I Must Be Goofy - Goofy Challenge 2013 - Update 1/7

[jrmint427]

I am reading this and yes I am running this year! My husband and I did the full in 2013. It was my first marathon. We couldn't commit to the 2014 race weekend because his mom wanted to do a family vacation somewhere, but that didn't happen. And it was too late to enter. We were so jealous watching all the action from home through Instagram. We developed medal envy and decided we had to have the Dopey bling! So we are headed down next Tuesday and we can't wait! I have never done a trip report, but I am on Instagram if you want to follow along.

Oooh, Dopey is intense! I'd love to follow on Instagram! Medal envy is what led us to sign up for Goofy.

Your Yak and Yeti food looks so yummy! We have our reservation there after the half marathon this year so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it there.

I've got Yak and Yeti tentatively planned for our lunch on our AK day. I've not eaten there before, so I'm glad to hear that you enjoy it. Your meal looks delicious!

I love Yak and Yeti! The food is great and the restaurant is fun, there are so many artifacts to look at there. As much as I love to try new places, that's one of the few restaurants we will probably go back to on every trip.

 

[jrmint427]

I was so excited to eat at Boma. We ate at Jiko last year and loved it, but we were curious about the buffet we had seen across the hall.



I was so impressed with the buffet. At the time I was trying to make the transition from vegetarian to vegan (which did not last too long - I'm back to just being vegetarian), so I had called ahead of time to share my dietary restrictions. When I checked in they told me that the chef would come out and walk me around the buffet. And he did! The chef was awesome. He told me what I could eat on the buffet and also told me what else he could make a vegan version of for me. I told him what Id like to try and I put together a plate of what was already vegan while I waited for the rest. I had a half marathon to run the next day so I was loading up!

My favorite thing on this plate was the watermelon rind salad. Ive never had anything like it before. It had an interesting and sweet taste. I also had some avocado and citrus salad and greens with a mango vinaigrette dressing. My vegan plate was quickly brought out.

My favorite was the eggplant salad in the lower right-hand corner. There was more watermelon rinds, spinach with quinoa, and tomato and artichoke salad. I loved everything but the eggplant was the only item I was able to finish entirely. Eating vegan would be so easy with a personal chef every night! He also brought me two types of hummus and a special chip. I almost finished both bowls of hummus too.

I apparently forgot to take a picture of my main course. There was just so much food. It was rice with tomato curry and tofu. Just perfect. I packed up most of the tofu dish for later. But I am never too full for dessert.

The rest of my group got to choose from many little cakes on the buffet so I asked if there was anything I could eat. They treated me very well!

Sorbet and fresh berries. We were a very full and happy group. I would love to eat at Boma again. It will be hard to choose between trying Sanaa or going back to Boma on our next visit.

Our cousins were very nice and gave us a ride back to the Contemporary so we would not have to worry about the bus system. They were staying offsite and had rented a car. We were especially thankful since we needed to be up super early for the half marathon the next day!

 

[emilyindisney]

I ate at Boma awhile ago and don't really remember much of it but your pictures look delicious! Especially that sorbet and fruit at the end! I'm a huge proponent of Disney transportation but having your own wheels on property (or using a cab) is massively convenient. So glad you were able to hitch a ride with your cousin!

 

[jrmint427]

I ate at Boma awhile ago and don't really remember much of it but your pictures look delicious! Especially that sorbet and fruit at the end! I'm a huge proponent of Disney transportation but having your own wheels on property (or using a cab) is massively convenient. So glad you were able to hitch a ride with your cousin!

Overall I think Disney transportation is easy and great, but the only down side to me is traveling between resorts - it would be great if you could just get on a bus from one resort to another, but having to take a bus to a park or other central location and then to your resort can eat up so much time. I loved staying in a monorail resort to have another option for transportation though! I've read complaints on here but we thought the monorail worked perfectly. And I would much rather Disney's buses than having to drive and worry about parking on my own!

