Goofy Challenge Race Report

2011 Goofy Challenge race report Get ready for a book :) A tale of two races, we woke up early in the morning the Friday before the races at 4:00 am, loaded the sleepy kids in the car and headed down the road to Orlando. After about an 8 ½ hour drive we arrived at our hotel and met my parents who were staying with us. My father was racing with me, originally he was going to run the marathon, but after a calf injury, he switched to walking, but he added the half so he was going to walk the goofy challenge. We headed over to the expo, and wow, this was one big event. It dawned on me then how big these races were with all the traffic issues and lines at the expo. At this point I wasn’t just nervous, I was levitating. We were staying on property at the Saratoga Springs resort which is directly across the water from Downtown Disney. It was a good idea to stay on property as you can take advantage of Disney transportation for everything. We didn’t touch our car after we parked at the resort. We headed over to Downtown Disney to carb load and had a decent meal at the crabshack. We headed to bed early and set the alarms for 2:30 am. All the race material warns you about the logistics of race day and they state you have to be on Disney transportation between 3 and 4 am to make the race.  Half marathon day. Ok, so my father and I get up, eat our breakfast (peanut butter and honey toast, and a banana), and head out to the busses. We get in line around 3:25 am, the race starts at 5:30 so we’re good. There are probably about 75 people in line before us waiting for the bus. The line starts to get bigger, and I mean really big as we wait. One bus arrives around 3:40 and loads up, they load it to full capacity (standing room only) and now we’re about 5 or 6 people from the front of the line. The minutes tick by and now it’s 4:00 am and we still haven’t seen a bus. 4:15 comes and goes and I step out into the road to see how big the line is, and no exaggeration, there has to be about 700 to 1,000 people behind us, most of them freaking out. At 4:17 a bus finally pulls up and we load up and go. We run into immediate traffic getting into the Epcot parking lot, now I’m freaking out as it is a 20 min walk from the drop-off to the corrals. We finally get dropped off around 5:15 and hustle to the start area. We jump on an open port-o-potty on the way and join a mass of humanity making the walk to the start corrals. My father was in corral H, I was in corral B, I walk into the corral as they are playing the national anthem, whew! There were probably a lot of really pissed off people that missed the start judging from the line behind us at the resort. I started to calm down about missing the start and the first wave or two go off. I got choked up when the first wave went off to fireworks and flames shooting up from the start line as all the training and time spent preparing for the race flashed before my eyes. We start walking toward the start line for our turn when Scott Williams appears next to me in line and introduces himself. Incredible! What are the odds to see Scott right at the start with the thousands of people around us. Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time to chat as our wave went off a minute to two later, but it was great to meet him. The fireworks and flames go off and we’re finally off! The first two miles were tough, weaving through all the people and a bunch of folks that clearly were in the wrong corral as they were walking. My first mile split was a minute slow due to the crowd, but that was probably a good thing. The second mile wasn’t much better, but it started to thin out around a mile and a half. The course was good, it was basically and out and back from outside of Epcot to the Magic Kingdom and back. No real hills to speak of, but some over/under passes that add some climbing. Disney puts on a good show and even in the boring roads between the parks they have bands/cheerleaders/dj’s/characters and other random things to keep your mind off the miles. There were a lot of aid stations as well, not quite every mile but very frequent. Just before half-way, we make it into Magic Kingdom via a back lot entrance right off of Main Street. You run into Main Street and there are great crowds lined up the whole way to the base of the castle and as it was still pre-dawn the Christmas lights were lit up and it looked great. You take a right turn into Tomorrowland and loop up to the back of castle and run under it. I got chills here, there were two live trumpeters on the balcony blasting their trumpets and you run through the castle with all of Main Street lit up framed perfectly in the arch, amazing. You run out of the castle turn right into Frontier Land and before you know it, you are in the back lots heading back to the road to Epcot. There was a cool pirate ship and characters blasting the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song right as you pass into the back lot. I kept my pace brisk and I probably was going too fast, but I felt great after a good taper and pushed but not too hard. Around mile 10 my thoughts started to drift toward the full marathon I had to run the next morning, and I started to lay back a bit. The last mile or so was a quick loop into Epcot around the ball which was really cool. And as you turn the final corner into the finish area in the parking lot a full on gospel choir is belting out in song as you make your way down the chute with a huge grandstand to your left. Very cool. I finished strong but not spent, final chip time was 1:53:01. Got my medal and practically ran to the port-o-potty because some major gastric distress had hit me around mile 8. This had me nervous for the full, and I would worry about it all the way up to the start of the Marathon the next day. I hustled through the family reunion area, jumped on a bus (no line!) and made it back to the hotel room by 10:00 AM. Cool. I spent the rest of the day eating crackers, bread, bananas, and granola bars and re-hydrating.  