Marathon Weekend 2020

[SheHulk]

That was a memorable stop! I ran through a ditch to get to the portopotty and the ditch had about four inches of what I hope was water. I had soaked and squeaky shoes for the rest of the race.

They don't let you hit the "sad" and "haha" buttons at the same time on here but ugh!

 

[camaker]

That was a memorable stop! I ran through a ditch to get to the portopotty and the ditch had about four inches of what I hope was water. I had soaked and squeaky shoes for the rest of the race.

Has that “water related” rash cleared up, yet?

 

[lhermiston]

Has that “water related” rash cleared up, yet?

Not gonna lie, it lingered for a few days. Got real itchy for a couple of days and my ankles felt a little swollen. Happy to report it's all cleared up now! ha ha.

 

[FFigawi]

That was a memorable stop! I ran through a ditch to get to the portopotty and the ditch had about four inches of what I hope was water. I had soaked and squeaky shoes for the rest of the race.

That metronome from your one soaked shoe was really annoying after a while...

 

[TCB in FLA]

27.28 marathon for me according to AW. Includes Everest!

 

[princessbride6205]

To go along with the list of characters, should we list the songs played? I want to make an inspirational playlist.

Here is what I can remember...

Start line:
Bare Necessities (new movie)
Pirates of the Caribbean (movie)
Brave-Touch the Sky

Along the Course:
Original One Little Spark
Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit
Illuminations
Stand Out- Goofy Movie
Orange Bird Song
On the Open Road- Goofy Movie
Dig a Little Deeper- Princess and the Frog
I Can go the Distance- Hercules
How Far I'll Go- Moana


I know there were a whole lot more, but I may have been delirious throughout the race. Please add what you can remember.

Sorry if any of these have been said already, I'm late responding. I think these were all played. (I also have a Disney race playlist with hours of music if you'd like ideas for additional songs)
Soarin' (instrumental)
Zero to Hero - Hercules
A Star is Born - Hercules
Almost There - Princess and the Frog
Try Everything - Zootopia

Curious as to what everyone’s smart watch shows as their mileage for the full marathon. My Apple Watch Nike+ shows I ran 26.7

My Garmin Forerunner 230 says 26.67 miles. I ran solo and made some effort to run the tangents. However I'm a walk-runner, so I had to be mindful of not ending up in the middle of the course during for a walk interval. I stopped for about 10 photos and 1 bathroom. I think this is my personal best for shortest distance out of my 6 Disney marathons. Shaved 0.03 miles off of last year.

 

[lhermiston]

That metronome from your one soaked shoe was really annoying after a while...

The Goof Troop was kind not to kick me out. I was pretty annoyed, too.

 

[michigandergirl]

My Garmin logged 26.95, which included many character stops, 3 bathroom breaks, and a couple of back & forths in Epcot while looking for @jennamfeo and the margs.

 

[Nightriders19]

Stopping to use the port-o-potty was something I couldn't do since I was trying to hit a sub 3 for this run, so I erred on the side of caution...I mean dehydration

Haha, this was my approach as well. I typically like to "run dry" during races. I don't take anything at all for distances up to half-marathon. I took a Powerade about every other aid station. And then drank all the things post-race, lol.

 

[PrincessV]

iSmoothRun had me around 25.5ish at the finish, having been diverted. I'm pretty good at running the tangents. I kept the app going through the finish and I took a small detour walking back to my car to hit 26.2.

I've got 13.37 clocked for the half.

ETA: I find the hydration/potty usage convo interesting! I live and train in the heat of FL summers, so while I never get to a point where extreme heat feels good, I guess I am used to managing to it. I drink to thirst, which in the heat amounts to about 12oz every 5ish miles, so figure about 60+oz of Nuun and Tailwind (I combine them because TW doesn't give me enough sodium on its own) plus half a Coke on ice over the marathon. I really only needed to pee once, in MK, though I stopped in AK, too, for other reasons. Same situation with the half: around 12oz every 5ish miles, so figure about 50oz - no restroom stops. Honestly, I prefer to err on the side of slightly dehydrated vs. risking hyponatremia, but drinking to thirst seems to keep me in the healthy zone.

 

[baxter24]

Add me to the list of having to stop to use the restroom the most I ever have during a race. But I also drank more water and Powerade than I ever have before either.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

I know these are not normal circumstances, but it is still nagging at me that I performed so poorly.

