Goofy Reflections

The Disney Marathon is crowded!  Nearly 22,000 runners finished Saturday morning's 2011 Disney Half Marathon, with a lot of the course being narrower than a single lane of traffic.  Sunday's Marathon, with 13,500 finishers, seemed spacious in comparison!  But it is still very neat to run through the Disney theme parks with all of the Disney characters out along the course available for pictures and such.

That's me, on the monorail at 4AM Eastern on Sunday morning, en route to the start. The Eastern part matters when you're a Central Standard guy like me.

The most impressive part of the Disney Marathon event, though, is the number of runners that do both the half and full marathons, what Disney affectionately refer to as "the Goofy Challenge."  Over one third of the full marathon finishers, 4,600 of them, finished both the half and the full marathons on Saturday and Sunday!  Pretty impressive.

I had the pleasure of running on Saturday morning with my beautiful wife, who PR'ed the half by more than 30 minutes!  And on Sunday, my cousin Jim surprised me by sneaking back with the slower guys in Corral C to run with me!  The poor guy had to drag me like an anchor for 26.2 miles.  It wasn't the fastest, strongest, nor prettiest 26.2 I've ever run, but it was pretty special just because I really didn't know if I was going to make it.

I left November thinking that the Goofy wasn't going to be a big deal at all after putting up consistent 40-70 mile weeks and tagging long runs of 32.5 and 35 miles.  But then December kicked my ass.  My left patella started giving me fits, not tracking correctly--not letting me run at all without severe pain and swelling.  But, I got the green light from the ortho the Wed before the marathon when she told me that I probably wouldn't do any permanent damage running on it over the weekend, just prolong the recovery.  The best part was that, both days, the pain dulled after the first hour or so.  I'm thinking the body finally said, "well, he's not listening to us telling him to stop, so turn off the pain."  Every step up to that point had me thinking I should drop.  Brutal.  But it's tough to drop when you've raised money for such a worthwhile cause, Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy for this race in honor of my cousin Aidan who turned 11 yesterday!

My right leg was carrying the bulk of the load both days.  On mile 12 of the half my right quad gave me a twinge going up an incline (because there are no hills at Disney, only inclines, according to the race staff--I wish I could roll my eyes via text).  Then, the next day I started worrying on mile 9 of the marathon when it started feeling really tired.  By mile 12, she started cramping.  I was just over 2:00 at the half, but 4:00 was out of sight for the full in the shape I was in.  Jim pulled me through, though, keeping the walking to a minimum, and I finished with a painful 4:18 with a hitch in my giddy up the day after a half.  I felt guilty slowing him down any more than I absolutely had to.  The poor guy ran a 3:42 just a few weeks ago in Las Vegas!  No matter how guilty I felt, though, it was fantastic to have him there.

C'mon. If you've ever run a long distance, you know how good it feels to finally be off of your feet.

Anyway, the left knee still feels like it has a fever, and the pain is still there, but it's actually a little better than it was before the 40-mile weekend.  I'm actually excited to get out next Saturday and see how she reacts.  If there's any shot of the Zumbro 100 in April I've gotta be able to put miles on her, and lots of them, soon.

Why the Century?

Good question.  I mean, why would anyone want to run 100 miles?  But really, why not?  

I started running in February after my brother ran the Goofy Challenge (the half and full marathons) at the 2010 Disney Marathon weekend.  I decided after the second morning of waking up at 4am, fighting traffic to get to the starting line, and chasing Andy around the course, that if I was going to go through all of that trouble, I may as well be running.  I signed up for the Fargo Marathon on the drive back to Minnesota and completed my first 6 mile long run--one of the longest of my life--the first weekend in February.

Here I sit nearly a year later with one official marathon (Fargo 2010), a bunch of marathon distance runs, a 50k run around Minneapolis, a 35 mile run on a treadmill (!@#), and a few thousand miles under my belt.  I'm hooked.

I'd planned on gradually getting into ultras in 2011 starting at the 50k distance and gradually working up to the 50 miles and maybe, just maybe 100 miles if the 50s went well, but then my brother decided to try the Zumbro 100 Mile run on April 8-9 in Winona, MN, and I thought, what the hell, there's a 100k pull-out point, why not give her a go.  So, the plan changed, and now I'm just hoping to get healthy enough to train for that epic distance.

2011 Wish List

• Zumbro 100 Mile run on April 8-9
• MN Trail Mix 50k on April 16 
• Superior Trail 50k on May 14 
• FANS 12/24 Hour Run around Lake Nokomis on June 4-5 
• June ?? in CO
• Green Mt. in Boulder, Co a la "running Jesus" Anton Krupicka 
• Imogen Pass in Telluride 
• Afton 50k Trail Run on July 2
• Minnesota Voyager Trail 50 Mile Run on July 23 
• Great River Ragnar Relay (as a 4-person Ultra) on August 19-20 
• Superior Trail 100 Mile on September 9-10 

It's a big wish list--but hell, even if I don't finish any of these things, running beats the hell out of watching TV.  For now, I just need to get my knee healthy enough to run the Goofy Challenge at the 2011 Disney Marathon on January 8-9.  I'll take the rest one step at a time.  Literally.