I’m a bad blogger.
This I know. And I know that the way I’m SUPPOSED to do it is to post regularly and get views and shares. Well, that just doesn’t happen around here. I don’t care if it breaks the internet, but my M.O. is to only post when I have something meaningful to post about. So I don’t just write about ANY cup of coffee that I’ve enjoyed. No, I’ve got to write about the Thai cat-poop-coffee which also happens to be the most expensive in the world. And am I going to waste your time talking about just any race that I’ve run? Hell no. But the Star Wars Half Marathon – THE DARK SIDE at Disney? Allow me to go on.
Where to even begin? For almost the last decade, I’ve been a fair weather runner. I’ve done 5Ks, 10Ks, 6 milers here and there… but those were about the longest I’d ever gone. I still remember that my first 5K was the Lehigh Valley Hound Hike (benefitting your local animal shelter) and I finished in about 26 minutes. But I’m the kind of person who’s always looking for a challenge, which is probably why when I first heard about a half marathon that combined Disney AND Star Wars, I couldn’t resist. So as soon as the registration went live, I signed up, even if it cost about $250 to do so. In what would soon become a running joke (hur), if there’s a more expensive way out there to kick my own ass than the Disney Half Marathon, I’d like to see it.
I got the expenses going right away. Since this would be my biggest run to date, I figured that it wouldn’t exactly be in my best interest to injure myself while training or on the day of the race. So I signed up for five personal training sessions at the gym to go over the right way to do stretches and all the right cross-training exercise that went along with running outside or on a treadmill. They cost about as much as the registration did, so five seemed like plenty. Stretch, cross-train, got it!
Earlier I said that I’m a fair weather runner and that’s actually literally true as well. Running out in the cold doesn’t really suit me, so I did what I could outside until it wasn’t comfortable anymore and then I switched to a treadmill for the winter.
But you know what? You don’t want to read about my training. Yadda, yadda, yadda, I kept at it all winter and when the weather started getting warm in February, I started going for outdoor runs again. I was still extremely nervous to do a full 13.1 miles and in the end, my longest training run was probably just about eight. But week by week, I was getting more confident. It was also in February that I met the enchanting Sara G., who was awesome enough to come down to Florida with me for a few awesome days of sun, theme parks, and much-appreciated support!
The Expo and the Sober Cowfish
I could go on about Disney and its parks and how there really is something for everyone there but again, that’s not what this story is about. So I’ll skip over the flight down and the travelogue, and start with the RunDisney Expo. One of the things that I absolutely had to do before Sunday was turn in a signed waiver and pick up my bib number. Both of those had to be done at the RunDisney Expo in the ESPN Wide World of Sports area. Interesting enough (though not really surprisingly), that was one of the only corners of Disney that I had never been to. But there was a first time for everything, so Sara and I caught the shuttle over there on Friday night and followed the crowd over to the expo hall.
The Expo itself was pretty cool. I got my bib and made sure that everything was good to go for Sunday and then we had some time to roam around the official merch area and also see the sponsors’ stalls. If you name it and it involves running, there was a company there representing it. I picked up a 13.1 sticker, two pairs of socks in my ginormous size, and several free samples of some kind of POWER APPLESAUCE! It comes in a container that’s easy to open and squeeze into your mouth while you’re running and for the sake of science, I tried one of them right there.
Eh, the POWER APPLESAUCE just tasted like regular applesauce. But ok. Cool.
After the expo, we caught the shuttle out of the ESPN area and back to the Animal Kingdom for a magnificent African/Indian dinner at Sanaa. It’s in the Animal Kingdom Lodge and placed in a mini preserve where you can see savanna mammals grazing through the window from your table. Or in our case, just a few zebras while we were waiting. This was also my last night drinking anything alcoholic before the race. It was time to get serious now!
The next day we were at Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure and again I stayed dry (alcohol-wise at least; certainly not on the roller coasters) and after a delicious filling dinner at the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar, we headed back to the hotel room relatively early. I had to be up ridiculously early and on a shuttle, and it was going to be kind of a big day.
Getting Psyched in the Magic Kingdom Parking Lot!
The alarm went off at 3:00 AM and I was out the door fifteen minutes later. On me, I only had the essentials: a Kind bar, a bottle of water, license/medical ID card, Fitbit, Apple Watch, and two packets of POWER APPLESAUCE. Even at that early hour, I could see other people doing the exact same thing: Like members of a secret society gathering under the cover of darkness, they silently drifted one by one from their rooms and joined the growing stream of people walking towards the bus. We boarded and I figured that this would be as good a time as any to start hydrating and munching on the Kind bar. Then we were off.