 

[emilyindisney]

Overall I think Disney transportation is easy and great, but the only down side to me is traveling between resorts - it would be great if you could just get on a bus from one resort to another, but having to take a bus to a park or other central location and then to your resort can eat up so much time. I loved staying in a monorail resort to have another option for transportation though! I've read complaints on here but we thought the monorail worked perfectly. And I would much rather Disney's buses than having to drive and worry about parking on my own!

Agreed- resort to resort travel is very time consuming when you use Disney's transpo.

 

[jrmint427]

Day Three: WDW Half Marathon, Hollywood Studios, Dinner at California Grill (1/12)

It was half marathon day already! I wore my running shoes at Animal Kingdom the day before, but I knew we had done too much walking when I woke up with my feet hurting already. This made me very nervous about attempting to tackle 39.3 miles over the next two days.

We woke up at 3:15 AM and were out the door to catch the monorail by 3:45 AM. I grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from our food court the night before and had that along with a bottle of water on our way to the race. We were on the monorail by 4:00 AM. The monorail made our transportation to the race very easy compared to the year before.

We stopped for a real bathroom at the monorail station in Epcot before heading to the start line. We thought this would help us to avoid the port-o-potties at the start line this year, but no such luck. The walk to the start line took a lot longer than it had for the marathon the year before. It felt like the crowd was shuffling at a snails pace. By the time we finally made it to the corrals I needed another bathroom stop.

We were in corral G this year with an estimated marathon finish of 5:30. I had printed proof of a faster half marathon result from that year in case we wanted to request a change of corrals at the expo but we decided with run/walking and our plan to stop for more pictures this year, we were better off starting in the back of the pack.



Even though we left on the monorail by 4:00 AM, it was after 5:00 AM by the time we made it to corral G. They were already singing the national anthem! There were fireworks around 5:30 AM. They weren't just at the start line, there was a great display right behind us too!


Photo Credit: MarathonFoto

I wasn't at the front of the race! But I did buy the MarathonFoto package this year which came with some awesome stock photos. My fireworks pictures weren't quite as high quality!



It took us about 45 minutes to eventually make our way to the start line. I loved the energy from the other runners and could not wait to get started!



Around 6:15 AM we were finally on our way! It was a strange feeling going into this race, knowing that it would be just one-third the total distance for the weekend. It really put the half marathon distance in a different perspective for me and made it feel like this race would be no big deal compared to what was to come.

 

[jrmint427]

We finally made it to the start line after a 45 minute wait from Corral G. The beginning of the race was so congested. Although we had trained with 6/4 run/walk intervals, we planned to do 5/5 intervals during the half marathon to make sure we didn't push ourselves too hard before the marathon. Although in the beginning, our "running" time might has well have been power-walking, it was very difficult to run in this crowd. I was beginning to wish we had moved up in starting corrals.

Mile 1: 13:01
Mile 2: 12:19

It was the beginning of the third mile that we saw the first characters. It was the same Pirates of the Caribbean ship they had the previous year. I was once again impressed with how much Jack Sparrow looked like Johnny Depp!



The character lines were much longer this year and seemed to be moving more slowly. Maybe it was because we were toward the back of the pack this year. There was no sense of urgency from many of the runners taking pictures! Come on people, take your pictures and move along please!

Mile 3: 18:30

The entrance for the Magic Kingdom comes early in the race and is always a fun one to see! Don't mind my awkward pose...





We decided in advance that we would make more stops for character pictures this year. Last year we were somewhat concerned with our marathon finish time and only stopped for our favorite characters whose lines were not too long. This year we decided we would stop on a whim if there was anyone we wanted a picture with. We stopped for two characters in the fourth mile. We waited 3-4 minutes for Chip n' Dale.



The wait for Jack and Sally was 5-6 minutes.



Mile 4: 22:48

We started to worry a little after these early character stops. We wanted to take our time and stop for as many characters we wanted, but we were already behind the 16-minute pace requirement. I knew we wouldn't actually get swept because there were so many people still behind us, but we wanted to honestly meet the time requirement to feel like we truly earned our Goofy medals. So we started to run a little more and pick up the pace while running.

