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[sandam1]

Race Recap - Wine & Dine Two-Course Challenge 10K - Saturday, November 2nd, 2024
And finally it was 10K day!



I felt completely prepared, but unfortunately K was not. Her training for her fall races (this 10K and then the half marathon during Marathon Weekend) was going well, but then she developed some severe back pain and, while compensating for that, she aggravated her knee. And, instead of actually going to the doctor and figuring out what was wrong, she tried to just rest it. (Insert pounding head against wall here). Predictably, that didn’t solve the problem. So she came into the weekend with a gimpy knee and having done almost no training in almost 6 weeks. K wound up one corral ahead of me, but she was still nervous about finishing. She kept saying that I should be able to catch up to her (like during the 2023 MW 10K), but I knew that the gap between the corrals was going to be too much.

K headed to the corrals as soon as we got there while I went to hang out with the RIse & Run group. Bob introduced me to a newbie who was doing her first runDisney race and we wound up hanging out together the entire time in the corrals, which was a lot of fun and made the time pass quickly.

I did around a 16 minute mile for the first three miles and then let the time wander upwards to 17 minute miles for the last three miles. I knew that I had the time on the balloon ladies and I wanted to enjoy the beauty of Epcot - and to save myself for the half.









One thing that I hadn’t done so far in this training cycle was any back to back runs (there just wasn’t any place in my calendar) so I was going with a very conservative strategy. (Side note: K walked the whole thing, but finished.)



Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to nap and recover before heading to Disney Springs to the Rise and Run meet-up. The meet-up was amazing as always, but Disney Springs itself was a zoo! As we were getting ready to leave, it started raining, which made finding a place to get dinner challenging. Then it was back to the hotel as K had to pack for her early morning flight home and I had to prepare for the next morning.

 

[sandam1]

Race Recap - Wine & Dine Two-Course Challenge Half-marathon - Sunday, November 3rd, 2024
Half marathon day started early as usual. I said good-bye - and happy birthday - to K before I left as she would be on her way to the airport before I got back. While I was at the Rise and Run pre-race meet-up, I found a friend, N, to hang out with at the after-party. I had been planning on winging it, maybe going solo, maybe meeting up with the larger R&R group later, but it was comforting to finally have solid plans.

I didn’t have any goals or really much of a strategy for the race. I knew that it was going to be stupid hot (throughout this weekend, I was regularly reminded why I don’t like this weekend), but unlike my first W&D, I was pretty confident in my ability to cope with the conditions. Since I had just done a marathon a month earlier, I knew that I had endurance to spare so I wasn’t afraid to go faster than I normally would for the first half of the course. I wanted to put some time between me and the balloon ladies and to take advantage of the cooler weather before the sun came up so I pushed my intervals a little bit. It felt pretty comfortable so I kept saying “I can do this for one more mile.” Unfortunately, that meant that I passed up most of the photo stops in Hollywood Studios, but I’d done that course a number of times at this point so I didn’t see anything that I felt that I had to do.



Shortly after Mile 6 - and about the same time that the course turned into the full sun - I decided to do the smart thing and scale it back. The conditions weren’t right for this to be a PR run and I didn’t want to be questioning my life choices by the end. I tried to stay closer to the 16 minute mile, but I started to think about going for my first runDisney legal half (i.e. one under 3:30). I couldn’t do the running math to figure out exactly what mile times I needed, but I knew that it would be close.





Then around Mile 11 (on the stretch before making the turn into Epcot), I saw Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip and I had to make a decision to make - either to go for time or to stop for my ultimate character stop. The line was fairly short, which sealed the decision for me, and I stopped.



But, since I wasn’t sure about the math, I thought that maybe I could still do both?

In the end, sadly, the answer was no. I wound up at 3:31:18, which was an over 9 minute Disney PR. Was the character stop worth it? Looking back, heck yeah! I’ve never seen Aurora on course before and Prince Phillip is kind of rare. I would have been kicking myself afterwards if I didn’t stop.

By the time I got to the finish line, my right hamstring (which had been sore on and off for a while) was chirping at me so I stopped at the medical area to get some ice. I also could tell that I was starting to overheat and needed to cool down and make sure that I was safe to drive back to the hotel.

