Walt Disney World Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge 2013

Thursday
I took an early morning flight out of John Wayne Airport headed for Orlando with a stop in Atlanta. I love flying out of Orange. The airport is so much nicer, but the ticket prices are usually higher than flying out of LAX. This was also one of the few times that I've flown with Delta. They are no better than American Airlines. The only difference is that AA's hub is in Dallas Fort Worth and Delta's hub is in Atlanta. Bottom line, they both suck in service and quality. At least they're both better than Southwest.

No secret where I'm headed

One of the few times flying with Delta

During my layover at the Atlanta Airport, I passed some time at the SweetWater Draft House & Grill. I ordered their burger and fries plus a couple of their craft beers. The beers were decent, but their food could be improved. Oh well, such is the usual case for airport food.

Georgia Brown

Burger and 420 Extra Pale Ale

Once I landed at the Orlando Airport, I made a bee line for the Disney's Magical Express Motorcoaches. I got in line for the All-Star Resorts. One of the reasons why I love running this race is that I don't have to worry about transportation for the entire weekend. Sure I have to stay on the Disney compound, but I don't have to bother with renting a car or driving.

This year I stayed at the All-Star Sports. One reason being that it was closer to McDonald's. Also all of the All-Star resorts shared the same shuttles and they stop at Sports first. Last year I stayed at All-Star Music, the 2nd stop, and the shuttles would sometimes show up completely full. My room was in the tennis building. How appropriate because I love tennis!

I don't know if it was because the weather was pretty warm, but this year the beds did not come with comforters. Even with the All-Stars resorts being their budget friendly hotels, they come with a lot of amenities including a mini fridge. I like their new shampoo bottle this year. Putting Mickey ears on anything instantaneously makes it better!

My friend, Marathon Mitch, needed a place to crash so we met up at the End Zone food court to eat dinner. We both weren't satisfied with our food, so we ended up driving over to McDonald's to eat a 2nd dinner. Yay for McRib sandwich and a smoothie!

Roasted chicken from the End Zone food court

McDonald's within walking distance!

McRib and Smoothie

Friday
The next day, we drove out to the expo at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. After picking up my race packet and shirts, I met up with my other friend. I found my name on the wall of all of the race participants. I got in line to sign up early for the Dumbo Double Dare on Labor Day weekend at Disneyland where it's a 10k on Saturday followed by the half marathon. It's getting a bit expensive being a Disney fan and a legacy runner at the Disneyland half marathon. I took a free green screen finish line picture with the finisher's medal and Minnie Mouse. I hope I didn't jinxed myself. You never know what could happen on race day. No finish is guaranteed!

We took the expo shuttle back to my hotel so I could drop off my stuff before heading to one of the amusement parks. While waiting, we talked to a runner from Scotland also running the Goofy. I think it's kind of cool that you get to meet a few people from different parts of the world when you run a mega-race. We went on to spend the rest of the day at Hollywood Studios. I believe this park is the smallest out of the 4. That was nice since I did not want to be walking too much the day before the half marathon. It was pretty cool that I was selected as the rebel spy on Star Tours. I think it was because of my shirt. It said, "Come to the Dark Side, we have bacon." It was my first time riding Star Tours since they've revamped the ride.

When we took a break to eat, I bought a turkey leg and devoured it. I dislike regular turkey meat, but I do love cured meat. It tastes more like ham.

We resumed with the rides. I liked the Great Movie Ride. There was a little bit of the cheesy live acting very similar to what you get with the Jungle Cruise. The Rock n' Roller Coaster with Aerosmith was pretty fun with loops and corkscrews. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror had a nice drop. Don't ride it too soon after eating. We tried twice to go on the Toy Story Midway Mania, but the ride was either broken or just too popular. We went on the Star Tours ride several times to try and get all the different scenarios. We even went to see the Little Mermaid show where my friend took a nap. After we were done with the park, we went our separate ways.

Turkey leg!

Turkey leg gone!

I walked over to McDonald's and brought back a Big Mac to eat in my room. I bought some drinks in the End Zone food court. I went through my expo haul and laid out my clothes for the half marathon.

Big Mac!