Mile 5: 11:25

The 6th mile took us through Magic Kingdom. Running down Main Street will always be my favorite part of any Disney race. There are so many people cheering on the side lines and the energy here is so high.



Funny side story: When I got home I posted my race photos on Facebook. Someone asked how I had so many pictures of me running through the parks - did I have paparazzi following me lol? I didn't realize it might be weird to others to have so many pictures of me running!



I could not believe how many people chose to walk through that leg of the race! We did our best to keep running and weave through the crowds. When we came up on the Cinderella Castle we decided to stop for a picture with a royal Daisy and Donald. As much as I love the Ducks, I was sad we missed Royal Minnie and Mickey.



We lost another 5-6 minutes for that photo stop.

Mile 6: 20:45



Once we made it past the castle, we knew we had some serious time to make up. We ran the next couple of miles with very few walk breaks and skipped over a few characters to save time. The only one I wish we had gotten was Jessie from Toy Story. We thought we could get a picture with her during the marathon the next day but she was not out when we went through MK.

Mile 7: 10:46
Mile 8: 11:08

Phew, we were able to make up some of the time we had lost!

 

[jrmint427]

Since we had quickly made up some time in miles 7-8 we lightened up a bit and stopped for a few pictures over the next couple of miles.





Mile 9: 12:21
Mile 10: 12:26
Mile 11: 12:24

I don't remember what mile it was, but the Toy Story soldiers were out again. They are some of my favorites! They bark orders and encourage the runners to keep running up a hill.



We knew we were fine on time but there weren't many characters during the final miles, so we kept up with our run/walking through the end.



Mile 12: 11:51
Mile 13: 12:20

I knew from last year that once we turned the corner to leave Epcot, we would be very close to the finish line. We didn't sprint, but kept a steady pace for the last half mile.

Mile 13.0 - 13.57 (according to my Garmin): 10:00 pace



We finished the half marathon - 1/3 of the Goofy Challenge was complete!

Total: 3:07:38 (13:50 pace)

Overall, I was happy with this race. We had run a little more and a little faster than we planned, but it turned out we were more than fine on time. Our split at the 10k mark was a 16:33 minute pace; by 15k we had it down to a 15:08 pace and our official race pace (according to Disney) was 14:18.

We picked up our medals and immediately got some ice before picking up our snack box. We didn't realize there were buses right there to take us back to our hotel. I wish we had seen them! Instead we hobbled back to Epcot for the monorail. We walked to where we thought the monorail entrance was, only to find it was an exit. We then walked back around, realizing we had to go through the Epcot bag check in order to get on the monorail. There was a very long line, and this added more time on our feet than would have been necessary.



We were very hungry by the time we got back to the Contemporary, so we stopped at the Contempo Café for Mickey Waffles. They were a tasty post-race treat!



Pat met us at the café and then headed to Hollywood Studios while Maggie and I went back to our hotel room. We showered, napped for an hour, and then headed back out to the parks to Hollywood Studios.

 

[ZellyB]

Great job on completing the half! Love the pictures you got. We've never wanted to wait long enough to meet a royal couple in MK, but we are determined to make that happen this year. Hoping for Mickey and Minnie as well, but your shot with Donald and Daisy is wonderful and fitting for the half since that's Donald's race. I remember how impressed I was by the Jack Sparrow character as well. He was a ringer for Johnny Depp. Can't wait to read more.

 

[Miffy2003]

Great race report!

 

[jrmint427]

Great job on completing the half! Love the pictures you got. We've never wanted to wait long enough to meet a royal couple in MK, but we are determined to make that happen this year. Hoping for Mickey and Minnie as well, but your shot with Donald and Daisy is wonderful and fitting for the half since that's Donald's race. I remember how impressed I was by the Jack Sparrow character as well. He was a ringer for Johnny Depp. Can't wait to read more.

Thank you! I hadn't thought about it being Donald's race, so you're right, the picture we got was very fitting!

Great race report!

Thank you!

