Tag: Jeff Galloway

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: The Half-Marathon

    Back-to-back runs is something new for me, so I wasn’t sure how Saturday’s 10K run was going to affect my run in the half on Sunday.    Even during training, there were no back-to-back runs.   I was following Jeff Galloway’s training plan for the Dumbo, and in that training plan he has you do long walks, rather than runs, on Saturday, and then the long runs on Sunday.    That seemed odd to me, but who am I to question the master?   So that was my training regimen, imperfectly followed to be sure, but long walks on Saturday and long runs on Sunday.

    The good news is that I did not feel any ill effects from Saturday’s 10K.  No soreness, aches and pains, or notable fatigue as I was getting ready on Sunday.    And I decided the motto for the day was “no excuses”.   Saturday was done, it was not going to affect my performance on Sunday.    The weather was again unseasonably warm, and while that would undoubtedly affect my speed, it was not going to keep me from finishing and having a great time.   I had three medals waiting for me at the finish line and I would run, walk, or crawl across that finish line to get them.

    Pre-Race

    The corral situation was less confusing today.   As soon as I turned the corner to head to my corral, I saw the “G” balloon clearly — and now that I know where G corral actually is, I’m pretty sure that the marker balloon had not been there on Saturday.    I knew I’d be slow today, and that starting in the last corral gave me no margin to fall behind pace, so I wanted to at least give myself the advantage of being in the front of the corral.    Mission accomplished — I was ready to enter the corral at 4:20 a.m. and was in the front row.   I sat on the pavement and passed the time texting and Facebooking, although I eventually realized I had better make sure I had enough battery power for the race and put the phone away.

    We watched corrals A-F start; I think the intervals were 7 or 8 minutes apart.    As F was moving to the start, they began moving our barricade forward, and we edged our way closer to the start.   Once F had gone they moved us into place — so I had a front row view of Mickey, Minnie, and our race announcer as they counted us down to the race start.

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    First half of the race

    And then we were off.    Being at the front of the corral certainly has its advantages — yesterday I had been so hemmed in that I felt like I couldn’t set my own pace at all.   Today with nothing but pavement in front of me, I was able to establish a good pace early, and the first couple of miles established a good faster-than-PR pace that I hoped would carry through.     Very early on I realized that there was some lingering effect from yesterday’s run — although I had felt nothing standing or walking, once I started to run I felt some twinges in the thighs indicating that I wasn’t 100% recovered from the 10K.   But this never became a factor, just something I was aware of without feeling it was affecting my run.

    We did not run around by the convention center today, instead turning left on Katella, and then left on Harbor, to enter the park earlier than in the 10K.   Somewhere before mile 2, there was a big cheer coming from behind us, I turned in time to see the eventual race winner loping past us  (Mile 2 and Mile 12 ran parallel for a while behind DCA).   Interestingly enough, I did not see the 2nd place or any other runners, so I have to assume the winner took it by a pretty good margin.

    Our course through the parks was different than yesterday.   Instead of coming in through Cars Land, we ran behind Paradise Pier and California Screamin’, and entered the park at the western side of the Pier.   World of Color was again on for us as we ran along the northern side of the lagoon and headed into Cars Land.    From there we ran in front of the Tower of Terror and then headed toward the front of the park, essentially the reverse of yesterday’s course.    As we passed Soarin’ we turned right and exited the park, crossing the Esplanade and then entering Disneyland.

    Backstage at DCA
    Backstage at DCA

    Our course through Disneyland again took us down Main Street, but this time we went left rather than right at the hub and entered Frontierland.     We were able to run the Big Thunder Trail — this has been closed the entire month I’ve been here due to Big Thunder Mountain construction, I wonder if it will be closed again after the race.   We came out into Fantasyland, ran through the castle (yay!), and then turned into Tomorrowland.    We wound our way past it’s a small world and through Mickey’s Toontown, this time exiting Toontown through the same backstage entrance that we came into Toontown through in the 10K.    Our backstage run here was more curtailed than yesterday, heading straight out onto Disneyland Drive and then making a right towards Ball Road.    (I was a little unclear on the exact geography here … it seemed like we were running through the same area the corrals had been.   But that can’t be because the early wave runners would have been through here before the late corrals had emptied.   But I’m now curious — if I’d been at the back of the corral rather than the front, and looked behind me, would I have been able to spot the first wave of runners coming out of the park?