Sidenote here: I want to interject an important reminder and something that I feel very passionately about here. Whenever we run, we are asking our bodies to work hard. If you don’t feel right (or you feel “odd” or “uncomfortable”), GO TO A MEDICAL TENT! It’s so easy to say “I’ll be okay in a minute.” And you might be. But what if you aren’t? Most runners have heard the stories of people having serious medical incidents (or worse) at races and a lot of the stories include the statement “something didn’t feel right, but I thought that it would go away.” Put your ego aside (actually it is an evolutionary instinct in play, but I don’t want to get too far off the topic) and at least talk to one of the medical people. A good medical person has that instinct that can gauge when something is seriously wrong better than the average person (and much, much better than the average runner). Okay, lecture over.

I spent the afternoon listening to the Bills-Dolphins game on my computer (I had expected this game to be the “local” TV game, but it wasn’t) in between naps. Before heading to Epcot, I needed to go back to the parks to buy a few things. The parks were super busy and my tolerance for people walking in front of me and then randomly stopping was D-O-N-E so I got in and out as quickly as possible. I tried to finish as much packing as possible (I needed to leave for the airport by 6 a.m. on Monday) and then headed to the after-party.



The after-party was okay. I had an amazing time hanging out with two other Customized runners and some assorted family members. We grabbed a table and ate (OMG, the cheddar soup from the Canada booth was AMAZING) while waiting for Luminous. It was neat to see the show, but I wasn’t very impressed by it. Then we walked around, looking for food and trying to find something to do that didn’t have a crazy line. We were successful on the food front, but not so successful on the ride front. We wound up doing Soarin’ and then N and I went on Spaceship Earth on our way out. I’m glad that I went as I feel like I made two new friends that night, but I just didn’t enjoy the park experience.

I was incredibly exhausted by the time that I got back to the hotel, having walked over 25 miles that day. I managed to get a few hours of sleep before having to get up and head to the airport. My flight home was uneventful and I was happy to get home so I could sleep the rest of the day away in my own bed.

Final thoughts - I enjoyed this trip and I’m glad that I did it, but it confirmed that I just don’t like Wine & Dine weekend. I really wish that I could find the love that everyone else has for W&D. But I’ve done it twice and had an okay-ish experience both times. I was tempted by the themes for 2025 (I mean, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, how could I not?), but then the rational side of me took over and I decided to skip it. I already have a birthday trip planned at the end of November and then Marathon Weekend 2026 so I will definitely not be lacking for Florida time.

 

[sandam1]

Race Recap - 129th Annual YMCA Buffalo Niagara Turkey Trot 8K - Buffalo, NY - Thursday, November 28th, 2024

One of these years, I’d like to run this race in perfect weather. But sadly, that wasn’t going to be this year. This year’s forecast was for it to be cold with some precipitation. At one point, it looked like it might be a light snow, which had me concerned about footing, but it turned out to just be rain. Not great, but better than the alternative, I suppose.

My mom volunteered to drop me off at the start line and pick me up at the finish again (she’s the BEST!), which made pre-race a dream. While waiting to start, I actually found someone that I had met at the Niagara Falls race in October. In a crowd of 14,000, that’s pretty remarkable. We talked about runDisney until it was time to start.

I always want to do well at this race. It’s the biggest local race of the year and it’s a perfect middle distance (not too long, not too short). I had added hills to my run in preparation for Boston and I had kept them on my schedule through this race, hoping that it would help me feel strong through the long uphill climb of the first 3-ish miles. I’ve also done this race enough times (5) that I was hoping that I finally had a good strategy for it.

And the race went really, really well. I felt good throughout, taking it easy through the first part of the course and then pushing hard through the downhill of the last two miles. As always, there was great crowd support with unauthorized hydration stops (some water, some not), a doughnut drop from an overpass, and an overall great time.





And I got a 3 minute 26 second PR!

Next up - Dopey!

 

[sandam1]

Just a small note - after the Jimmy Fund walk, I knew that I needed to do something about my sneakers. The blisters on my toes afterwards were UGLY and, by far, the hardest part of my post-race recovery. I just couldn’t take the chance of the same thing happening during the early races of Dopey. I tried a few more things and nothing was working. As much as I didn’t want to, I needed to break down and try to find a different pair of sneakers.

At bib pick-up for the Turkey Trot, they have a small Expo type event and the big vendor is one of our local running stores. They usually have some super discounted shoes so I figured that that would be a good place to start. Thankfully, they had one of their awesome salespeople there (ironically, the same person who suggested the shoes that I was currently wearing) and I was able to find a pair of shoes that I liked. (Mizuno Wave Inspire in case anyone is wondering)

I wasn’t foolish enough to wear them at the Turkey Trot the next day, but gradually started switching over and was in them full-time by my last Dopey simulation weekend. Then I was able to pick up another pair on sale after Christmas so I finally had my shoes set for Dopey.

