WDW Goofy Challenge: Slow and Steady Finishes the Race (Part 1)

T-shirt courtesy of Mom and Dad (the best marathon cheer squad ever).

Yep, seemingly to no one's surprise, I made it across both finish lines of the Goofy Challenge this weekend  at Walt Disney World.  I ran 39.3 (or, according to my watch, more like 40) miles in 2 days.  

Bling.

I earned my 3 shirts, my 3 awesome medals, and did it all with my Team in Training teammates.

And as a forewarning, I'm pretty sure this'll be a 3-parter.  There's no way I could even attempt to fit all the awesome occurrences of the past weekend into a single post.  But I'll try my best to limit it to 3.

To start off though, here's a short summary of the major things I learned from running the Goofy Challenge:

1)  Disney World is magical.

2)  My body is capable of doing just about anything I ask of it...as long as I ask nicely.

3)  It is possible to run a marathon without hitting the wall.

4)  It is not possible to run a back to back half and full marathon without the support of family, friends, teammates, and coaches.

5)  Running slow is fun and stress free.

This race (or should I say, these races?) was the most fun I have ever had in a race.  I should have expected Disney to put on a good show, but I guess I wasn't prepared for what they could really accomplish.  Or what I could really accomplish.

But, as with any good story, we must start at the beginning...

Wednesday Night

I was on the Team in Training team flight that took off at 10:30 Wednesday night in the general direction of Florida.  This was after only 3 days back at school from Winter Break...3 days full of re-training the kids, writing extensive sub plans, and packing.  In fact, I kept my brain so fully occupied that I never got the chance to let it sink in that I was going to Disney World.  That I was going to run 39.3 miles.

Even as Erica, MacKenzie, and I sat chit-chatting on the plane before we passed out for the duration of the flight, it hadn't hit me.  I didn't quite get what I was doing.

Don't we look energized and ready to go?

It didn't hit me on the flight.  It didn't hit me as the plane touched down.  It didn't hit me in the Orlando airport.  The first moment that it hit me was when I stepped outside of the airport into upper 70s weather and a wave of humidity.  And all of a sudden I thought, Uh oh, this can't be good.  I have to run through this blanket of humidity and heat.  Twice.  Crap, crap, crap.

Thursday

But I ignored my nagging worries as we took the "Magical Disney Express" bus (ahem...motorcoach) transport to the Coronado Springs Resort Hotel, which was right in Disney World.  We arrived at the hotel around 11 AM.  This place was massive.  We got lost between buildings trying to find our rooms after we checked in.  But we got things settled and then headed straight the marathon expo.

To get to the expo, we had to hop onto another motorcoach that took us straight to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World.  First we got our numbers.

6 Goofy runners.  Me oh my.

Then we headed to the vendors, which were housed in an entire different building.  I found my name on the very Nike-ish wall that displayed the names of everyone running the race.

See me in the middle there?

We browsed around and I managed to buy myself a running hat with the Goofy logo on it and a car magnet that said 39.3 (as opposed to 13.1 or 26.2).  We saw a big wall with a picture of the medal and of course had to take another picture.

All of us were silently crossing our fingers that we'd actually earn this medal.

And then after wandering around for a while, we tiredly dragged ourselves back to the hotel to eat the crappy resort food (my only big complaint about this place--2 restaurants, one overpriced and the other just plain horrible--and no where else to go unless you wanted to get on a bus and go to a busy Disney area to pay lots more money).  

And then after a long night of flying and day of wandering through the expo, we all crashed into bed to get our last full night of sleep for the next couple of days.

Friday

Re-energized after a full night's sleep, we decided to get up and take on the Magic Kingdom for a few hours.

It's magical!!

Thanks to Dorothy's diligent Facebook check-ins, I have a nice list of all the rides we were able to experience.

1) First, a tour though the Magic Kingdom town.

It's me...in the Magic Kingdom!

2)  Photo op in front of Cinderella Castle

Disney World is the only place where it's totally OK for adults to walk
around unquestionably wearing Mickey ears.

Just as magical as you always imagined it to be.  I ran through the arch in the
castle twice during the weekend.

3) A ride through Space Mountain.  No picture here.  But it was a pretty awesome ride.  You literally couldn't see a thing inside except a few twinkling stars.

4)  A cruise around the Tomorrowland Speedway.

Erica actually trusted me to drive her.

5)  A visit with the Little Mermaid in Ariel's Undersea Adventure.

By far my favorite Disney movie ever.  I sang every word to every song
as we rode through in our mechanical clamshells.

5)  A boat ride through It's a Small World.

According to my mother, I was incredibly frightened of this ride and refused
to open my eyes inside it at the age of 2.  I've gotten over it, but can kind of
understand the creepiness I may have seen in those little machine-like people.

6)  An attempt at Big Thunder Mountain. But it was shut down due to a mechanical failure.

7)  An attempt at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  We loaded into the boat and then the whole thing shut down due to another mechanical failure.  We waited in the boat for about 15 minutes before they booted us out.

8)  Upon hearing that it was fixed, another attempt at riding the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster.  Success.  But no pictures.

Then, exhausted and not wanting to over-exert our feet or legs, we took the monorail towards Epcot and then the shuttle bus from Epcot back to our hotel.  

I couldn't help but look at this thing and think, "there's my
finish line...take a big deep breath.  And hope against hope
that you'll get there.  Twice"

After getting back to the hotel, I met my parents who had just arrived on their flight from New York.  I freshened up, got a snack with them, and then took them to our Inspiration Dinner.

I could recap the Inspiration Dinner here, but I thought I did a pretty good job of that in my San Diego RNR Recap.  If you're interested, take a look there.  What made this dinner really great though was having my parents there by my side.  Having never seen me run a race, let alone a TNT race, they got to see all the excitement, motivation, dedication, and commitment that is involved in being a part of Team in Training.  They got to hear the stories, the thanks, the cheers, and the tears that come along with being a part of this great Team.  They got to understand just a little bit more why it is that I continue to do what I do to support this team.

They also got to hear the totals for this race.  There were 1,080 TNT participants in the WDW Marathon Weekend, and we raised a total of $3.4 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for this race.  That money will go a LONG way towards finding new cures and support for cancer patients.  It's amazing to see numbers that big.  

With that in mind, we decorated our purple shirts and headed to bed.

Because we had a VERY early wake up time the next morning.  And many miles to go.