Race Report – 2015 Disney Half Marathon

The next day, it was time for yet another race. I opted to sleep another 15 minutes, figuring that I didn’t have to be there quite as early. Plus even though the initial forecast indicated that the weather would warm up, it most certainly did not and I wanted to limit the time I spent in the cold.

This morning, I opted to wear an extra layer. I wore a short sleeved shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a light jacket, and my running skirt. I really would have benefitted from pants. I also had another fleece blanket for my legs.  It was a cute outfit.  Also, since my jacket was black and my blanket was black, people thought I was wearing a trench coat. Kind of funny.

I figured that I would end up with my jacket wrapped around my waist during the race, and I did, but I kept it on til about mile 7, which was longer than I thought I would want it. I also found hand warmers in the pocket of my rain jacket, still there from the Notre Dame game last fall, and those were awesome to have on me.

This was the first Disney race in a long time that I was going to be running alone.  My running friends and I have evolved into very different types of runners, so while we start and finish together, we no longer run together.  Thankfully, I still had Katie with me in the corral. Otherwise it would have gotten lonely!

I really appreciate that Disney has added corrals to the races. Things get moving so much more quickly and there isn’t quite as much crowding on the course.

When I passed through, Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff were on the Castle. Kristoff noticed my birthday ears and wished me a happy birthday!

Unfortunately, the weather worked against me. Standing in the cold was just too much for my muscles and I could just not loosen up. My quads stayed tight and I think I ended up using my glutes more than normal. By around mile 9, my butt was so tired!  Not sore, just tired. Later that day, I realized that the two miles of walking the day before was probably exactly what I needed to get my legs to warm up.

It definitely wasn’t a bad race, it was just a slow race. It was probably one of my faster WDW halfs though.  I really liked the race, much more than I liked Princess last year.  Unfortunately, I think this is due to the people.  Princess weekend has too many people who show up with a sense of entitlement. I am sure those people are there at Marathon weekend too, but I definitely didn’t feel it as much. The only really annoying part of the weekend was the expo, which we hit the afternoon of the day it opened. Not the best plan. There wasn’t any official merchandise I was dying to have, so it wasn’t a big deal. I actually went back Friday and had a much better time. My parents went over on Saturday, and so many of the vendors were discounting their wares so as to not have to ship things back. Sure, the Disney merch was picked over, but there was plenty of shopping to be done.

When I started this weekend, I said I was taking a year off from Disney races, but after a good year this year and after my dad decided he wants to do Goofy this year, it looks like I will be back. I haven’t decided what race to run.  Not the marathon. Maybe just the 10K. I run a lot of halfs and I could save something like $70 by just doing the 10k and then cheering for the half and full. I am going to see what others think. Anyone else running in 2016?

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