Late edition: WDW Marathon Report

Sorry for the lateness of this post but I was far too busy having fun at Walt Disney World with the family to get around to mobloging my race report.
The key descriptive terms for the 2007 WDW Marathon are hot and humid.  The race started out at 6am with fog, 65°F, and near 100% humidity.  By the time I finished the run, it was clear at 75°F, and around 95% humidity.  It was so humid that for most of the race I was unable to see much due to the condensation on my glasses (and I trying to clean your lenses with a sweat soaked shirt yields poor results).  Talking to folks after the race, it sounds like the heat and humidity added an average of 30 minutes to most peoples goal times.

The first half of the course went quite well; I was in the first corral, I was lined up with the Clif 3:30 pacer and was able to stay with him and his posse for 14 miles, I kept a sub 8 pace for the first half, kept to my hydration/nutrition plan, and managed to high five a bunch of Disney characters as I ran through the Magic Kingdom.

Things started to go wrong at about mile 14.  I started slipping away from the pace group and this is when I realized that I would be unable to keep up my pace for the long haul (I should have realized this from the start line).

Between mile 16 to 20 my pace slowed to about 9 min/mile.  The Animal Kingdom was the least favorite of the parks that morning as I didn't see any animals.  Mile 17 sucked really hard; not only was I struggling with a new pain in my right quad but the route had us running thru a rather uninteresting parking lot.  The comparatively lonely run along the Osceola Pkwy also sucked and I was now running from aid station to aid station.  Somewhere around mile 19 the good ol' "why am I doing this" thought  sneaked into my head.

Between mile 21 to the end my pace further slowed to 9:50 min/mile.  The run thru MGM Studios was pretty cool with the many Disney/MGM characters standing about to greet us runners.  I did feel a bit intimidated as Darth Vader and his Stormtrooper guards loomed over me as I took a water and gel walking break immediately following one of the aid stations.  Just around mile 26 I managed to see my wife in the rather large spectator crowd watching a bunch of sweaty and sore folks stumbling towards the finish line.

I managed to cross the finish line in a chip time of 3:51:42 with an average pace of 8:50 mins/mile.

One of the best parts of the race was the Monday evening afterwards.  My wife Santa's gift this year was a post-marathon massage; it was awesome and certainly helped get the legs going again. Kudos to Nicole at the Disney Grand Floridian Spa.

I spent Sunday afternoon thru Friday afternoon visiting all four parks at WDW with my wife and sons; it was a great time (more posts to come on the fun we had).

Overall the marathon experience was fantastic and I feel that I may have spoiled myself by having WDW as my first completed marathon (I had a bad experience in Ottawa in 1996).  The spectator and WDW cast support was fantastic, lots of great places to run through, the organization was done very very good, and my family was able to turn my marathon into a great vacation.  I'm not sure if I can swing next year's WDW marathon but I'm defiantly thinking seriously about it.

Photos to the right (from the top):

1. I am running down the ramp from Cinderella's Castle.  I was running pretty good at this time (although my fake smile for the photographers had already faded as I figured that my picture had already been taken).
2. In this one I've got Mt Everest in the background as I ran thru the Asia section of Animal Kingdom.  This is around the time that I realized that trying to stick to my goal 8:00 min/mile pace despite the rather warm and humid conditions had been a really bad idea.
3. Here I am running thru MGM and Piglet is in the background.
4. Here is a photo my wife snapped of me as I neared the finish line.  The Canadian "cast" in Epcot handed me their mini Canada flag when they saw my 'Canada' hat.  It was pretty cool to hear the many "Go Canada" cheers in the last mile.
5. And finally here I am crossing the finish line.  While the clock says 3:52:19, my chip time was 3:51:42.