Hi everyone!
I just got finished up running the Dopey Challenge in Walt Disney World again and I wanted to do a quick overview of the full weekend and everything I did before I get some blog posts and videos up for some more specific events.
So first up – I went on my own down to Disney World and met my brother there who had made his way in from Spain.
Due to the timing of how we had set up our rooms, I was at the Pop Century Resort and he was at the Art of Animation Resort on Disney property. That was a funny one – I booked my room at the same time he was trying to book at Pop and he got denied – so I took the last room.
Art and Pop are very close though, sharing a lake and a bridge and most bus routes as well. We generally met up in one lobby or the other and then headed off to whatever we were doing. Not a difficult thing – but did add extra mileage to the legs, which really wasn’t necessary.
On the first day we headed down to the Expo to pick up our bibs and race shirts and see what there was to buy!
The layout of the expo was a bit different this year with the addition of the new Arena in the mix at ESPN Wide World of Sports – Bib and shirt pickup was still in the field house as it always has been and the main expo was in its normal location however the runDisney merchandise was in the new arena building. This was the closest building to the buses and we should have gone in there first but we did the bib pickup first and then did an expo wander before going into the runDisney area.
It was a bit more crowded in the runDisney area unfortunately but the line moved pretty steady – it would have gone even quicker if we had hit it first though.
Still though, it was less than 2 hours from start to finish – from off the bus to back on the bus – and frankly that was a phenomenal improvement over what we had seen last year. Kudos to runDisney for that!
The next 4 mornings came very, very early! The hardest part of the Dopey Challenge is still those 4 super early mornings, just exhausting.
The race mornings were a mixed bag for temperature – the 5k and 10k mornings were definitely colder than I would like but not as bad as last year. The half morning started cool but got warm once the sun came out. The full was hot – have done worse but this was pretty toasty. Because of that and an issue I had on the half I decided not to film on the full and just do the race.
I will be doing a blog post and videos for the races – I think the video will be a combination of all races though since I did not film on the full at all. The blog posts should be full race reports though – possibly combined but I will have to look at that once I get a chance to do the writing.
So look for those posts and videos coming up soon hopefully. Time is a bit tight right now but I hope to get them sorted out this weekend.
Some cool highlights from the race weekend?
During the 10k, I ran into Lee Hoedl who does some great race videos on YouTube for the Walt Disney World Marathon races. https://www.youtube.com/user/leehoedl There are so many great video creators right now for the Disney races but I still default to watching Lee’s videos while running on the treadmill – I have been watching his videos for 7-8 years so it was cool to talk to him. I then also ran into him on the full marathon as well – I have been at the races the same time as him several times and never seen him, and this race weekend I see him twice. Kinda funny.
On the 10k day, I was invited to the Cigna Blogger Meet Up held in the GM Training and Conference Center inside the Test Track building in Epcot. Cigna puts on this event to bring bloggers and social media folks together to help promote the marathon weekend (of which Cigna is the primary sponsor) and the event usually includes a light meal and some fun and games for teams of the participants centered around health and diet awareness. I was lucky enough to be invited last year and back again this year – super great event and it was awesome to meet up with and interact with many people that I have interacted with on Twitter, YouTube, etc.
Now, I am definitely going to miss some people, and I apologize for that, but my memory isn’t what it used to be. If I missed you, please ping me in the comments and I will make sure to add links to your channels, etc.
Anyway – I was able to have a chat with Gerald from RezRuns (love his videos too), Jen Lefforge, some folks from Joyful Miles, Allan Whittaker, Mike from BeOurGuest podcast, Megan from Elbowglitter, Justin Stone, Heatherw25, DisneyGroom – so many fun people – great time! Thanks again to Cigna for the invitation! I will be doing a video and post on the event, so watch for that one coming soon!
Ok…what was the next cool thing…maybe cool isn’t the right world…interesting? Maybe.
I took a dive on the half marathon! Never done that on a road race before – trail races, you kind of expect it but not on the road! It was just before mile 5 of the race – looks like there was a section of pavement that had heaved and it was in shadow and I didn’t see it. It is kind of lucky it occurred where it did though, another 20 meters or so would have been in a choke point and it could have cause real chaos and potentially a pile up.
I scratched my palms pretty decently and had some scrapes on my left arm and leg but nothing that really slowed me down. So once I put my left shoe back on, I kept going and it caused me no grief for the rest of the half or on the full. Got off lucky there.
But it did contribute to my decision not to run with the gimbal during the full marathon. Combined with the heat I just decided to concentrate on continuing to move forward. That worked pretty well in the end for me as I came in earlier than I had any right to expect really. But it also means I have no footage for a video for the full. So I expect to have a combined highlights video cover all the races (and I might use some video from last year to fill in the gaps) come out soon. Watch for that one as well!
Overall – I am happy with how I did – if you have been following along you know that my training has been less than great – so finishing upright and strong with no injuries is better than I could have expected and my overall time was way better than I could have hoped.
So my worst injury for the trip was the cold I caught on the plane ride home! Yay!
I think I am going to end this here – watch for more Walt Disney Marathon specific videos coming very soon!!
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