 

[jrmint427]

Going to Hollywood Studios after finishing the half marathon may not have been the best idea for our recovery before the marathon the next day. But we were there to have fun too! My feet were aching but I did not want to miss out on Tower of Terror. And an opportunity to wear the race medal to a park!



We only had a few hours to spend at Hollywood Studios due to early dinner reservations. We were going to be eating at California Grill on the top floor of our hotel.

We picked up a Fast Pass for Tower of Terror and jumped in the Single Rider line for the Rock n' Roller Coaster. I sat in the very back and the ride was more intense than I had remembered. It was great!

By the time we got out, we had just 5 more minutes until we could ride TOT. This was the ride I missed the most over the past year.



After the ride we got some water and Pat and I split a banana. We missed The Little Mermaid show last year so that was on our short to-do list. We hadn't missed much. My guess is that this show was introduced in the 1990s and has not been updated since then. It was a good show but outdated compared to newer shows like The Lion King and Nemo the Musical at AK.

After the show we realized we either had time for the Muppet Show or one more ride on TOT, but not both. I was leaning toward TOT, but since we had already ridden that once, and we did not see the Muppet Show the year before, we walked quickly to the Muppet Show. It turned out we were just in time for the next show with no wait!

We got out of the Muppet Show and decided we had just enough time to use our last fast pass on TOT. We were cutting it close on time but it was worth it for one more ride.



I then led our party on a quick walk to our bus. I was so worried we were going to be late! It's a good thing we were booking it to the bus though, because I had to run ahead a bit to make sure the bus would wait for us.

I was especially excited for our pre-marathon dinner at California Grill because we were going to be meeting up with a friend of mine from high school and her boyfriend!

 

[jrmint427]

We met up with my high school friend and her boyfriend for dinner at the California Grill. I loved the decor!



I loved the views from California Grill. I have to say, the food was good, but the views were probably my favorite part of the restaurant. We had amazing views of the Magic Kingdom and the Grand Floridian.









I had initially made our ADR for four people in case someone else might join us. We knew our cousins were going to be at WDW at the same time and had a few friends who lived in the area. When my friend from high school told me she and her boyfriend planned to join us this evening I called to try to change our reservation to 5. Disney would not let me make that change. I thought we might just show up and see if we could squeeze in a fifth chair somewhere but I knew that was risky. Luckily, the high school friend was a former CM and was able to contact someone she knew to get us all in!

I had put a flag on our reservation ahead of time that I would be eating vegan. When I first asked our server what I could eat, he told me I could order anything on the menu and they would make a vegan version of it. I also told him that I wasn't allergic to dairy, that I just do not eat animal products. I didn't want the kitchen to worry about being extra careful due to a potential allergy.

I tried to order the only vegetarian item on the menu, the pumpkin-fig ravioli. The server came back and said that they could not make that vegan and asked me to please choose something else. All of the other dishes were meat-based. I asked him what he suggested I order, and he began to suggest various types of meat. Apparently he did not understand what vegan means! I explained that I did not eat meat either, and he said he would be right back.

When the server came back he said, "Don't worry, the chef will make you a surprise!" I did worry a bit. I thought, please don't make it mushroom based. This is what I got:

Not all mushrooms! The flatbread pizza was very good. So was the rice, which I think was butternut squash. I ate a bit around the mushrooms. The salad was dry (no dressing), so I skipped that. I like a good salad, but I need dressing. It was expensive for what it was, but still a good meal. I don't remember what everyone else ordered (I forgot to take pictures!) but they all seemed happy with their meals.

As for going back to California Grill in the future - as a vegetarian, I am likely to skip it. If I did, I would like to try the ravioli, but there are many other new places I'd rather try than pay so much for what I was able to eat there.

After dinner we headed out to a balcony to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks at 8:00 PM. They even played the Wishes music at the hotel. I've said it before, but I seriously wish every day could end with fireworks.






Back in our room, I iced my feet in our tub. It was painfully cold, but my feet did feel some pain relief after soaking them. I was nervous about the marathon the next day, mostly because my feet were already in so much pain. I was wondering what I was thinking to have signed up for the Goofy Challenge. I went to bed a little bit later than I had planned, but was probably asleep a little after 9:30 PM. I was not looking forward to another 3:30 AM alarm!

