Race at Disney

If you know anything about us by now, you know we travel for races.  If you’d like us to visit you, make sure you live near a marathon. Rainer, in particular, loves to travel to new races – knowing in the winter where he’ll be running in the summer gives him great anticipatory joy and motivation.

So when he read about the Goofy Challenge in a magazine about 14 years ago, I knew it was only a matter of time.

Goofy, you see, lives up to its name.  You run the Donald Duck half-marathon on Saturday.  Then you run the Mickey marathon on Sunday.  And for doing both, you’ve lived up to the challenge of the Goofy Race and a Half.

I planned to run the half with him, keep him at my easy (for him) pace while helping him save his legs for the next day.  The idea became much sweeter when Sandra decided to catch the madness and run her very first half-marathon with us.  (There is no vaccine for adventure once you start.)

Bedtime.

Seriously.

The Disney races start at 5:30, and to get there with all the crowds (over 25,000 participants alone), you need to get up at 3:00. In the a.m.

I alternated reading and laying in the dark til 11, at which point I began to sleep fitfully. The good news (ahem) is that I now know that whether you’re waking up earlier than usual or far earlier than usual, your body and mind are about the same amount of astonished and annoyed.  Waking up for races will just always be a stunner.  So that’s good to know.

They say Disney is magic. They are. The convinced more than 27,000 people to get up at an insane time to go for a run. And then people did it again the next day. That’s magic.

Post Race:

Yes, we wore our shirts and medals for the afternoon. It’s the only time you’ll do it, so you might as well. Shout it, you earned it.

IHOP for our post-half-marathon feasting

then a walk and some more feasting: Cold Stone Creamery

yummmmmmmm

Then we all got up at 3:05 again. Because even though they didn’t have to, the kids are awesome enough that they chose to cheer Rainer at the marathon. That was a proud moment for me.

They did this at the half-marathon start, too.  Each wave got a whiz-bang send-off.

up early does mean you get to cheer your awesome runner through the castle as the sunrise hits it

full of bling

a medal for Rainer for doing the half-marathon

a medal for Rainer for doing the marathon

a medal for Rainer for doing them both on the same weekend

That’s Goofy. That’s a happy man.

A whole lot of numbers for our car.

13.1 miles = half-marathon
26.2 miles = marathon
39.3 miles = the Goofy Challenge

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