    The Mile 4 marker was just as we came out of the park.   Now we had a long stretch of road running ahead.    At most of the mile markers,  a couple of sweepers on bikes would tell us how we were doing vs. the required pace — 8 minutes ahead, 8 1/2 minutes ahead, 9 minutes ahead.    I’ve never heard these announcements before, but then I’ve never started in the last corral so I guess I’d never cut it as close.    The good news is the numbers were going up, I was building a little buffer ahead of the sweepers at each mile.

    Miles 6 and 7 were all just road running.   Water stops were more frequent than the 10K  (the 10K had been criticized for not having enough).    I was getting water at each stop, but had not adjusted sufficiently for the heat and humidity — I didn’t realize it at the time but I was not hydrating enough, and that was going to bite me very shortly.

    Second half of the race

    Between Mile 7 and 8 we went by a series of classic cars that lined both sides of the route.   I was amazed at how many there were — I figured there would be 20 or so cars, but then you’d turn the corner, and there was another row,   We entered the parking lot of the Honda Center, and there were still more.   There had to be at least a couple of hundred cars on display.   I was really starting to feel the heat at this point;  I stopped trying to follow my pre-programmed run/walk ratio and decided instead to just run enough to keep my pace ahead of the required 16 min/mile pace.

    At mile 9 we came to Anaheim Stadium.    We got a lot of encouragement here … cheerleaders, marching bands,  scout troops — a lot of organizations had turned out to cheer.   (And actually there had been a lot of this along the route prior to this — but this was the main concentration).

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    It was nice to have the cheerleaders rooting us on, although a lot of them were encouraging us to fight, which seemed a bit strange for a friendly run.    Must be an L.A  thing, maybe our race jerseys looked like gang colors.

    About this point, the heat caught up with me.    I walked my way through the stadium, not running at all between miles 9 and 10.    I assured myself I just needed to cool off a bit, get some fluids into me, and then I could pick up the pace for the last three miles.   But the reality was I was done running, for all practical purposes — I’d do a few short 15-20 second runs maybe once a mile or so, and across the finish line, but I just didn’t have anything left in the tank.

    Mostly it was the heat that had gotten to me, but I won’t deny that I hadn’t been as consistent with my training as I should have been, and always trained in the coolest part of the day in a more temperate climate — so I just had nothing to prepare me for the heat wave that manages to follow me to every runDisney event.    Also, it’s hard to find that motivation to run when everyone around you is walking … we were definitely the back of the pack at this point, and I think everyone within sight of me was content to just walk it in from this point in the race.    (Also, those helpful sweepers who had been calling out our pace at each mile marker did not appear again after mile 8 … I suspect that due to the heat they may have relaxed the pace requirement.)

    Somewhere along mile 11 I realized I wasn’t even walking a straight line, so at the next water stop I took a little extra time to get more fluids in me, and had them refill the water bottles I was carrying  (one was empty, and the other was as warm as bath water).

    The finish was uneventful … I remembering walking by the spot at Mile 12 where we had spotted the leader run by 3+ hours ago, and walking around the Paradise Pier hotel and crossing through Downtown Disney, where we were being cheered on by a lot of the early finishers.    Then we rounded a curve and I could see the finish line.    I didn’t think I could run it from there, so I waited until I’d closed about half the distance to the finish line before I broke into a jog.    I made my way to the left side were Goofy and Mickey were awaiting, and got high fives from both just before I crossed the timing mat.

    Post-Race

    After the finish, I turned into the post-race area and had the big “D” Disneyland medal hung around my neck.   Then I made my way over to the Dumbo Double Dare tent, where I exchanged my wristband for a Dumbo medal.   And then to the Coast-to-Coast tent, where I again exchanged a wristband for a medal.  (Dumbo is for doing both the 10K and the half this weekend, Coast-to-Coast is for doing a half-marathon or greater at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in the same calendar year)

    Disneyland Half medal
    Disneyland Half medal
    Dumbo Double Dare medal
    Dumbo Double Dare medal
    Coast-to-Coast medal
    Coast-to-Coast medal

    Water and Powerade were next — not just cups, as along the race, but full, cold bottles.   I took two Powerades and drained them right on the spot, then a water bottle to carry with me.   Photographers were moving through the crowd taking pictures, I had two or three taken around here so I bypassed the photo lines were you got your picture in front the official backdrop.     I grabbed a food box at the runner refreshment tent and sat down on the pavement to rest a bit — the walk back to the buses was a half mile or more and I needed a minute before I headed out.

