My thoughts on the 2011 Walt Disney World Marathon…
Walt Disney World Marathon
January 9, 2011
http://espnwwos.disney.go.com/events/rundisney/wdw-marathon/
My Run: Overall, the Walt Disney World (WDW) marathon was my seventh full marathon, and my third in the last 14 weeks (Twin Cities Marathon on 10/03 and Rock n’ Roll San Antonio on 11/14). This race was originally planned as the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge, which would also have included the half marathon on Saturday, January 8th.
Unfortunately, on the Tuesday before the race I came down with flu. This included a fever of 100 to 102, body aches, chills, exhaustion, etc. My family and I still traveled to WDW on Friday morning, but as of Saturday morning my temperature was still around 101. Because of this, I ended up skipping the half marathon, and really did not think the full was going to be an option either.
However, late in the day on Saturday I began to noticeably feel better, and my fever broke. Even though I knew I would be nowhere near peak condition, I decided to give it a go. I decided to stick with my same strategy I had originally planned for the Goofy, to run a very smooth race and come in under 3:45 (current PR is 3:24 from San Antonio in November).
On the morning of the race, I did a 5-minute warm-up run followed by 4 x 100m stride outs. During the warm-up, I could tell that my energy level was low, but otherwise felt ok. I did have some sinus congestion and a cough, but neither of these flared up during the race.
