The Goofy Challenge that Wasn't

One week ago I finished my third marathon, my first one in three years.

The path to getting there left a lot to be desired.  I had high aspirations for this race, even thought about making it a Boston qualifying attempt, but life got the way, and slowly that dream drifted away and was replaced with lower expectations and revised hopes.

I signed up for the Goofy Challenge with my husband the day the registration opened.  This would be my husband's first marathon, so why not run a half the day before?  We were going to run/walk the half together, stop for all the character pics, and actually enjoy a Disney race versus always trying to PR or go for a decent time.  Then we would both do our own thing for the full.

My running at the midpoint of 2016 felt flat and uninspired.  I sought out a coach (who is awesome and I am hoping to use again this year) to target some races in September, but one was derailed by a calf cramp that left me in pain for my back up race and through much of October. I went into the Wine and Dine weekend undertrained and stressed, teaching was taking a lot out of me, and trying to juggle school, coaching gymnastics, running, and life continued to take a toll.  I woke up my first morning in Disney in November sick.  I tried to race the 10k and realized early on that my body was not going to allow it.  I ended up pulling back in the 10k and running the half for fun, having a great time, but not getting the race times I had been hoping.

I spent most of December on the treadmill, trying to recover from my illness and I don't like running when it's dark, so due to my schedule it was often the only option.  Then the week before Christmas I started sparking a fever, missing my last 20 miler, after once again feeling very undertrained.  Just a few days before Christmas the fever came back, even higher this time, leading me to go to the doctor and get diagnosed with bronchitis. I was forced to slow down my training runs, cutting many short.  I pushed on, trying to stay optimistic, hoping for the best.

My husband left for Disney Tuesday night.  We had gotten the Race Retreat, so we had the VIP expo pass, so he took advantage and went and got me race merchandise he thought I would like.

Expos are way more expensive now that we both run

 I didn't go down until Thursday night.  My school was amazing and actually let me leave early because a storm was entering the area and I was worried it would cancel my flight.  I ended up landing in MCO before my flight even would have taken off.

One of my fav routes:  the lake at Pop

We had a great room at POP for my first night there.  I did a nice cool run around the resort to shake out my legs and we checked out before heading to the expo so I could pick up my bib.  We were switching to Beach Club, one of our fav resorts, for the rest of the trip,

I was impressed with the amount of merchandise left at the expo when we arrived, and the ease with which I got my bib.  I heard horror stories of the first day of pick up, but luckily by Friday there were no issues.  I got my stuff, we hit up Epcot for bit, where we got the notice that the half was cancelled.

Opening of the Expo on Friday

To state I was devastated is an understatement.  I was looking forward to the fun half almost more than the marathon, so to find out it was cancelled was disappointing.  It was amusing when we went back to the resort because there were tons of upset half marathoners in the resort bar and up getting to talk to some nice people.  I guess when runners can't run, they drink, right?

We're going to run when we don't have to!

Making our own photo stops

We got up in the morning and went out to run a few miles. I had debated doing 13 miles on my own, but was clinging to the idea of a marathon PR, so I decided against it.  It was truly awesome to see all of the people out running that morning, some in costume, some with their bibs.  There were spectators out, people providing race support, as we circled the Boardwalk area, and people went out to officially earn their race medals.  It made me want to keep running, but I restrained myself.

We laid low most of the day, getting lunch at Portabellos in Disney Springs, hitting up the expo so I could return my Goofy stuff and see if they had any marathon stuff, and we hit up Magic Kingdom for a bit.

Sunday we made sure we were on the first bus and I was THANKFUL we had the race retreat.  It was only 40 degrees with wind chills in the 20's.  Plus some super nice people had a pile of throw away clothes to pick from, so I got extra pants and my husband found retro Buffalo Bills sweatshirt.  Go figure!

We stayed in the race retreat as long as possible and then started the nearly 30 minute walk to the corrals.  I always forget how long it is, but it was nice not to have to wait too long before starting.

In usual Disney splendor, we were set on our way with great fireworks and fanfare.  Of course my nervous bladder acted up, and I stopped at the first set of porta-potties. I felt so much better after that and was able to get in a groove as people spread out.

I worked hard to maintain my new modified goal pace, a good PR pace.  I always like to go way too fast at the beginning, so it was hard to reign in my enthusiasm.  I felt good.  I hit the Magic Kingdom mile 5ish) feeling awesome, slightly below pace, and happy.  I stopped for my castle pic, and loved the miles through the park.

The ensuing miles were boring, and around mile 7 I felt my bronchitis starting to bother me bit.  I kept looking forward to Animal Kingdom, roughly mile 11, looking for some entertainment.  I saw my husband in a little out and back part of the course and noticed him grimacing a bit.  I hoped he was ok, and continued on.

At this point I was still rocking my pace.  I was noticing some pain in my hip/butt area, and I think the hills in Animal Kingdom really aggravated it.  Leaving the park I was focused on the next destination, ESPN.

Around mile 16 I started putting more walk breaks in to try and get my leg to hurt less.  My pace dropped, but I was still trying really hard to hold on to my PR,but ESPN got the best of me.

I literally squealed for Donald!

I stopped for few pictures, and by the time I came out of the complex I knew my PR hopes were gone.  At times I feel like I looked drunk.  My leg was not quite working right, to the point where I bet I looked drunk at times, and of course mile 20/21 were into a major head wind.

My husband texted me around this time saying he was struggling, and I guess misery loves company, because it made me feel better that I wasn't the only one hating life.  I pushed to get to my favorite parts of the course, Hollywood Studios, through the boardwalk, around the world in Epcot, and to the end. 