 

[sandam1]

Race Recap - Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend - Arrival and Expo Day - January 7-8, 2025

And then - finally - Dopey was here! This had been on my calendar for over a year. It was also the end (well, kind of) of a LONG training cycle. Because of the Jimmy Fund Walk, I had been “training” since the middle of June. I’m proud to say that I got through it without any serious injuries. I did have some muscle issues with my glutes at one point, but some trips to my awesome chiropractor solved that.

By the time I signed up for Dopey 2025, I knew that I wanted this experience to be different from my first Dopey. During that race weekend, I felt like I was running from the balloon ladies. This time I want to enjoy the journey and experience the process without the stress of wondering if I could finish. I knew that I was stronger and faster this time so I really thought that I could make this happen.

The day before we left for the trip I had to work all day. It was also my mom’s birthday so I had family stuff in the evening. Thankfully, I was able to get almost everything packed over the weekend. K arrived just after dinner.

We flew out on Tuesday morning without issue. We flew Jet Blue this time, which posed a problem as the forecasted temperatures kept getting colder and colder, as I didn’t have my two bags fly free like I’m used to. Thankfully, a friend who lives in Orlando said that I could send her a box with all of my throwaway gear.

We got checked into our hotel before heading out for some park time. We headed to the Studios side and we got quite a bit done that afternoon. Even through the crowds were low, there were still some unexpectedly long waits on some rides. For instance, the single rider line on Gringotts was at least a 30 minute wait (which we didn’t wait in, we saw the length of the line and bailed). This would be another recurring theme throughout our trip. It seemed like the parks were staffed to the bare minimum, resulting in longer wait times.

My main goal for that day was to get to see Cinesational (Universal’s new nighttime show). It wasn’t being done each of my previous two trips in August and October and I really wanted to see it. I knew that Tuesday night would be the one opportunity that we had to see it without having to either 1) be up stupid early the next morning or 2) have been up stupid early that morning (i.e. Sunday night). Unfortunately, it was a bit of a let-down. After the sun went down, it was cold,* I wound up next to an annoying person who was leaning into my line of vision with their phone recording large pieces to put up on TikTok, and Universal hadn’t been including the drone component since the drone accident in downtown Orlando, which made the whole show seem like it was missing something. This made me sad because Cinematic Celebration was my favorite show EVER.

*Let me just add a blanket statement here about this weekend’s weather - it was COLD. It was almost picture perfect running weather for me. But as far as the park time goes, not so much. There were many times where we did things and it was uncomfortable because it was so cold. We also had to adjust our plans at times because of the temperature.

When we got back to the hotel, we were able to completely unpack and settle into our home for the next week. Then we tucked in for an early bedtime.

Wednesday morning, we did early park entry. Unfortunately, Hagrids was on a delayed opening. Since neither K nor I go on Velocicoaster, that left Forbidden Journey as the only thing available (just to me, K can’t go on this ride either). I was just about to get on the ride when it went down. In a way, it was cool because I got to see them unload everyone off the ride, but this was supposed to be a quick ride. After I got off, I found a quiet place to sit while I checked in for our virtual queue. We got #58 with an original ETA of 11:00ish. We had hoped to take the Hogwarts Express to the other park when the whole park opened, but that was down as well which was frustrating. (This happened again on Monday, the only other day we did EE.) We pivoted, trying to do some other rides with varying degrees of success. It seemed like the cold had affected a lot of the rides and other rides didn’t open until later in the morning.

Mid-morning we headed back to our hotel to pick up our rental car at our hotel and head to the Expo.





We wound up killing some time, waiting for our VQ, which finally got called after 12:30. We were trying to be efficient as K was trying to limit the miles on her knee. I was disappointed in the merch, passing up both the Dopey finisher shirt and the weekend jacket (I almost picked this up, but I talked myself out of it at the last minute). Then we headed to get our bibs. I wasn’t impressed with the lines inside the building and the long walk around to the vendor building. But we got everything that we needed done and had a great time shopping and socializing in the vendor building. Somehow time seems to fly by at the Expo and we spent the bulk of the afternoon there.

On our way back to the hotel, we did a grocery stop and stocked up for the rest of our trip. Everything seemed to go perfectly that evening - we had eaten, I had everything laid out for the next morning, and I was going to get to bed at a reasonable hour. But then when I went to put something in the refrigerator, I noticed that it didn’t seem very cold. I played around with the controls and gave it a little bit. No change. Ugh! Not wanting to risk the $$$ that we had just spent on food, I texted the hotel (a really cool feature of the Universal hotels) and they said that they would send someone up. So much for getting to sleep early. The guy arrived about a half an hour later and quickly figured out that the fan needed to be cleaned, which he took care of. By then I was wide awake and had a hard time getting to sleep.