Expo haul

Half marathon gear

Saturday
I woke up pretty early to get ready and got on the shuttle headed to the starting area at a little after 3am. I met up with Marathon Mitch near the stage area. I also met his Floridian friend that was also running the Goofy. Mitch and I walked to the starting corrals together. It was a long narrow road up to the corrals with portapotties lined up on the sides. He was in corral A and I was in B.

B for Beef!

Huffing and puffing it to the finish

I wanted to run the race comfortably but also try and finish it under 2 hours. The first 5 miles felt okay, but then I just couldn't get the legs to move any faster in the subsequent miles. I'm thinking eating the turkey leg was a bad idea. Also I think the cotton shirt didn't help much either. I tried to push at mile 11 to see if I could still come in under 2 hours, but I was just out of gas. During the final miles when the sun finally came out, people could actually see my shirt and started shouting, "go turkey leg!"
1: 8:36
2: 8:16
3: 8:42
4: 9:26
5: 8:44
6: 9:29
7: 10:01
8: 9:30
9: 9:47
10: 10:14
11: 9:03
12: 9:37
13: 9:43
13.1: 0:59
Finish: 2:02:06

After getting my finisher's medal, I walked through the finisher's area where I grabbed a post-race food box, a water, a banana, and a Powerade. Then I went to get my gear bag to put some of the stuff away. I took a picture with two of my favorite characters, Chip and Dale!

Chip & Dale!

After getting cleaned up, I took the shuttle over to Downtown Disney where I walked over to the Planet Hollywood over on Pleasure Island to eat lunch. I only ate here because they gave me a $15 voucher when I booked my hotel. The food here is pretty mediocre. I also had a coupon for a free souvenir which turned out to be a small key chain. I was a little bummed that I was unable to locate a stand selling turkey legs this year in Downtown Disney. Apparently last year was an anomaly. Maybe they only do that to get rid of excess turkey legs.

Garlic shrimp with chuka soba noodles

I rode the shuttle back to the hotel, but instead of going back to my room, I got on another bus to go back to the expo. I had heard about New Balance having special Disney shoes and wanted to check them out. Unfortunately they were completely sold out. Crazy Disney fans! They just buy everything up! :)

Before going back to my room to relax, I walked over to McDonald's again and brought back some McDonald's for dinner. I got the usual 20 piece Chicken McNuggets and a Big Mac. Before hitting the hay, I laid out my gear for the marathon.

Big Mac and McNuggets!

Marathon gear

Sunday
Just like the day prior, I woke up super early to get ready and got on the shuttle at a little after 3am. For the marathon, this time they were telling the runners that only the ones in corrals A-C should make their way to the start. The ones in the later corrals should just hang back for a while. That helped a little with the congestion. After taking care of an unexpected GI issue, I headed into my corral. I met a fairly new Marathon Maniac also from California.

This was one of those just-get-er-done races. My right ankle was sore and I just didn't want to wreck my body any further. I tried to run as much of the first half as I could. Then I would just take it easy and take photos with the characters in the second half. I remembered to bring my own camera this year. Not all photo opts had official race photographers. It was pretty nice running around the race track with all of the nice custom cars lined up all along the track. Running through the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex was pretty nice as well, especially running around the super cushy track. The marker for mile 20 was pretty spectacular for a race. You need to be not racing or running hard to actually enjoy it. The picture does it no justice. It was nicer in person. It was also a pleasant surprise to run into a friend that I had met while running a marathon at Lake Mead. Out of the thousands of runners out on the course, what are the chances of that happening? It was fun as I reached Epcot as I knew that the end was getting close. I also got to take pictures with Princess Jasmine and Mulan. They both had a ton of makeup on.

Man, that's a big raccoon!

Mile 20

Wreck-It Ralph!

Mike Wazowski and Sulley!

Princess Jasmine

Mushu and Mulan

Thank goodness the finish line is just up ahead!