Trying to act like I'm not in pain

 At this point my walk breaks were frequent and not just through water stations like they were up until mile 20 or so,

The finish is so close!

but I was able to run across the finish line smiling and giving Minnie Mouse a high five.


While I sat waiting for my husband to finish I felt a rush of disappointment.  I didn't achieve any of my goals.  I felt like I had failed, and I fought to keep the mindset that it is our struggles that make us stronger, better.  This struggle proved that I wouldn't let anything beat me, not bronchitis, not physical pain, not stressful life.

Woooo!  Minnie Mouse!!!!

Now I'm looking to 2017, figuring out some new goals, some new hopes.  I am going to try for a half PR sometime this spring, and I have Chicago in October.  The hubs and I just signed up for Wine and Dine Half again, and we are considering returning to marathon weekend in 2018, both thinking about seeking redemption, and we have the transfer to use from the cancelled half.  Not sure if I want to go for Dopey again, like I did for the inaugural year, or do Goofy,  I am just hoping 2017 brings me a better running year so I can go into whatever race feeling more confident and prepared!

A few bumps in the road on the way to Disney...

All the training was done, everything was packed, arrangements were made for my dogs, so everything should have been set.  Wrong.  Mother Nature decided to mess with us and make it particularly difficult to get to the race that I had been dreaming about and working towards for months.

"Mommy, don't leave me!"

We started getting wind of the bad weather over the weekend.  We were set to depart early on Tuesday morning, and Saturday night was predicting some pretty rough weather to hit our area starting Monday evening.  My husband kept assuring me we'd be fine, but when I woke up Monday the forecast became extremely grim and I started to full out panic.  I asked my boss if I could leave a day early, and he thankfully agreed to let me go.  Zach was also able to get out, so we booked a new flight and headed to the airport as it started snowing harder, hoping that our plane would still get out.  Our flight was one of the few that hadn't been cancelled yet, and walking through the vacant airport was a tad eerie.

Our flight didn't end up getting cancelled until around 6pm.  We were devastated, but were able to get a full refund as they told us the next day they'd be able to get us out would be SATURDAY (um, that would blow every race but the marathon!)  We hadn't cancelled our Tuesday morning Southwest flight yet, so we wandered over to their ticket agent and were then informed that they had already cancelled that flight.  We decided to rebook through another airport and would just start driving.

We rented a car and hit the road.  It was pretty dicey, but we really thought we'd be able to get past the blizzard and be fine.  We didn't realize how bad it really was.  It was white out conditions at times with the strong winds, so there were times I would just stop driving and wait out the wind.  It was hard to see due to the snow, wind, and darkness, so I spent the time following tire tracks and driving down the middle of the road so I wouldn't go off the road like the other cars we had seen.  A few police officers helped light our way and guide us down the road, but they would stop and wave us on if we came to a disabled vehicle.  The road we wanted ended up being closed, and the firefighters waved us in a different direction.

We drove three hours to go what would normally take 45 minutes, and ended up calling it a night, staying at a hotel right on the Interstate.  We would leave after some sleep in the morning.  Naturally, I couldn't sleep, and spent the night looking at other airports and flights since I knew we wouldn't make our new flights.  I called Southwest and they fought me a bit on switching, but eventually switched us to an airport that was only about 30 minutes from where we were.  After watching the weather, checking the airport website to see that all flights were still scheduled, and reading some news sites we decided that this airport seemed far enough out that it wasn't getting hit hard by snow, and would be our best bet to get out.  Then, while watching the flight status, I noticed ANOTHER flight to Orlando opened up, so I ended up booking that, too.  I figured if I had two options to get us out, we'd have a better chance of leaving.  Since it was Southwest, we'd just get travel vouchers for a future flight for the one we didn't use.

We set out early to the airport.  The driving was rough for the first half of the drive, but cleared up and was easy after that.  We laughed at how close we had been to being out of the blizzard, had we just pressed a little farther the night before.  We dropped our rental car off and prepared to wait and hope in the airport.

Our flight ended up getting delayed, which made me really nervous and I tried to nap, but it was a no go.  It wasn't until we were actually sitting on the plane, MOVING, that I began to relax.  Finally, we were on our way!

You'd think that'd be ALL that could go wrong.  Wasn't that enough for two people?  Nope.  As soon as we landed, I turned on my phone and had a message saying that my luggage had decided that it would rather go to Tampa instead of Orlando.  GREAT.  At least all my race stuff was in my carry on. I supposed I could handle it.

We went to the baggage area and Zach went to wait for his suitcase while I stood in the baggage line.  A while later he appeared with MY suitcase.  So it was HIS that was missing.  Not good, as he hadn't brought a carry on.  We went through the process of filing a report and headed to Disney's Magical Express, me with my huge carry on and suitcase, Zach with nothing.  We kept making repeated calls to Tampa's baggage to tell them where to ship the bags, but there was no answer so I left about a billion messages.

That night we went to Downtown Disney, even though we arrived at the All Star Sport Resort around 9:30 pm and were EXHAUSTED.  We hunted for some clothes, but Zach decided to wait until the race expo the next morning, thinking he might be able to find some cheaper clothes there while he waited for his suitcase to arrive.

I can honestly say that no bed every felt as good as the one at All Star Sports when we finally went to bed for the night.  It was quite a stressful trip down, but we were both relieved to have arrived and would be able to attend the expo the following morning right when it opened, as planned.

It was a relief to be there!!!

Next post will talk about the expo and 5k!  Stay tuned and thanks for reading!!! :)