2020 Walt Disney World Marathon - a successful failure
- Rufus Chaffee
- Jan 14, 2020
- 12 min read
Sometimes you have to accept that despite your best efforts and making all the right strategic decisions it just wasn't meant to be. When you look beyond a time or a specific goal and strictly base success on how you ran, mentally battled, and overcame adversity the end result in terms of tangible measurements like time or place doesn't matter. To me, the most important thing is that I know I gave the best possible effort I could on a day and ran to my potential. At the end of the Disney Marathon, while I didn't get my goal time of a sub 3:18 marathon to give myself a realistic chance at getting into Boston, I was extremely satisfied and proud of my performance.
Leading up to the race the biggest issue was pretty obviously going to be the weather. I've never been a warm weather runner, which is a bit of a concern in the back of my head with races like Western States on the horizon, and humidity was set to be above 90%. I'd also been training in New England where temps were in the 20s and 30s (on good days) so my body wouldn't be acclimated to the heat either. My biggest takeaway, and one of the biggest reasons I was so pleased, is that I can run in that weather if I start drinking water excessively two days prior (minimum gallon a day), pay attention to my body, use salt tabs, and focus on keeping my core temperature down. As much as a I wanted to qualify for Boston, my interest in marathons has been waning and this race was primarily a lead up to ultra season which I'm excited to start preparing for.
PRE - RACE
For training I strictly followed the last 10 weeks of the BAA Boston Marathon training plan and cut back on my mileage to 60 miles a week. There were no doubles and more speed and tempo work with most weeks having a Tuesday repeats day, some Fridays with tempo work, and Sunday long run with sections at marathon pace. I didn't do as much of the hill work because the Disney course is flat and mainly focused on getting my speed back and trusted in my ultra base. I have to say it's an effective training plan as by the end I felt quick and confident in my fitness. I also liked how the taper section was 2 weeks and incorporated some speed work and harder efforts to keep my body primed. My issue with tapering has always been it can cause you to relax and lose the edge you get by grinding out the miles day after day. The taper is the one part of training that still eludes me.
While packing for Orlando I managed to kick my bed and give the toe on right foot a nice bruise. At first I was concerned I had fractured it but the pain was manageable and subsided before race day. This was basically the first of a few signs that things would just not go according to plan this weekend. Other than that travel to Orlando was smooth and I arrived on Friday and settled in to relax, watch football, and prepare for the race.
My Saturday morning easy shakeout run was not nearly as smooth as I would have liked. My body was out of sync and didn't feel fresh like I wanted it to. The reality is that despite doing everything right and your best efforts, sometimes your body just doesn't cooperate. I've woken up feeling great after days like this so I wasn't too concerned. On top of that, my 6am 3 mile run meant to mimic race conditions had me sweating profusely which gave me an indication of what to expect. I didn't sleep as much as I'd have liked on Friday night but that's normal for me so I set my goal of trying to get a nap in during the day and at least 4-5 hours of sleep before the race which is always ambitious given nerves.
This was my first experience of a big event Expo as most of the marathons I've done have been smaller affairs. It was really cool to see all the gear, food (I couldn't resist a pulled pork slider), and feel the energy of the event. I found the pace group but learned they didn't have anything lower than a 3:20 group and the pacer for that group was extremely cautious about extreme efforts given the weather. This was all stuff I understood, acknowledged, and planned to ignore - I had come to terms with the fact that this was going to be an all or nothing effort. Being my only planned "racing" marathon this year I had to go for my goal time and if I crashed and burned then I'd just slow down and enjoy myself. I don't always like to give myself permission to fail but with the odds stacking against me I had to be prepared for the reality. Post expo, my traditional day before movie and Chipotle lunch was executed flawlessly and I even got in a very solid hour nap. I felt optimistic.
RACE DAY
The most valuable piece of information from the Expo was that I should arrive at parking by
3:30am or I could risk delays and missing the 5am start. Staying an hour away from the park meant a 2am wakeup which became 1:30 when I couldn't get back to sleep. I try to maintain as much of my regular routine on race day which means a half hour relaxing and drinking coffee. Leaving at 2:20am I arrived at the Disney gates around 3:15 and immediately hit a traffic logjam. Had I not known about this in advance I'd have probably arrived closer to 4 and been stressed out. Luckily this wasn't the case and while it took a while to get to parking, I was still there more than an hour before start time which is always my goal.