I got to the starting area in the Magic Kingdom parking lot at a little before 4:00 AM. It was already mobbed with people and there were entertainers up on a stage doing Star Wars trivia, showing trailer clips, and basically any other trick they could think of to get a whole bunch of people excited when we should be otherwise sleeping in on a Sunday morning. There were also maybe half a dozen impressive-looking set pieces with Disney cast members in Star Wars costumes and equally impressive lines ahead of each one. So after walking down past Vader, Jabba, a random Jedi, et. al., I found Boba Fett and joined the end of the line.
After getting that picture, milling around a little more, and stopping at a porta-pottie twice (well, I’d been drinking water for hours already!), I found the entrance to Corral F and found my place at the tail end of another giant mob of people. Up ahead was the main stage where two more emcees were keeping the trivia questions going and offering fabulous (and I’m sure TOTALLY legit) prizes such as a 1991 VHS copy of Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides or a slightly used 1973 Ford Pinto (hushed “OOOOOH!”) for correct answers. The questions were a good mix from across the eight films and surprisingly, the runners were missing them left and right. One guy who was running in costume couldn’t answer, “whose foul stench did Leia recognize when she was brought on board the Death Star?” and another forgot the name of the planet where the last battle in Rogue One takes place. Though to be fair, it was almost literally stupid-early and the best I could come up with was “Skaro,” which was OBVIOUSLY wrong but at least that sounded like the planet’s name. Then once I was more awake I remembered was called Scarif. Pfft. Close enough!
Speaking of pictures, there’s probably some stupid law that I can’t post photos which aren’t mine without giving credit. So full disclosure, no I didn’t personally take any of the ones that you see here. I did however scour the event page on Facebook and Twitter so that you’ll have something pretty to look at amidst my wall of text.
Finally 5:30 rolled around and I was READY TO GO! But unfortunately since I was in Corral F, I had to wait for Corral A to go. Then B. Then C. And D1, D2, D3, and so forth. Each one happened a few minutes apart and each was also accompanied by a massive fireworks launch. Slowly I inched closer to the starting line and I eventually got out in the F3 group at 6:02. And man was I READY TO GO!
Well, not so fast. Imagine that you’re standing in the general admission section of a concert with people REALLY packed all around you. Now try not only moving in unison with the group but getting your speed up too. Not so easy, is it? That’s about how it was for the first 2-3 miles until things finally started thinning out a bit. And the humidity? Son of a bitch, that humidity! I hadn’t been running for fifteen minutes before it started feeling like I was awkwardly jogging through a sauna with a few hundred friends. I wish I could say I’d trained for that but believe it or not, that isn’t the condition my development keeps their gym at. (I know, weird!)
These Aren’t the Lines You’re Looking For
One of my biggest questions since I signed up for this thing last summer was about the entertainment that was promised for us along the way. Obviously I knew that there wouldn’t be fully-suited stormtroopers jogging along with us (the chafing would be just unbearable) but I knew that Disney would have a few tricks up their sleeve. And tricks they had. Before it was light out, I found myself running through the Battle of Endor. There were speakers in the trees to the left and the right: blaring laser blasts, explosions, and ewok hoots. And for that little over the top extra touch, there was an actual green and red laser light show firing off in random directions through the fog.
After that, I started seeing more set pieces like the ones that had been in the MK parking lot. Right past the Endor laser battle, there were a pair of realistic-looking speeder bikes that people were lined up to take a picture on. However, this was the beginning of a conundrum for me. As cool as it would be to stop and get my picture taken, there were seriously at least 15-20 people in line for each one. So every stop could have conceivably cost me at least five minutes of my total race time. Again, I wasn’t going to set any records but I DID have a goal that I’d been training for and if I wanted to make it into a better corral for my next one, I couldn’t be losing an hour (easily!) taking pictures with Star Wars characters and sets. So with more than a little regret, I charged on past the first of many photo ops. And by the way, let it be said that all of the photo props along the way were absolutely movie quality. If this were another park entirely, I’d say that they spared no expense.
By now the sun was up and either the humidity was dropping or I had just gotten used to it after a few miles. I was passing a maybe 10 foot tall marker for every mile we ran, each decorated with a villain and showing the total time elapsed since the 5:30 start (which remember I was about 30 minutes behind). There were more photo stops probably every mile as well and some of them were really, REALLY cool. My favorite had to be the wampa’s cave on Hoth, where the entire set was upside down and the picture was taken so that it looked like you were stuck to the ceiling. I ALMOST stopped for that one but it probably had the longest line of them all. I also think about this time I started breaking into my POWER APPLESAUCE reserve which… probably did something? Maybe?
The Long and Chafing Road to Hollywood Studios
Naturally there were water and Powerade tables every mile, which I was making good use of. So much in fact that somewhere around mile 4, I realized that I wasn’t going to be finishing this race without another bathroom break. There were some banks of porta potties every two miles or so, but the lines for them were just as long as for the pictures. So fortunately I managed to hold on until I got to the Animal Kingdom, between miles 5 and 6. There I was able to duck into an actual park restroom, right next to Dinoland, USA. That probably only cost me a little over a minute and then I was back to my pace!
