to prepare to run at that time on race day.


2. Hydration- This was one benefit to running an afternoon race. I had all morning to make sure I was well hydrated for the race. There is a fine line between being perfectly hydrated and being overly hydrated. My goal was to not have to stop and use the bathroom during the half (which was a success!)


3. Practice Makes Perfect- By this point I know my go-to pre-race foods of choice. Timing is what is crucial for the afternoon race. Not only did I have to fuel about an hour and a half before the race, but I also needed to eat a small breakfast that morning. During my last two training runs before race day I pretended like it was race day with the timing of my meals and running. I had a bowl of cereal and banana for breakfast at 8:00. Then ate a greek yogurt at 10:30. Drank my pre-workout drink with a banana and 2 pieces of PB toast at 12:15. Practicing this made me feel more confident when it came to fueling on race day.

Have you ever run an afternoon race? Any good tips to share?

That's all for now!