2012 WDW Marathon Weekend Recap Part 1-Pre-race and Expo

So this year I was originally just going to do the Chip & Dale Marathon Relay (the “C&D”), but was drawn toward the Half Marathon (the “Donald”) for two reasons-number one, 2012 is the 15th anniversary of the race so of course you know the medal will be an anniversary medal and will be unique. Number two, my sister-in-law who recently started running was making Donald her first half marathon. And so that is how I came to register for both. Yes, that’s right-both. I’d be doing my first back-to-back days of half marathons...not back-to-back weekends---DAYS. As in a half marathon on Saturday AND Sunday. Really. Me. Nutso, right?

Well, I figured hey-2010 I did the half, 2011 the full, now 2012 I’d do half and half (sounds like I need a cup of coffee with that, right?)...so 2013 I should just do half and full for the Goofy next. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet.

Anyway, when I posted looking for a partner for the relay I stated I was looking to run the 2nd leg...for two reasons-first, I’m normally slow, coming in near the 16mm mark. Since I’d be doing the Donald the day before and didn’t know how that would affect my pace and how my body would feel doing half marathons two days in a row, I wouldn’t want to go first and get swept (although now I know the 2nd leg runners would have been allowed to run anyway, at the time I was concerned I’d screw them up if something happened). Second, the half marathon on Saturday follows just about the same course as the first part of the full on Sunday and I didn’t want to run virtually the same thing two days in a row. By doing the 2nd leg I’d basically get to do the whole full marathon course, just splitting it up over two days. I was lucky to hook up with Carol (U.S.) from Running of the Ears who was just fine with being runner #1 and we got together on the phone the day registration opened to sign up. Yay!

I wound up registering for Donald while at the Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend Expo (yay for no Active.com fees!) along with Princess. Once back from W&D I started my training for my double half marathon weekend. Didn’t do too much different, just threw in a few double long run weekends which weren’t bad at all.

Marathon Weekend is now a yearly trip for me; this year I left really early Thursday morning (January 5th) before the sun came up to pick up my SIL and start the 3+ hour drive to the Mouse House. I wanted to be at the Expo when it opened; we arrived a little after and headed on in. It was pretty neat that I got to go to two different places to pick up two sets of stuff, makes you feel kinda special. Once we had our bibs we went over to the next building for our shirts and the Expo. Again pretty cool getting two different shirts, a nice navy blue for C&D and a brighter blue for Donald. I was kind of bummed that I didn’t see any C&D merchandise for the race-no shirts, glasses, knick-knacks, keychains...I did find out the next day that they actually DID have “We Did It” shirts so since we went back the next day anyway to meet some of SIL’s friends who had just arrived, I was able to buy one of those. Yay for a C&D shirt! When I spoke with the rep there about the lack of C&D merchandise, he said with the small number of teams it wasn’t really cost effective for them to have all the different merchandise made. BOO!!!

Anyway, after picking up a velcro wrist strap for my Garmin 305 (since the holes on my regular strap are just about to rip), we headed out of the Expo with our goodies and to the hotel to drop off our stuff...then headed out for some park time. Did Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom Thursday/Friday before eating an early dinner at the hotel before our very early bedtime Friday night (can you believe it, we went to bed around 7pm!). Alarms set for 2am!