Upon exiting Animal Kingdom (so around 6 miles in), I started feeling my first bit of discomfort. Not in my legs or side, no… Instead, I realized that the safety pins that were keeping my bib on the front of my shirt were starting to rub me the wrong way… in a very sensitive area. My first thought was, “ehhhh, it’s not so bad. I can power through this.” Ten seconds later, my next thought was, “you still have 7 miles to go, moron. Adjust your damn safety pins!” So I got off to the side and sacrificed thirty seconds to refasten the pins which was not done a moment too soon. Not to go too much into it, but some chafing had already begun and I ran the next four miles or so holding the front of my shirt away from my chest a bit. Ugh! It was a rookie mistake but now I know to use the runner’s tape for sure next time.
After Animal Kingdom, we settled into a long and slightly uphill jog on the Osceola Parkway and then a left onto World Drive North. There were more pictures to be taken, more water tables, and a food table right around mile 7. The “food” was some kind of vanilla gel from the makers of Clif Bars that tasted like something an astronaut would eat on sol 463 when even the potatoes have run out, but the energy boost was still appreciated and I charged on. We made a left onto a circular ramp which took us up to an overpass and when I looked back to the way I had come, I still saw thousands and thousands of people stretching into the distance. It was just an endless stream of people, laid out in both directions. While looking ahead, I saw that we were at our next park.
Fuzzy Memories of the Tower of Terror
I remember coming into Hollywood Studios from the back way and seeing the infamous Tower of Terror (it’s really hard to miss it). I was also starting to become aware of there being people in the park other than runners and staff members, the latter of which kept telling us to “stick to the left, stick to the left!” and not mingle with any guests who were coming into the parks early. So after running a bit down one of the generic Hollywood-looking avenues, we turned again and were out of that park. Although when I was back in Hollywood Studios the next day with Sara, I couldn’t for the life of me recognize the area that I had run through. I knew I had done it but my onboard navigation had been shot by that time Sunday morning. It would have been somewhere around mile ten and all that mattered was keeping up the pace and waving at the staff members and guests who were cheering us on. THAT helped a lot as we started getting close to the end. I also high-fived a few people who had their hands out until it started sinking in that that was kind of gross since I was collecting the sweat of a hundred runners before me. Oops.
There’s Only One Thing Left To Do and It’s Literally Run Around the World
Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration. But after our brief time in Hollywood Studios, the next landmarks started coming up pretty quick. Before I knew it, we were running on the boardwalk alongside the lake in Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) and then it was a combination of back paths and groomed walkways over to Epcot. EPCOT! That’s where it ends! We burst out in my personal favorite section of the park, the World Showcase, right by Great Britain and ticked off countries as the end came into sight. France, Japan, Italy, Germany, the ambiguously African outpost, China, Norway, Mexico… those all flew by in what seemed like the blink of an eye. There weren’t any more Star Wars photo ops at this point but there were plenty of Disney photographers around and I got a few good hot mess pictures taken as I rounded the countries.
I was out of the World Showcase and the famous golf ball loomed right ahead. I remember going around the right side of it and taking things up to a sprint for the final stretch. Except I did that a little bit early and soon realized that I wasn’t done QUITE yet. So back to the jogging pace until I saw the finish line (for real this time!) and charged forward again as you can see in the video below:
Then I was through. It was done. People were cheering all around me and I staggered over to where a group of volunteers were handing out water bottles and food boxes. Oh, and someone else was handing out these sweet Kylo Ren medals, which I guess was pretty cool too… So I put on the medal, gulped some water, stretched a little bit, walked around until I found a shady spot and then gracefully collapsed down to enjoy a banana, some Oreos, and an energy bar.
When I was done with my recovery box, I started walking out into the general area to look for Sara and BAM! Not two minutes later, there she was behind me! In what must have been a torrent of excited exposition, I filled her in with the details of the last two and a half hours of my life, and then suggested that I’d like to find a shady place to sit down again. After all, the sun was starting to get higher in the sky and even if I had been wearing sunblock, I surely would have sweated it off over 10 miles ago. She had seen me come across the finish and had been waving like mad and taking a ton of pictures and videos.
After that, there was nothing to do except walk around some more, take some pictures, and bask in the completion of a job well done. As much as I would have liked to have stopped for some of the photos, I was really happy with my time and the knowledge that my exercise routine over the last half year had paid off. I’ll be the first to admit that there have been things in life that I’ve phoned in or didn’t prepare enough for (a piano recital here and there comes to mind), but since last fall, I made damned sure that I wasn’t going to fall into the same trap. I may have not run an actual 13.1 miles until the day that it counted, but I was close enough and conditioned enough that I made my goal. And as a bonus, I made it through all the training and the race itself without a single injury!
Well, unless a pair of sore nipples in the Animal Kingdom parking lot count.