The highly unusual circumstances mean that no one in this race performed poorly. I'm one who ran the shortened course. My FitBit logged 24.89 and I stopped it after crossing the finish line. I didn't think to let it keep going.

Your time is more accurate than my time regardless of what the chip says. But please don't feel bad about poor performance. You trained for it, managed the circumstances of the race as best you could, and finished healthy. That is always a great performance, even if we may wish for better.

You didn’t perform poorly, though. You took race conditions that were potentially dangerous to your health, crafted a strategy to make it through those conditions safely and then executed that strategy. That takes more skill and self-awareness than going out there and running the race at the paces you’d trained for under more normal conditions. You have to race under the conditions that the race presents to you, not the conditions that you’d like to have. YOU are the rock star for getting through. Give yourself the credit you deserve.

So much this. I had to make my peace with running the shortened course because Blizzard Beach was not available to me. I'm fine with what happened now. Around mile 7 or so, I was keeping up with the 6:15 pace group. But because of the heat and humidity, I chose to not continue to keep up with them and go with what worked for me on that day. Had I kept up with them, I would have run the entire course. But maybe not. It's certainly possible that keeping up with that pace group would have taken too much out of me and led to serious issues in the heat.

It was pretty scary out there, seeing people sick on the side of the road, others hooked up to an IV. You made the best decision.

Maybe this mentality holds me back, but often times in a race when something in my body begins to feel off, I slow down and go at a pace that my body agrees with. I conclude that I would rather finish with a slower time, but finish healthy and upright so I can resume training injury free for my next race than push myself past the breaking point and deal with much worse problems. My sister finished about 30 minutes or so after I did and she saw multiple examples of people literally dropping and frequent cries of "MEDIC" after the finish line.

I used the Nike Run Club app on my phone (don’t have a smart watch) and it was way off the entire time — it ended up saying 31 miles total. Anyone else had this problem before?

Last year, my FitBit said I ran 18 miles for the marathon and this year my new one says 24.89 with the shortened course.

But, we all know this race was special.

I couldn't find any years where runDisney cut the marathon course short because of the conditions. I know there have been some half marathons canceled or shortened, but nothing like this. I wonder if the next time there's heat and humidity in the forecast we'll say, "hopefully it won't be as hot as 2020."

I also have a Disney race playlist with hours of music if you'd like ideas for additional songs

I have very fond memories of Let's Go Fly a Kite as I ran through World Showcase knowing I was going to finish my first marathon in 2019. I felt like I was actually flying. Which means it was either my first (and so far only) true runners high or I was hallucinating.

 

[cesj90]

Did anyone else oddly not have to go to the bathroom more than once? I used the Epcot monorail bathroom before the race at 3:45. Started around 5:45, ran a 7 hour marathon, only stopping to go at Mile 11 to go. I drank a ton of water and Powerade too. Drank at every stop, except one when my stomach needed a break. I drank 2 powerades, a bottle of water, and then a Gatorade after the race, and even weirder, it took me hours to need to go to the bathroom again. The same thing happened to my husband.

Are we freaks or did anyone else experience this?

 

[PaDisneyCouple]

DH here. I decided to write down as many "core memories" as I could recall from MW. Here goes; trying for chronological order:

Final run of training plan the morning of the 9th. 2 miles to HS and back, while the lights and sounds of the 5k were in the background. And knowing it was really going to happen.
Walking back to get our prepurchased merch before heading back to the bus on the 8th, and realizing it was after 5:30pm and the sun was still up. A far cry from the 5pm sunset in Pa then.
Lunch the 9th with @FFigawi . Our WDW trips are usually planned to the nanosecond (mostly by me), but we wanted to just take what each day gave us this time. This was a spontaneous lunch experience for us, where we learned a lot about MW, and DW got great ideas about where to spectate the marathon.
Being able to ride BTMRR for the first time in many years. It has been down the last couple of times we visited.
Dinner at Blue Zoo. Great food and service. Quiet table. This trip was our everything: October anniversary, Christmas, birthdays. And this dinner was our anniversary dinner.
Spectating the 10k on the 10th, and possibly seeing Rogue 2 in flight at the Boardwalk. Even @lhermiston can be hard to see in the dark.
Boma breakfast on the 10th. Best breakfast on-site. Talking with 10k runners and experiencing the joy of others sharing their stories.
HH DIS meet. So many new faces to put with screen names. All welcoming of newcomers to the MW experience.
HM trip up MS USA. Lee was right: it can be emotional. I kept telling myself to savor this.
Suddenly realizing that the gang was passing me at the end of the HM, and being able to finish with: @rteetz @FFigawi @Bree @lhermiston
DW finding me in the self-treatment medical area after the HM. Bookends perfectly with our first race: a 5k Turkey Trot in 2010, on 3 weeks notice we were going to run our first race, she found me in the finish area that day as we were heading to get our shoe chip tags removed.
Starting the marathon in the company of the Goof Troop.
Getting texts from DW that just said "dinosaur", and knowing that it meant she was at TTC next to the inflatable dinosaur.
Coming out of backstage onto MS USA and seeing all. those. people. From there all the way to Future World. It felt like thousands of people.
Seeing DW again at the GF.
Realizing around mile 20 that I was going to finish my first marathon.
Coming around the corner and seeing the finish line ( I can see it now, even)
Doing the Castaway Cay Challenge 5k together with DW start to finish. She said after 2 miles she was spent, and we'd be walking the rest of the way (she was coming down with influenza). She still looks better in the finish photos than I do.