 

[jrmint427]

I spent the night before the marathon wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and the bottom of my feet were hurting. Bad. An ice bath offered temporary relief but they were still very sore the next morning.

We woke up around 3:30 AM, planning to catch the monorail a little after 4:00 AM. I had another peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana for breakfast and tried to drink a little less water this time.

We made it to the start line much quicker this morning. We also ran into one character along the way, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother! She was a riot, chatting with people as they walked by and pretending to sprinkle everyone with fairy dust. I needed it!



I had to make another stop at the port-o-potties before the race. I hate port-o-potties (these especially stink) but I knew it would be awhile before we would make it to MK for a real bathroom. We then made our way to corral G again. This time we sat down, waiting for our corral to finally start moving. We wanted to stay off our feet as long as possible.

It took about 45 minutes for us to reach the start line again. We enjoyed the entertainment in the meantime. We noticed the entertainers were using the same material they had the day before. While we were walking to our corral we heard one of the entertainers getting into it with a runner. He didn't recognize her costume. I thought she was an Angry Bird, but apparently, she was Perry the Platypus. Who? (Okay, I probably should know, but I didn't either!) The woman seemed upset that the announcer didn't know who she was either. She said, "You work for Disney!" He said nope, he doesn't work for Disney, he was just there for the race. Oops.

After what felt like ages, we finally reached the start line, and we were off!


Photo Credit: MarathonFoto

 

[emilyindisney]

Congrats on a half marathon well run! I love that picture of you guys with Chip and Dale near the speedway. The 'munks are my favorite!

The views from Cali Grill are beautiful!

Can't wait to hear about the marathon! I wish they would post a picture from just behind the giant start sign so we could see just how many runners are in the street!

 

[jrmint427]

We were off! The beginning of the race still felt congested but not as bad as the half marathon had been. We started with 6/4 intervals this time, hoping it would leave us time for more pictures. We wanted to stop for as many characters as we could, but did not want to feel rushed in making up time to keep a 16 minute pace including stops.

For the most part we planned to skip the characters we had gotten pictures with the day before. But, our Nightmare Before Christmas picture from the half marathon was very blurry and this was a favorite of ours. We stopped for another picture. I ended up buying a picture package afterwards (I wasn't planning to at the time) so it ended up not being necessary. But having extra pictures is always fun.

The sun was coming up when we stopped. We watched other runners go by while waiting for Jack and Sally.

We had another bathroom break early on. Although I had gone around 5:00 AM when we were getting to our corral, I had to go again by the time the race stared for us at 6:15 AM. I was going to try to wait until we made it to MK but I gave up before that when we saw short lines at a group of port-o-potties along the way.

Mile 1: 13:35
Mile 2: 12:09
Mile 3: 14:39
Mile 4: 15:35
Mile 5: 11:45

The 6th mile took us down Main Street in Magic Kingdom again. I was so happy to get to do this part of the run twice in one weekend! We went through Fantasyland before the castle and stopped for a picture with Alice and the Mad Hatter.

I was wearing my No Meat Athlete shirt (from a blog I like), which has a carrot on the front and says “Runs on Plants” on the back. I got a lot of love for my shirt during the race, with several other runners telling me they run on plants too. One guy told me he loved my shirt, even though he eats meat (and hoped I didn’t hate him for it).

When Alice saw my shirt she said, “Oh look! She likes carrots.” The Mad Hatter said, “She must be a rabbit… the white rabbit! That is why everyone is chasing her!” They were so funny.

We stopped for a couple of princess photos we had missed the day before. I loved the background of the New Fantasyland for these photos with Ariel and Belle.

Next up was the castle! My absolute favorite! The line for pictures with a royal Mickey and Minnie was very long so we decided to pass on that one and just ran through the castle.

I just love how happy I look running through the castle and MK! If only every training run could go through the MK. This is my favorite picture from the race:

We were sad that Jessie from Toy Story was not in Frontierland when we ran through. I figured she might just be on a break. We made another bathroom stop while we had access to real bathrooms (and soap).