During the race I ate gels every half hour and carried a 20oz bottle of poweraide zero, I had a little water/poweraide at some aide stations to augment.  I was able to sneak in a quick nap mid-day which was huge and was able to keep off my feet for most of the day. The weather for the half was just about perfect, 50’s all the way. I spent a quiet dinner with my son while the rest of the gang went to Downtown Disney and turned in early.   Of course, I couldn’t sleep a wink as I was cranked up from the race and thinking about the full the next morning. We set our alarms for 2:00 am to avoid the transportation dramas the next morning. Marathon Day. The alarm goes off at 2:00 am, but I was already awake, I probably only got about an hour and half of sleep, great. Get up, shower, eat breakfast and hit the bus line. This time we get on the 2^nd bus at 3:00 and there are no issues whatsoever getting to the start area, we get there around 3:30am. The big difference between days was the temp, it was a lot colder on Sunday, around 40 or 41 degrees. And when you have to stand around for 2 hours in the cold, it gets pretty nasty. So now I’m freezing cold, worried about my stomach issues from the day before and had about 2 ½ sleep including the nap from yesterday afternoon. Suffice it to say, I was not a pleasant SOB that morning.   On the bright side, I wasn’t thinking about what was ahead of me. We made our way to the start corrals early hitting the port-o-potties a couple of times, I was in corral C and my father H. Because it was early, I was able to walk to the front of the corral and sit down. Thanks to some good advice I had bought a throwaway sweatshirt from wal-mart and had stretched it out so I could sit Indian style with it draped around my body, but man I was still shivering. Finally, after about 45 minutes the start of the race ritual began with the national anthem etc. I still hadn’t gotten into race mode yet and was still fuzzy from the lack of sleep. But when the first couple of waves went off (to fireworks again) and we made our way up to the start line, I was able to finally get my game face on, throw away the sweatshirt, and turn on my music. Ok, now I’m ready to run. Fireworks go off and we’re on our way. Because I was at the front of the corral, I didn’t have to weave (as much) around people, so my first mile split was closer to where I wanted it to be. I was also distracted during the first mile as I was fighting with my iPod, turns out you have take off your gloves to work the thing :).   I felt ok for the first 10 or 12 miles, I was basically on autopilot, I was taking in gels every 30 minutes for the first hour and then started to take them every 25 minutes as I was starting to feel gassed. Most of the day was spent trying to stay on top of my hydration and nutrition to stave off the dreaded wall. The course was very similar to the half until after Magic Kingdom with the exception of a loop through Epcot right off the bat which was really cool in the dark to run around the world showcase under the lights of torches. I had to go to the bathroom prior to the race starting after sitting in the corral for 45 minutes, but I was able to hold off until right after the Magic Kingdom and hit a port-o-potty in the back lot area (no line). It felt like the longest whiz in humanity (think Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own), anyway, that was the only bathroom stop for the day. Immediately after the bathroom stop my pace started to deteriorate and I started to feel worse every mile until the end of the race. I had built a good base pace, but time was picking away.  As the miles wore on I kept eating gels more frequently, and at the end I was shoving them down my throat every 10 or 15 minutes. I was also carrying a 20z bottle of poweraide which was gone by the half way mark, but I was getting two or more cups of poweraide/water at each aide station. As the day wore on the temp increased, but not over the mid-50’s, I was still sweating pretty heavily and keeping on top of hydration was proving to be a challenge. We ran through Animal Kingdom which was really cool, especially when you turned a corner and looked right up at Mt. Everest, there was also some cool distractions on the road between the parks like a really good Spanish guitarist and a zoro riding around on horseback right before Animal Kingdom. After Animal Kingdom and before Hollywood studies (around miles 17 to 22 or so) the road is pretty brutally boring, even with the Disney distractions. There is an out and back section of the road that was particularly brutal. At the 21 mile marker I was doing all sorts of calculations in my head trying to convince myself that I could