**Remember, my recaps now have a few pictures but the majority are in the slideshow at the bottom of the post so make sure to open in a browser so you can see them!!
What a race! As you know, I had decided on the Goofy challenge as I was dissertation writing (which was the best decision I could have made-I felt barely prepared for Goofy let alone Dopey). Well with the cancelled half, I only ran the marathon. This worked out well as I have already wanted to just do the marathon and see how it went and let's just say, it did not disappoint!
Oh the marathon! We knew from the night before it would be COLD with wind chill in the teens. As I wrote about in my Race Retreat recap, I got up around 3, left the room at 315 and got there earlier than I have ever been there. I left race retreat at 5 with Jacque for the long walk to the corrals and we met up with Devin. We were COLD and for once I was ready to run.
We were in Corral H and started about 6:00. One thing that I was concerned about were the people that upgraded to the full, were still in their half corrals. It turned out not to be much of an issue. The race starts like most-down towards MK. The course wasn't too crowded but we were cold. The one nice thing was the water at all the water stops was nice and cold :)
We had decided from the beginning we would stop for every photo stop and just see how many we get. Our first character stop was Jack Sparrow and Barbosa outside of the MK parking gates. The line was less than 5 minutes which we thought would be great for the rest of them as usually the first stop is long!
Next up was Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater where the race track was (and we saw the people way ahead turning off at Bear Island) and then Jack and Sally a bit further along. We saw our BOGP Lizards squad at TTC and kept going as the sun was coming up. It was narrow as always heading towards MK but manageable. We saw the DJ with the massive Mickey hands.
We were moving at a decent speed and we're on Main St before we knew it! And we got to sit it all lit up! I do wish they would push the chear squad back so we could run more on Main Street-I have no pics of me on Main Street because it was crowded to just one side of the street.
We headed into tomorrowland and stopped for a picture with Buzz, and continued towards fantasyland and got a picture with tweedle dee and dum in front of the teacups and Donald in front of dumbo. We continued through new fantasyland and stopped for a picture at the fountain and got a picture with Beast!
We continued through fantasyland and saw Anna, Elsa and Kristoff at the back of the castle and then stopped for our castle picture. We went through frontierland and stopped for a picture with Country bears. And we hit mile 6 around here and headed out of MK and got a picture with the dragon. Behind MK is very narrow but we stayed pretty steady as we hit the DJ and finally some more photo stops.
We saw penguins at grand Floridian , wedding singers at the wedding pavilion, lilo and stitch at poly and Genie at the golf course. We turned off to Bear Island and the "boring" part in the middle.
As we turned off, we came upon the "graveyard" of old ride vehicles (Snow White, MR TOAD, nautilus, sky bucket, and rocket rods). We saw came upon the big bad wolf, and then wreck it Ralph and vanellope by the poop plant. We hit a banana stop and continued on to Horace horse collar and clarabelle cow. We saw the lion king dancers heading into AK. We then saw Meeko heading to AK along with a few animals. As we got in the park, we got a picture with Timon and the tree of life. We continued on towards Everest which is at the halfway point and waited in line. We should have done single rider as it made us so nervous but we got it done and then headed towards a restroom and headed out of AK towards the parking lot.
We stopped for the gravedigger picture (one of my favs!) and then down Osceola. The road was a bit narrow but it was fine to navigate. As we headed towards wide world of sports, we didnt have many photostops except the dino head. It got warm so we readjusted our outfits (the gloves came off!) as we turned towards wide world of sports and knew we would be in there for at least a 5k, we hoped there would be photoshops and there were!
We got a wet towel as we entered and then saw chip and dale (Donald left while we were in line), Mickey and Minnie, goofy and then one of my favorite photo stops-Joy and Sadness! We headed around the baseball field around mile 20 and honestly we're feeling pretty good! We headed out of WWoS and no one else was coming in! So crazy! We headed towards Hollywood Studios and saw the green army man and then in the park for a hot second. At least we got to take a picture with Oswald at his east coast debut!! We popped into the park down Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd and out.
The path towards Epcot is narrow but we knew the medical tent at the end was the last sweep point! It was a lot of walking because of crowding but we had fun. We saw the Lizards again at Beach Club and into Epcot. We saw Alice in the U.K., jasmine and Aladdin in Morocco, and Snow White in Germany. Turns out we missed belle in France!! :(
We wanted a margarita and went and the line was insane, we freaked but the festival of the arts booth was open so we there! Lifesaver!
We took a final picture with the Ball and headed towards the gospel choir at the finish line. We did it! And stopped for over 30 photos! There were happy tears shed (Jacque was Dopey! I ran a marathon in the middle of dissertation crazy! Devin ran a marathon post chemo!) and after getting our medals, and seeing some Lizards and grabbing champagne, Devin headed to the hotel and we went to race retreat.
We showered at the hotel and headed to MK to celebrate and then slept in the next morning as it was still cold (but not too cold!) and continued the celebration at AK and Epcot the next day.
FINAL TIME: 7:22 (16:54)
SPLITS in 5 miles segments: 1:16 (15:16)/2:54 (17:16)/HALF: 3:42/20 MILES-5:41 (17:06)
MILE SPLITS: well as you know, my garmin was a hot mess during this race so I don't have accurate ones! good grief is how I feel about that. Who knew so many layers could hit random buttons on your Garmin?!!?
Well I am already signed up for Dopey 2018 so I will be back for more Marathon action. After doing this race for the second time, it is still my favorite race of all-time and one I think every runner should experience (yes, even better than NYC Marathon!). Running in my favorite place on this planet, with my favorite people just makes for a great experience.
And 2018 is stacking up to be an amazing year! I know so many friends signed up for Dopey, it will prove to be an epic meet-up weekend and more!
What is the last marathon you ran? Have you ever done the WDW marathon?
SPLITS in 5 miles segments: 1:16 (15:16)/2:54 (17:16)/HALF: 3:42/20 MILES-5:41 (17:06)
MILE SPLITS: well as you know, my garmin was a hot mess during this race so I don't have accurate ones! good grief is how I feel about that. Who knew so many layers could hit random buttons on your Garmin?!!?
Well I am already signed up for Dopey 2018 so I will be back for more Marathon action. After doing this race for the second time, it is still my favorite race of all-time and one I think every runner should experience (yes, even better than NYC Marathon!). Running in my favorite place on this planet, with my favorite people just makes for a great experience.
And 2018 is stacking up to be an amazing year! I know so many friends signed up for Dopey, it will prove to be an epic meet-up weekend and more!
What is the last marathon you ran? Have you ever done the WDW marathon?
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