There was plenty of parking, smooth transition into the runners area, and more than enough port-o-potties with no wait. I checked my gear and did my best to lay down and center myself before heading to my corral which luckily was going to be A, near the start. I didn't want to be caught up in a backlog of runners for the first mile which would have killed my chances. My plan was to find the 3:20 pacer sign and use that as a guide for my first mile. That way I know I'm slightly below or on pace and could lock it into my body's pace metronome. The walk to the corrals was actually about a mile so I used it as my warmup, jogging parts and doing strides when there was an open section. I didn't realize there would be so many runners (over 14,000). It was actually pretty cool to see. My body didn't feel as fresh and smooth as I had wanted but I reminded myself not to pre-judge a race based on how I feel. So many times how I feel at mile 5 or mile 10 is much better than how I felt at mile 1, you just find your pace, check off the miles, and let the race happen.
Arriving in the corral the race start was delayed 20 minutes as they cleared the course. In the moment it was incredibly annoying but with that many runners it's better to take the time to get it right than adhere to a specific start time. I tried to stay loose and positive but had a nagging suspicion this wouldn't be my day. For whatever reason I was just off. This is definitely where experience comes in because I've had great runs and races before when feeling off so to be able to draw from that helps a great deal.
This was my first race with a wheelchair start, which finally happened and shortly after that Mickey counted us down and set us off around 5:22am. Keeping my eye on the 3:20 pacer stick which started about 10 seconds ahead of me I maneuvered through the crowd and found my pace, erroring on the side of too slow instead of too fast. My goal was to hit 7:30 pace for the first 10 miles. Had the weather been more accommodating I would have upped that to 7:25 but in reality getting a sub 3:15 or sub 3:18 was going to mean the same thing and this was not the weather to go for a PR type all out effort.
My first mile clocked in at 7:29 and around that time I learned that the pacer was going for a run/walk/run strategy so they were actually running a faster than goal pace and then walking for a brief period. This isn't something I could do as I need a nice smooth consistent rhythm but it did create an interesting cat and mouse for about 6 miles as they would pass me and then disappear when they walked and then catch up to me again. Knowing they started ten seconds ahead of me and running a 7:37 per mile goal pace I just used it as a guide to know I was on pace and focused on finding my rhythm which was proving elusive.
This was a battle from the start. The miles didn't feel smooth and my legs felt heavier than expected. This caused my mind to rationalize slowing down and giving up on the effort almost from the start (maybe because of that permission to fail thing) so I had to keep finding ways to trick myself into holding pace - "Just hold it mile 8 and if we're spent we can consider slowing down"..."ok, 2 more miles. There's another time stamp at mile ten so the people watching your tracking will see you're on pace through 10 and then you can slow down"... "Ok, it's three miles to the halfway point, just put in a good half marathon effort and then you can slow down".... "it's only a few more miles to 15"...."Mile 20, that's a great effort, just keep pushing to mile 20. Nobody could fault you if you slow after that and nobody will know that you slowed down right away either"...."Put in 2 more good miles and then 2 more good miles after that and you're at the last 2 miles..."... "2 more good miles, you're on the bike path running home at the four mile marker"... I just kept breaking it down to small goals and pushing forward.
Along the way I made a few key decisions that I think made a big difference in allowing me to stay on pace for as long as I did. First off I've learned that in heat putting cool water on the back of my neck is essential to keeping my core temperature down. I was extremely excited to find, and grateful for, the fact that the water given out at the stations was cold. There were also an excessive number of water/powerade stations which is a good thing. I forced myself to use every single one whether I felt like I needed it or not. The cold water on my neck effectively kept my core temp down and I never felt overheated or dehydrated. Secondly I tossed my shirt at mile 6 as it was soaked and dead weight. I lost 20 seconds reaffixing my bib to my running belt and it's actually a nice running shirt but running without it was a huge improvement and there was no way I could carry it another 20 miles so RIP. Lastly, I took my first salt tab at 4:55 expecting a 5am start and usually take one at the hour markers in my race. However, with the delay I moved that up and started taking tabs about 40 minutes in. All of these decisions were definitely the correct move and allowed me to keep pushing.
Around mile 10 when we entered Magic Kingdom was where the tide started to turn and I felt a rhythm start to develop. There's this amazing section as you run down the main street with the castle in the background and the street is just lined with thousands of people cheering as they wait to get into the park or cheer on people. It was a huge energy boost. For the next 10 miles or so while I was still battling it was much easier to be in the moment and just click off miles. I also started passing other runners pretty consistently which is always motivating. I crossed the half marathon point at just over 1:39 which was 2 minutes over my original optimistic target but right on pace given my new approach and I had faith in my ability to negative split if I just stayed consistent for another ten miles.
