Disney Marathon 2011

By: Sara DuMond

I’ve been dragging my feet on writing up a race report for Disney – not because I wasn’t excited about the outcome, just because I wasn’t sure there was much to be learned from my experience.  My approach was pretty simple, maybe even dull!  After thinking about it for awhile, I think there may be some running pearls in there somewhere, even if it’s just to keep believing in yourself.  I promise this won’t be too sentimental, but here you go!

Many of my UCRR friends know that I’ve been chasing a sub-4 hr marathon finish for a long time now.  I’m not really sure why it was such an important goal for me, other than the fact that what once started as merely a hobby and a way to stay in shape, has now turned into a real sport for me.  I feel like I have come to respect running – the training, the science, the psychology – much the same way a golfer or a cyclist respects their sport.  Plus, I’ll be honest, I did like how the sound of “3:anything” sounded as a marathon finish time.  After coming off of a 4:03.33 finish at Marine Corps in October, I decided that I wanted to give it a shot again, and finding a race relatively soon meant that I wouldn’t have to re-train.  I knew my brother did Disney every year, and as luck would have it, registration for the full hadn’t filled up yet, so I decided that Disney would be it.

I flew down on Saturday and met my brother at the hotel.  Neither one of us had brought our families, so it was really relaxing the evening before, just to hang out, have a casual dinner, and not have to worry about anyone or anything else other than getting ready for the following morning.  Only one moment of panic struck that evening – as I was unpacking and pulling out all of my gear, I plugged in my Garmin  and the screen was completely blank.  After trying it in every single outlet in the entire room, I thought, “Well, maybe it’s just so dead, if I leave it on the charger while we’re at the expo and dinner, it’ll be charged by the time we get back.”  Well, no such luck, and as I returned to the hotel room a little after 8pm, I discovered that the Garmin had absolutely no signs of life.  After my close-but-no-cigars finish at Marine Corps, I had considered the idea of running with a pace group.  As of that moment, my decision was sort of made for me, and I resigned myself to finding the 4:00 pace group the following morning.  3:15am came all too early and before we knew it, we were on the shuttle heading to runner’s village.  Sure enough, somewhere in the mass of the 26,000 runners, I literally walked right into the guy holding the 4:00 balloons…divine intervention.  I introduced myself and followed him to our coral to line up.  A brief run-down by George, our Cliff Bar pace leader, revealed that this was his 55th time pacing a marathon, that he’d paced everything from the 3:30 group to the 5:00 group and only missed his goal finishing time once (when he accidentally stepped on a rock and rolled his ankle at mile 23), that this would be his 110th marathon overall, and that he intended to run dead-on even splits, aiming for a 3:59 finish.  Sounded perfect to me.

The race played out exactly as George had planned.  Guess that’s why he does what he does, but he was not kidding when he said he intended to run dead-even splits.  We needed to stay at a 9:09 pace to finish at 3:59.59, and over the course of the 26.2 miles, our pace only ranged from 9:07 to 9:11.  Pretty amazing, to me!  I took Hazel’s advice, and increased my fuel intake during this race.  At Marine Corps, I had taken in about 100 calories (Sport Beans) every 7 miles with a few PowerAids thrown in at the end, for a total of no more than about 400 calories the whole race.  After learning that I was going to be doing Disney, Hazel had politely lectured me that I needed to take my fuel at 5, 10, 15, 18, and 22.  Thanks to Jonathon Savage’s advice, I also added caffeine to my pre-race and during-race regimen, and I truly felt the difference it made.  I still went through those mental lows, 3 times to be exact – at mile 14(I tried not to panic that it came so early on), again at 18, and again at 25, but I never really hit “the wall.”  The first mental low lasted about ½ mile, and after I came out of it without slowing down, I was actually thankful for it.  I knew I’d likely have at least one more mental low ahead of me, and now I’d be able to remind myself that if I just kept going, I’d come out of it.  It worked each time.  I can’t tell you what a mental advantage is was, throughout the race, not to have to worry about my pace, and to have some camaraderie along the way.  The parks, the bands, and the crowds didn’t hurt either.  I won’t give a mile-by-mile account, because there’s not much to say – I just kept following the guy with the balloons! As we hit 22 and I was still feeling good, I wondered if I should try to pull ahead, but being the cautious person that I am, I made the decision that today was about just getting that sub-4 finish, not about going for any more glory than that.  3:59.59 would be just fine with me.  I would be glad that I hadn’t tried to get greedy later on, because at mile 25, I hit the last of my mental lows.  I have no idea why it happened so late in the race, but just like the 2 times before, I pulled out of it, and just kept following those balloons.  When we crossed the 26 mile mark, I did briefly panic, and think, “What if he’s just a few seconds off???  I’ll never forgive myself if I get this close and don’t do it!!”  The pace leader was fantastic…it was as if he read my mind, and about that time, he announced, “Folks, 0.2 to go, and we’re going to make it in in just a hair over 3:59.”  I crossed at 3:59.31, to be exact.  No tears, but certainly waves of relief.  I knew that anyone tracking it, was probably thinking, “Holy crap!  What happened that she cut it that close??”  Just my way of keeping it interesting, I guess!

Now that it’s over, of course, I’m thinking about what’s next.  For now, I am letting myself just enjoy running with no particular goal in mind.   I can’t tell everyone how much I appreciate the support – especially Hazel, Jack, Diane, Mark Ulrich, Eric Reiner, and Jonathon Halter – the Tuesday track group members who’ve offered so much encouragement to me since I crashed their group a few months back.  Thanks to each one of you!!  So, now, I’m just looking forward to reading all of the race reports to come in 2011!