 

[sandam1]

Race Recap - Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 5K - January 9, 2025

Wake-up on Day #1 was relatively painless although it did take some additional time to figure out which layers to wear. For the 5K, we were puppies - aka part of the dalmatian crew from Rise & Run - so I wanted to get there in time for the group photo at 4 a.m. We wound up cutting it close as we had to make a detour to gear check to drop another layer of clothes for after the race.



We had decided (well, I decided and K agreed) to walk with the R&R group who dropped back to the last corral so everyone could start together. I was a little disappointed that our shirts were covered up most of the time because it was so cold, but oh, well, we still had a lot of fun. We took our time, going for a literal "walk in the park" and chatting with friends.



















After getting back to the hotel and warming up a bit, we went to the parks. I don’t remember exactly what we did that day, but I do remember that we dealt with a number of rides that were delayed. We ate in the parks late afternoon before heading back to the hotel. This trip just wasn’t conducive to a lot of park time or being particularly efficient with the time that we did have.

Soon it was time to get ready for Day #2 and then off to bed!

 

[sandam1]

Race Recap - Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 10K - January 10, 2025

Friday morning I was solo. With K trying to limit her walking/standing due to her knee issue and the limited spectating opportunities, we decided that her coming to the 10K wasn’t worth the time on her feet. Plus, at this point, I’ve done a bunch of races solo so it wasn’t an issue.

Oh, I forgot to include the timing chip fiasco in my last post. I was just getting ready to go to sleep on Thursday around 7:30 p.m. and I happened to check my email right before turning off my tablet for the night. And I saw the “Houston, we have a problem” email. My version of the email (as I quickly discovered, there were a number of variations) said that the timing chip on my bib may not be working and that if I wanted to ensure that I had a time for the 10K to find the line in the reunion area in the morning.

Okay, so here I need to roast runDisney on a few things:

1. What were they thinking, waiting until 7:30 p.m. to send this email out? A lot of runners were already asleep or not going to be checking their email at that time of night when the alarm clock is going off at 2 a.m. As I found out later from talking to someone in the corrals, they were aware of a potential issue at the finish line of the 5K that morning. Also, for me, for the second night in a row, my brain was going in a million different directions when I should have been winding down to go to sleep.
2. The lack of transparency was astounding. They knew precisely which bib numbers were impacted. One email should have been sent out to everyone, saying “if you have this number, do this. If you have this number, you’re fine” etc. I can’t believe that, to this day, they haven’t taken ownership of what happened and explained how they will ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

All of that said, I will give them credit - getting a new timing chip in the morning was remarkably simple. I got there very early, expecting the typical never-ending Disney line. I wanted to get a chip time primarily because I am terrible at remembering to start and stop my Garmin, but if the line was stupid, I was prepared to skip it. However, to my surprise and delight, there was only one person in front of me and most of the number ranges had no one waiting. It couldn’t have been easier.

I had a good corral placement for the 10K so I wasn’t as worried about getting to the corrals right away and I had time to socialize, which was nice.



This race was so much fun! I had a blast with this course. I took a bunch of photos, enjoying the beauty of Epcot in the dark and at sunrise.











I also stopped to get a photo with the 3 Fairies from Sleeping Beauty. I had seen them on course at one previous race (I’m blanking at which one) and that time I thought that the line was too long/I didn’t have the buffer to stop. This time I decided to go for it! I almost bailed as the line was longer than it first appeared, but I decided to wait - and I’m so glad that I did. I now have photos with all of the characters from Sleeping Beauty!



I got back to the hotel, just as K was getting up (lucky her!). After I ate, showered, and changed, we headed back to the Expo to the Customized meet-up. This was honestly one of the best parts of the weekend as these are my closest running peeps. We celebrate each other's wins and commiserate over our common struggles on a weekly basis, but getting to see everyone in person rather than on Zoom was a treat. Chris also used this opportunity to give us all a prep talk/some words of wisdom before setting us off to tackle the rest of the weekend.



Since we were already there, we decided to visit the vendor building again. I picked up one of the magnetic pouches to hold my headphones and sunglasses and then we got to see Jeff Galloway.



We didn’t get back to our hotel until mid-afternoon. The original plan was to head to City Walk to see Wicked, but the movie times changed that day and we couldn't make it work. We talked - very briefly - about heading to the parks, but we wisely decided to just chill at the hotel for the rest of the day. Boring, but smart!