I plan to start turning our training journal into a trip report journal. All are welcome to stop by.

 

[KevM]

Did anyone else oddly not have to go to the bathroom more than once? I used the Epcot monorail bathroom before the race at 3:45. Started around 5:45, ran a 7 hour marathon, only stopping to go at Mile 11 to go. I drank a ton of water and Powerade too. Drank at every stop, except one when my stomach needed a break. I drank 2 powerades, a bottle of water, and then a Gatorade after the race, and even weirder, it took me hours to need to go to the bathroom again. The same thing happened to my husband.

Are we freaks or did anyone else experience this?

I used the port-a-potties a couple times before the marathon, but during, I only stopped twice. And that was with drinking at least one water at each stop & having two 16oz bottles on me.

 

[UNCBear24]

My Garmin registered 26.48 for me from corral B with 5 photo stops and only 2 bathroom breaks (compared to 5 last year).

 

[SheHulk]

Did anyone else oddly not have to go to the bathroom more than once? I used the Epcot monorail bathroom before the race at 3:45. Started around 5:45, ran a 7 hour marathon, only stopping to go at Mile 11 to go. I drank a ton of water and Powerade too. Drank at every stop, except one when my stomach needed a break. I drank 2 powerades, a bottle of water, and then a Gatorade after the race, and even weirder, it took me hours to need to go to the bathroom again. The same thing happened to my husband.

Are we freaks or did anyone else experience this?

same! I only stopped once even though I took probably two cups of water at every stop. Maybe at a bunch of those I dumped one cup of water on myself instead of drinking both of them. I'm gonna say we both were pretty dehydrated.

 

[camaker]

Did anyone else oddly not have to go to the bathroom more than once? I used the Epcot monorail bathroom before the race at 3:45. Started around 5:45, ran a 7 hour marathon, only stopping to go at Mile 11 to go. I drank a ton of water and Powerade too. Drank at every stop, except one when my stomach needed a break. I drank 2 powerades, a bottle of water, and then a Gatorade after the race, and even weirder, it took me hours to need to go to the bathroom again. The same thing happened to my husband.

Are we freaks or did anyone else experience this?

I was drinking water and Powerade at nearly every aid station and I only had to stop once, on the stretch before AK. I don't think we're unusual. It just depends on how the hydration balance works out. Drink more than you need to replenish your stores and you're going to need to get rid of that during the race. Drink enough to balance out or don't drink enough, you're not going to have to stop. Multiple stops are kind of a good news/bad news kind of situation. The good news is you're taking in plenty of fluids to stay hydrated in the conditions. The bad news is that you're taking in so much you've got to stop multiple times to get rid of the excess. The trick is finding the balance, not the large surplus or deficit.

 

[TeeterTots]

Did anyone else oddly not have to go to the bathroom more than once? I used the Epcot monorail bathroom before the race at 3:45. Started around 5:45, ran a 7 hour marathon, only stopping to go at Mile 11 to go. I drank a ton of water and Powerade too. Drank at every stop, except one when my stomach needed a break. I drank 2 powerades, a bottle of water, and then a Gatorade after the race, and even weirder, it took me hours to need to go to the bathroom again. The same thing happened to my husband.

Are we freaks or did anyone else experience this?

This happened to me at MCM last fall. I went at 7:30 in a bush at the start and not again until 4:30pm!!! I drank a ton! Eek!! Crazy!

 

[dtrain]

Does anyone have the exact temperature / humidity % / dew point from the Marathon at race’s start?