Generally I take gels every 6 miles and for a marathon use a more aggressive caffeine and sugary gel. The downside is they don't always sit as well in my stomach and one of the definite side effects to the heat and humidity is stomach issues. I started to feel some waves nausea around the halfway point after my second gel and was concerned it would worsen or get to the point I had a reversal of fortune. With a definite gel at mile 18 and an optional one at 24 it luckily never worsened and while I didn't want to take in electrolytes or even water I kept forcing it down at each station as I went through. One gulp at least of electrolyte, one gulp at least of water, and one cup water on the back of my neck. You just learn that you have to ignore what your body wants to do and force what it needs to do. I went with a more delicate Spring Energy gel at mile 18 and the nausea lessened.
Mile 20 felt like an accomplishment, I honestly didn't think I was going to last that long when I started. In many ways 20 miles is the halfway of a marathon because the real race is over the last 10k. When I came around the bend Blizzard Beach it was a long loop around the parking lot and into the park which mentally was a bit draining to see. I still felt pretty solid so I just kept grinding, relying on relative effort and rhythm because I wasn't at a point to push yet and if I couldn't hold that at pace I had no shot. Checking my watch it kept confirming I was on pace even though few mild uphills felt like mountains 7:36...7:27...
Breaking the rest of my race down I just looked to have 2 good miles and then another 2 good miles. At that point I'd be 2 miles out and it would be a guts race. With 4 miles to go I did the math and saw I could come in right around 3:18 and remembering how I died at Gulf Coast focused on clicking out sub 8's which would keep me in range. If I could get to the last mile I'd empty my tank going for it. 7:39... 7:42... I crossed mile 24 and when I went to press the gas to keep going it just wasn't there. I wanted to eat the pain and push home but my body wouldn't respond and just shut me down and I began to walk. I was disappointed and looking back maybe I just didn't have the guts to bring it home but in the moment I was at peace with the decision and I still am. I was already on the bubble of making it and had I pushed in that weather I think there's a chance I could have gone into a dangerous area physically. I wanted the BQ, but it's not among the top goals for 2020 so that was it. Time to bring it home as best I could.
I sure as hell wasn't walking it in so I gave it a quarter mile to gather myself and began jogging. Slowly I got back into a nice groove as ultra training has created a resiliency and recovery from max effort that I didn't have before. The 3:20 pace group went by at the leader yelled "three minutes until the next walk" to the remaining stragglers and I mentally imagined how hard they were working and focused on bringing it home. Feeling my body loosen and bounce back I actually covered the last mile in 7:49 and crossed the finish line in 3:21:26 without sadness or disappointment, actually quite the opposite. I ran a great 24 miles, to the best of my ability, which was an improvement over past races where my best had been 20-21 great miles and then holding on to the finish. I'd run as well as I could on the day, in less than ideal conditions, and that was something I was proud of. It also turns out I was 115th out of 14,106 so that also put it into perspective.
GEAR:
Running Shoes: Hoka One One Rincon
Running Belt: Naked Belt (can't recommend this enough)
Gels: Cliff Energy Shot, Spring Energy
Electrolyte: Tailwind, Powerade
Best Song at Best Time: Ramblin' Gamblin' Man by Bob Seger
EVENT REVIEW
For hosting over 14,000 runners Disney really puts on a great event. It's very well organized and efficiently run. There were more than enough port-o-potties in the runners corral and plenty of assistance where it was needed if I had a question. The course is a blast with spectators along much of it and the scenery of the different theme parks really breaks it up. There are some wasteland stretches of a few miles between parks but that's normal for any marathon. If you're looking for a fun experience or a Disney person you'll love it, there's points along the race you can stop for photos with your favorite characters and they really go out of your way to enhance everything. They also provide a ton of race photos to choose from but charge $17 each so there's a tradeoff if you want to buy them (or just screenshot the watermarked version as somebody did). If you're looking for a PR or a BQ it's also a very flat course and the atmosphere really helps keep you moving just be aware that the weather can be unpredictable. You also have to position yourself at the start so you can avoid getting clogged up with other runners. The walk from the runners area to the actual corrals is about a mile so don't bother doing a warmup in the runners area. Just use that as your warmup.
As they say in improv: "so... that happened." You accept it as truth and move forward. On to ultra training for 2020. 2019 was more about acquiring information and now I'm hoping to be competitive in 2020 and push myself. Race instead of run to survive some of the longer ultras. We'll see how it goes but for the next few months it's just about putting in miles and building my elevation back up. I have a 6 hour ultra in March, 50k in April and then my first target race Manchester to Monadnock (55 miles) which is actually a warmup for the Laurel Highlands 70.5 mile ultra in June where I hope to get my Western States Lottery Ticket. I'm waiting to hear about the lottery for the Superior 100 in September but I have IMTUF as the backup. Should start to get interesting.
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