We stopped for a picture with Cinderella and the Prince just outside of Magic Kingdom. It was a very long line but it was another one we had skipped in our previous Disney races. I took a few pictures while we waited in line.

Eventually it was our turn!

This was probably our longest wait for a picture during the entire race, but it was worth it.

Mile 6: 20:52

Mile 6 was a long one thanks to all the stops, but we knew we would make up for it. Up next, we run through the Speedway!

 

[jrmint427]

Congrats on a half marathon well run! I love that picture of you guys with Chip and Dale near the speedway. The 'munks are my favorite!

The views from Cali Grill are beautiful!

Can't wait to hear about the marathon! I wish they would post a picture from just behind the giant start sign so we could see just how many runners are in the street!

Thank you! The picture with Chip and Dale is one of my favorites I wish they would post a picture from that view too! I can only imagine how far back the runners go, considering it took us 45 minutes to get to the start line and we weren't even in the very back.

 

[jrmint427]

There was a boring stretch between the Magic Kingdom and the Speedway. The only character we stopped for on this stretch was Mary Poppins. And the penguin!

There was a steep dip down and up to get onto the Speedway track, but it was fun to have a change of scenery. There were plenty of spectators here and a number of cars, including a few famous characters.

The Speedway took us through mile nine and it was around this time that Maggie developed a pain in her foot. I asked if she wanted to stop at the medical station as we were leaving the Speedway but she said she was fine when she walked so we kept going. And then we both wished we had stopped. The bottom of my feet were already in a lot of pain and I heard there was Tylenol we could have picked up at the medical station. We decided to stop at the next station we saw.

Mile 7: 15:34
Mile 8: 12:51
Mile 9: 12:26

The next three miles or so were a really boring stretch. They did a good job with entertainment and characters along this stretch though. This is also where you smell the stinky waste/compost area. It was good motivation to run a little extra!

One of my favorite stops was the scene with all the villains. They were playing Bad to the Bone.

We stopped for a few more pictures along this stretch. There was a random Christmas scene.

Next up were the Peter Pan characters. No Tinkerbell for us this year either!

Unless you count the Tinkerbell we spotted at the Christmas scene

Mile 10: 15:41
Mile 11: 13:24
Mile 12: 13:06

It was somewhere along this stretch that we found another medical station. Unfortunately they were out of Tylenol, but Maggie put some Biofreeze on her feet and said it helped. I wished I had done the same!

I loved that they had animals outside the Animal Kingdom again. We missed the donkey this year but took pictures with the owl and a goat.

We remembered the petting zoo lady from the year before!

We had planned to ride Mount Everest after we wished we had stopped to ride it the year before. But, once we got there, we were seriously worried that if we sat down we would never get up again. Ever. We also knew we were pushing our time with all our character stops and didn’t know how we were going to do the next half of the race, so we decided to skip the roller coaster ride. I still think it would be fun to someday say that I rode a roller coaster in the middle of a race.

Instead, we stopped for a few character pictures.

Mile 13: 17:29
Mile 14: 13:02

We still had not found Tylenol at this point, and we were really hurting!

 

[emilyindisney]

The random Christmas scene!!!! I can't wait for that stop next weekend! Growing up we had a VHS of Disney's Christmas Sing-a-long with these exact characters in it. Hip-Hop Noel will always be one of my favorite Christmas song and it's video features these guys!

 

[courtneybelle]

So awesome that the chef could help you out at Boma, and that sorbet looks delicious!

Chip and Dale are so cute in those hats! And that's pretty amazing that you only had to wait 6 minutes for Jack and Sally since people wait upwards of two hours to meet them at the Halloween party

Awesome afternoon at DHS, I'm glad you got to show off your medals!!

Those views from the Contemporary are just spectacular.

Hahaha I wonder if the waiter thought you meant gluten-free? Glad you eventually got it sorted out!

I love what Alice and the Mad Hatter said about your shirt!!