    I think I sat for 5 to 10 minutes.   I posted something to Facebook saying I’d finished, and then stood up (an amazing accomplishment) to head through Downtown Disney and to the shuttle bus area.     About midway through DTD, I felt I needed to sit down for a minute.   I had gotten a little light-headed.    I still had my water bottle with me, so I sat for probably 15 minutes sipping water.    I spotted a drink cart nearby, and decided another Powerade was in order.    I stood up again, found that the lightheadedness had passed, and walked to the drink cart, and then continued on to the buses.

    I took a few hours of rest in my hotel room, and then put on my Half Marathon shirt, hung my medals around my neck, and headed back to Disneyland to get some pictures with my friends the princesses.

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    Next up:  Wine & Dine half marathon in early November.   Between now and then, I’ll be doing my training runs in Atlanta, where the humidity will be more comparable to Florida.    And I’m hoping to get cool weather for that one … my WDW and DL halves have set the bar pretty low for a PR, so there’s no reason not to clear it easily in my next run.

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  • Running the Inaugural Tower of Terror 10 miler

    I’ve never been a runner, so when my friend Trish initially suggested I join her in running the inaugural Tower of Terror 10 mile run, I declined.   I’d be happy to come along and cheer, I said,  but running 10 miles was not even a remote possibility.

    But despite my initial response, the idea did stick with me.   I knew I needed to be doing something for exercise.   And I’d heard good things about the Disney runs … my brother Marcus did the WDW Marathon years ago, and on various Disney discussion groups and podcasts it’s impossible to miss mention of the various runDisney events, and they always end up sounding like a lot of fun — except for the bit about actually running.

    I was intrigued enough to start poking around on the internet and looking at training plans … wondering what, exactly, I’d be committing myself to if I decided to do this.   I started, as many do, by looking at the Couch-to-5k training plan.   And I decided to start with that.   This was early January, and registration for the Tower of Terror event opened February 14th.   I figured I’d start training and see how my progression went over the initial four or five weeks, and then decide whether I could do it.

    Training

    As a non-runner, my initial progress was disappointing.   I continued to look at other resources, and picked up Jeff Galloway‘s book on my brother’s recommendation.   There I found the idea that I didn’t need to run 10 miles — I could use a run/walk strategy.    Suddenly it seemed much more feasible — I didn’t need to run 10 miles, I just needed to run a few minutes at a time, take a walk break, then run a few more minutes.     Another friend, Bobbi, recommended the Chi Running website and book, and there I found the technical details on form and technique that would allow me to train and run without injury.

    I don’t mean this to be a recap of the entire training process, so I’ll just briefly summarize.   I used Chi Running for my running methodology; I downloaded Galloway’s race-specific training plans from runDisney and decided, somewhat arrogantly, to follow the training plan for experienced runners looking to improve their time rather than the beginning runner’s plan.   I played with different run-walk intervals and eventually settled on 1 minute run, 1 minute walk.  My longest training run was 13.5 miles — shorter than what was called for in the training plan, but long enough to give me confidence about the 10 miler.   I headed to the race feeling good about my preparation.

    During the months of preparation, our running group had expanded; Trish recruited her friends Amanda and Sarah, and I recruited my brother Marcus and my ex Debbie.   So we had six runners of varying ages and abilities joining the more than 10,000 other runners ready to tackle the course the night of Saturday, September 29, 2012.

    Race Night

    Almost all of my training (and all of my long runs) had been morning runs, and all in relatively mild weather (I usually start running before sunrise with temperatures no higher than low 60s).   The ToT race was an evening race, starting at 10 p.m.   At race time the temperature was 80, as was the humidity.   While I’d rested most of Saturday, the previous days had been full-on Disney park days, and I was starting out with tired legs and a blister on one toe.    The heat, humidity, and initial tiredness made me realize I probably wouldn’t be doing this 10 miles as fast as I had done my training runs … and my training runs were really just trying to be fast enough to stay ahead of the “sweepers” who come along and pick up anyone who doesn’t keep the required pace of 16 minutes / mile.    During training I averaged about 13:30 minutes / mile for my longer runs.   I thought this would give me a cushion sufficient to allow for any slow-down due to heat, and also the opportunity to stop for photos along the way.

    Our group of runners was spread out from Corral A to Corral D, so clearly we wouldn’t be starting together.   And given our different paces and the large field, I really didn’t expect to be seeing others during the race … so it would have to be a big reunion at the after-party.