keep my goal of making a sub 4 marathon. By my calculations, I would make it if I could maintain a sub 10 pace for the last 5.2 miles. By mile 22 I wasn’t so sure I could keep it up. I was seriously hurting at this point and no matter how much I drank or how many gels I shoved down my throat, I just wasn’t going to feel any better. It was taking more and more effort to maintain a slower and slower pace. The last couple of miles were in the 9:30 to 9:45 range and it was hurting. My legs had begun to burn (quads) around mile 15, and they were screaming after mile 22. At this point I had resorted to mantras like (“the pain of discipline is less than the pain of regret") and thoughts of all the hard work during training that would have been wasted if I stopped, because that is exactly what I wanted to do. I also thought about all the people I would let down if I stopped, especially myself. So I plodded on. Hollywood Studios was a blur, I had my head down just trying to get by (although running toward the backdrop of NYC was really cool even in my degraded state). Between Hollywood Studios and Epcot you run through the Dolphin/Swan/Boardwalk area which is pretty nice. Finally Epcot, I kept saying to myself that all you have to do is loop the world showcase, make it by the gospel guys and collapse past the line. That was the longest 1.5 miles in my life, but finally, I heard the music, turned the corner and saw the finish chute. I crossed the line with no emotion, I was totally spent, but I made it! AND, I made my goal! Sub 2 then sub 4, finish time was 3:56:06. My family was waiting for me (with cowbells) right after you get your medals, that was really awesome, they were a sight for really sore eyes. I got my goofy medal and started to walk to the family reunion area and kindof collapsed a bit on the curb. I just couldn’t walk anymore and my legs had started to lock up on me. A bunch of very helpful volunteers came to see if I needed help, but I was able to convince them that I was ok. I definitely wasn’t. I should have gone to the medical tent, after the fact I now know that I was clearly dehydrated and my electrolytes were depleted. I was nauseous and my legs were severely cramping.   But I forced myself to get up and make my way through the food line to meet up with my very worried family. I took my astro blanket and laid down on it for about 20 minutes before I started to feel better. After I drank a couple of poweraides I started to feel human again and was able to stomach some food. After about an hour I felt well enough to get on the bus to head back to the hotel. I drank a bunch of poweraide, had some salty pretzels and took a shower, which did the trick. I headed back with my family to the finish line to see my father finish after another hour and with great luck walked right up to the finish line to see him come across, that was pretty awesome. He was in much better condition than I, but I was feeling better at that point. We headed back to the hotel where we rested up and then went to great meal that night at the top of the   Contemporary Hotel to celebrate (we checked the kids in at the neverland club at the Polynesian, which was really cool).  The next day was marathon Monday at the parks, if you finished the full marathon you got a “free" pass to one park, we went to the magic kingdom and it was pretty awesome to see all the people wearing their shirts and medals, limping around. So lessons learned. 1)  Leave early to avoid traffic/logistical issues. 2) Buy a throw away sweatshirt to wear or sit on while you are waiting. 3) don’t forget to go to the bathroom. 4) Electrolytes, I will need to take salt tabs/endurolytes next time to avoid cramping issues. 5) training, if I want to run for audacious goals, I will need to up the mileage, my longest runs were 10/20 on back to back days, to go for a PR next time I will have to make my longest run a 12/24 pair of runs, for first timers with more reasonable goals a 10/20 long run set will probably do. 6) stay on campus if you can to avoid driving in all that traffic.

splits from the races can be found here:
Half: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/63177907
Full: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/63177913

If you made it this far, you deserve your own medal! 

Bill,
YOU ARE A FREAKING ANIMAL. Great job on both , those are awesome times.

AWESOME!!  INSPIRING!

I'm super proud of you for having the guts to do this, and to keep going when the going got tough!!

Congrats to you AND your DAD!  What a great accomplishment to share!

 Very, very, very cool!
You should be proud of yourself!

ROY

Awesome! Love it! You are one of my heroes! I can't fathom doing a sub 4 marathon after a sub 2 half marathon. Congrats Bill!

Way to go Bill. When I saw your eyes, I could tell that you would do it. You looked pretty focused. Congrats.

Next time you finish a full, try some chicken noodle soup. I had some straight from the can as soon as I picked up my bag and the cramping subsided in about 10 minutes.

Sub 6 hour total is outstanding!

Awesome job. You did great.  Disney really knows how to put on a great race.  Glad you were able to enjoy it and perform at a phenomenal level.
Rob

As I said before, you are truly amazing.  Your race report will certainly be one that I call to mind when I need that extra push to reach a goal.

Cassie