1: 9:56
2: 9:12
3: 9:16
4: 10:19
5: 9:33
6: 10:22
7: 10:08
8: 9:57
9: 10:43
10: 12:22
11: 12:07
12: 14:01
13: 10:59
14: 14:15
15: 12:39
16: 13:13
17: 13:32
18: 12:36
19: 13:10
20: 14:06
21: 13:38
22: 14:04
23: 14:19
24: 14:32
25: 12:46
26: 12:45
26.2: 1:58
Finish: 5:16:31

It was great to finally get my hands on one of the most coveted medals out there! For me it was definitely worth the hype and the high price tag. Rarely am I disappointed by Disney. I got my Goofy medal which was still the same old design. It's due for an update. I went through the post race food line. I picked up another box of goodies, Powerade, banana, and water before getting my gear bag. After that I took the shuttle back to my hotel.

After getting cleaned up and resting a bit, I took the shuttle out to Downtown Disney to eat dinner. I ate at my favorite restaurant, Raglan Road Irish Pub & Restaurant. It was pretty crowded, but I was able to grab a seat at the section of the bar where it forms the circumference of the circle in the middle of the restaurant. It was a good seat. I got a good view of the live Irish entertainment. I started with a Kilkenny Irish cream ale and a Caesar Salad with chicken. Then for my entree, I had their Serious Steak followed with a Smithwicks. It wasn't a very serious steak, but it was a good post-Goofy meal.

Nice live entertainment

Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale

Smithwicks

Monday
Once again as I had done in the past couple of years, I was to meet up with my friends at Epcot where we eat and drink our way around the world while trading race stories. While waiting in the shuttle line for Epcot, I bumped into the guy from Scotland. We traded race stories. He had much better races than I did. I asked him about races over in the UK. He told me that there isn't much over there. You have to travel outside of the country if you want to run different races. When we got to the park, we parted ways. I got there before my friends so I got in line to take a picture with Goofy. I also checked out the Nemo ride. It was kids stuff, but the post ride area was pretty interesting.

Once my friends had arrived, we went to our favorite ride, Journey into Imagination with Figment aka the Figment ride! One of my friends is a legacy runner for the marathon. He's been through all 20! This was by far the toughest for him since he just had knee surgery. He had to walk the whole thing just to keep his legacy status. My friends are all having kids and starting a family so this year was a bit more mellow with less rides. I was fine with that since my right ankle was toast. After our annual enjoyable Figment ride, I noticed in the playground area, Imageworks: The "What If" Lab, that the waving your hands to create music with Figment was broken.

Oops, Figment is broken!

My favorite stop on our tour around the world is Germany. I love eating their bratwurst with sauerkraut and drinking a German beer. This year we got in line for the Maelstrom boat ride. It was similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Bratwurst with sauerkraut and Altenmünster Oktoberfest

For dinner we ate at the same place, Teppan Edo, that we ate at two year ago. Our party was big enough that we had to split up into two different tables but we were in the same dining area. We could see each other from across the room. I got my usual steak and shrimp. After dinner we stopped in the Mitsukoshi store downstairs. My friend spotted a t-shirt that was perfect for me! It's always time for a ramen party! As always my nice friends gave me a ride back to my hotel even though I wouldn't mind taking the shuttle.

Tuesday
I had a swell time but it was finally time for me to go home. I packed my bags, checked out of my room, and waited a bit in the lobby charging my phone. I meet another Goofy Marathon runner from Vegas while waiting for the Magical Express Shuttle to the airport. Apparently I wasn't the only single adult with no kids traveling to Disney World just to run some races.

I was kind of hungry when I got to the Orlando Airport, so I ate a delicious Nathan's Kraut Dog while waiting for my plane to the Atlanta Airport. When I got to Atlanta, I ate at Chili's Too. I passed some time with my friends Sam Adams and Stella. The waitress was slow in bringing out the grilled salmon, but it was worth the wait. It was unexpectedly good for airport food!

Kraut dog

Grilled salmon

I'm not sure if I'll be back next year. It's a very fun trip, but it always hurts when it's time to pay your credit card bill. I might want to come back for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon instead. But I'm not sure it's worth it just to fly that far for a half marathon. I've done the Coast-2-Coast Challenge 3 years in a row and I feel like it's time to take a break. Maybe I'll come back every 5 years. We'll see how that goes. :)