    But I was in the same Corral as Marcus, so we filed into the Corral B together to await the start.   Just after we had gotten into the corrals they started walking us out to the starting line.   There were a bunch of announcements and it seemed the time went by quickly — before long, the fireworks went off marking the start of the race for the wheelchair racers.   Just a few minutes later, the fireworks went off again and Corral A was off.   And then five minutes later, it was our turn, and the group surged forward through the parking entrance that marked the race start.

    We went straight only a little ways before making a sharp turn and heading up a cloverleaf section of the interchange between World Drive and Osceola Parkway.   I’d done some practice running hills, but the ramp was tilted quite awkwardly side-to-side which I really wasn’t prepared for.   I ended up walking a lot of the ramp and then tried to get into my rhythm once we got onto the level surface of the overpass.   We headed toward the Animal Kingdom.   When I hit Mile 1, my pace was 14:00 — that was slower than almost every training mile I’d done.   But I had planned to start out slow so I didn’t worry about it.    But as it turned out, that would be my fastest mile of the night.

    Course Map

    A little past Mile 2, we passed the entrance plaza for the Animal Kingdom.  (I can still hear “Attention Runners:  Speed bumps ahead” repeating endlessly).   After the turn we were headed back the way we came on Osceola Parkway.   It was a chance for me to see how many people were behind me, and I was happy to see I wasn’t in last place.

    The Osceola Parkway sections of the run were pretty dull, which is unfortunate since it made up the bulk of the race course.   Around mile 5 we turned off onto a narrow trail.   This was probably the best-themed area of the course, a narrow trail leading into the Wide World of Sports complex.   Spooky lighting, things hanging in trees, and music fit the theme.   But the trail was very narrow, forcing everyone down to a walk.   And the trail surface was rock and gravel — I was running in very thin-soled Vibrams so it was not a fun surface to walk or run on.

    We emerged from the trail into the bright lights of practice fields at the WWoS complex.   We ran most of the way around the quarter mile track ( a much nicer running surface! ) and made our way over to Champions Stadium, where we were “cheered” on by a handful of spectators who had come to watch.   (One sign I spotted read “Worst.  Parade.  Ever.”.   We were being broadcast live onto the JumboTron but I didn’t try to spot myself, at this point (a bit more than six miles in) I was really just focusing on moving forward.

    We finished mile 7 and headed back out to Osceola Parkway again, and turned back toward the studios.   At this point I’d slowed pretty much to a walk with an occasional minute or so of running thrown in every quarter mile or so.    Mile 8 went by, and then we started backtracking, running down the same tilted cloverleaf ramp that we’d covered at the start of the race.   Just before Mile 9 we entered into the Hollywood Studios near the Lights, Motors, Action attraction and ran in front of the bleacher seating for the show.   Right around here, Debbie, who had started 2 corrals (and 10 minutes) behind me, caught up with me and we did the last mile together.

    From there, it was down the backstage New York street, and then a turn to come down the alley way behind the American Idol attraction.   We looped our way around the Sorcerer’s Hat, thru the archway leading to Animation, and down Pixar Place.   There we turned backstage and began making our way toward the Tower of Terror finish.

    The backstage part was uninteresting and we mostly walked, but when we rounded the last turn, there was the finish line, and suddenly our legs were ready to run again.   We crossed the finish line with arms raised in victory and received our finisher’s medals from the volunteers.   Beyond this we were handed bananas, PowerAde, and a goodie box with other snacks.   Cruelly at this point we had to walk up a steep hill to get to the setup where finisher photos were being taken with the medals.

    After Party

    After the photos, we had to make our way over to the bag check which was at the Indiana Jones Adventure.   Never has it seemed so far from Tower of Terror to Indiana Jones … with the race done, all motivation to move had left me.   But we made our way over.   I made my way down the IJ steps like a 90-year old man, retrieved my bag, and sat in the bleachers for a few minutes before making my way to the changing tents.  After changing we met up with Marcus and his wife Ginny at Toy Story Mania.  We walked up to Rock n Roller coaster, where we ran into Trish.   I really wanted to do Tower of Terror post-race, but the wait suddenly went from 20 minutes to 55 minutes while we were standing around talking, and I decided to catch it another time.    As it turns out, I ended up not getting on a ride during the after-party, just standing around and talking (we eventually ran into Amanda and Sarah also, so the entire party was accounted for and everyone had finished without injury or incident).

    I was really happy to finish my first runDisney race, and I’m looking forward to the WDW half-marathon in January, where I’m hoping the heat and humidity will be friendlier and I’ll put in a performance more in line with what I’ve seen in my training.   But since it’s my first 10-miler, it’s a PR, and I’ll take it proudly.

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