Marathon Weekend 2020

[Jason Bryer]

SAFD: I am not a big meet-n-greet person. My kids are happy to see characters around but have no interest in standing in line for a picture. But I do love this one (it's my profile picture). It was taken in ESPN during my first marathon and encapsulates my experiences for that race. I was so happy to be running and kind of knew I would very likely finish, but so sad that I still had 8ish more miles to go give some gastro issues I was having earlier in the race.

 

[PrincessV]

SAFD: Characters kind of freak me out, but I suck it up to fan-girl all over Emperor Palpatine at the SW races! Emperor hugs are the best hugs.

 

[jennamfeo]

SAFD: I have had a lot of really great interactions. Like one time when I went to Goofy's Kitchen with my friends and Pluto was outside of the window we were eating next to and then he started jumping up on the window playing with my friend's kids. It was super cute.
Or when my daughter met Mickey at DCA and she gave him a kiss on his cheek and then Mickey blushed. She talked about that for-ev-er.
Or when we went to MNSSHP and my daughter was dressed like a Power Ranger and we met Goofy and he started doing ninja moves with her for like a solid minute. The photos from that were awesome and that's when I fell in love with Goofy.
So then last year I went to Disneyland with a friend and I met Goofy and he kissed my hands and made ME blush. Love that Goof so much.

 

[Dopey 2020]

This is a great question. The goal of a training cycle is to prepare you for the "A" race at the end. It's also an added desire for most that you get better with consecutive training cycles. A common concern with an ending training cycle leading into the next one is a loss of fitness. But the research available shows that the recovery coming after a training cycle is important, and that your loss of fitness is little to nothing if you do it right. You also want to consider that you want the peak to occur in January and not Nov/Dec if you jump into training too quickly.

Here are the key considerations:

1) Possible loss of fitness. According to Jack Daniels research, the decay rate of VO2max fitness is 0.003% per day starting after 5 days. So let's say you could run a 30 min 5k. If you took off for 5 days, you'd still have the "VO2max fitness equivalent" of a 30 min 5k. A 6th day off would mean you could run a 30:05. So you lost about 5 seconds of fitness from taking 6 days completely off from running. So generally, my recommendation is to take off about 1 day for every 3k of "A" racing (or the end of a training cycle). This means after a HM (21k) you'd take off for 7 days (no running). This allows the body to recover and prepare for the next training cycle. Additionally, the loss of fitness is minimal as seen in the example above. Here's the Daniels graph for reference:

View attachment 407982

So of course, there is a difference between a "loss of fitness" and the "ability to race". While you might have minimally lost fitness, you will likely have lost your peak. So you may take 7 days off from running, but you might need about 7-14 days to get back to where you were physically. But since the gap in time is from Sept to Jan, that's no big deal at all. As you don't need to be ready to "A" race the next HM in October, but rather January. So don't worry about taking some time off after the training cycle. It's actually more beneficial to the overall journey to do so.

2) Avoiding stagnation and aiming the peak correctly towards January. The second key consideration is that it's important to allow the training load to drop. Doing so allows you to be in a stage of building key fitness late in the training cycle and not peaking too quickly. If you choose not to take time off and jump right back into training in September, then you'll want to be sure that you're prepared to take the training load higher in the second training cycle (Sept-Jan) than you did in the first. Otherwise, you'll find that towards the end of the second training cycle you may just be grinding yourself down (some people refer to this as a feeling of burnout).

I think this post I made earlier might be helpful as it discusses what happens when you stack training cycles when considering load and peaking:

Training Load Calculations (What happens when the next cycle starts?): Part 3

So my suggestion is to take some time off after the HM in Sept (you won't lose as much fitness as you think), and second to allow the training load to drop after the first training cycle. If you plan to go back into the exact same training plan, then you'll want to allow that drop so you don't peak too soon. If you plan to do a new training plan that has slightly more miles added to it, then you can reduce the amount you need to pull back because you intend to push the training cycle higher. Something like this:

View attachment 407985

This is my 2019 training cycle graph. The first section is training cycle #1. Then starting in mid-June, I'm taking time off to allow my body to recover. Then, I jump back into training for my January marathon. If I did the same training cycle, then you can see I'd hit the same max training load somewhere in October. Then October through January would be me just grinding the gears. But in training cycle #2, I'm attempting to take the overall training load slightly higher. Which means the peak is now aimed for January even with taking those 2-3 weeks off in June.

Hope that helps and let me know if anything needs an additional explanation.

Can I hijack and get some more info from @DopeyBadger ? I've taken your advice and slowed myself down and wow! My last two Saturdays have been fantastic. I ran 4 miles on M W Th each week at around 945/ mile and then 12 and 15 on the last two saturdays at 10:50/ mile and felt good doing so. That is the longest I have ever continously run so I can see I have improved quite a bit in the last couple years. Usually I follow the Galloway plan and I am doing the W & D challenge, the Dopey, the Princess, and most likely SW. Should I dial it back for now or just sort of alternate easy and long weeks. I want to improve but definitely don't want to overdo it. I was going to do an easy week this week with no long run, then two long run weeks followed by excessive food drink and laziness on the Disney Dream for 5 nights in July, and then... ?
Thanks again, your advice is greatly appreciated

 

[DopeyBadger]

Can I hijack and get some more info from @DopeyBadger ? I've taken your advice and slowed myself down and wow! My last two Saturdays have been fantastic. I ran 4 miles on M W Th each week at around 945/ mile and then 12 and 15 on the last two saturdays at 10:50/ mile and felt good doing so. That is the longest I have ever continously run so I can see I have improved quite a bit in the last couple years. Usually I follow the Galloway plan and I am doing the W & D challenge, the Dopey, the Princess, and most likely SW. Should I dial it back for now or just sort of alternate easy and long weeks. I want to improve but definitely don't want to overdo it. I was going to do an easy week this week with no long run, then two long run weeks followed by excessive food drink and laziness on the Disney Dream for 5 nights in July, and then... ?
Thanks again, your advice is greatly appreciated

Glad to hear the slowing down in training has been beneficial! It really can make a difference from the racing gains standpoint, but also from an enjoyment of run training in general.

So designing a year long training schedule can be easy to do from a birds-eye view, but not something you want to get terribly specific with until you're about 2 weeks out from the new training cycle. Mostly because you want to save the specifics of the next training cycle to be dependent on what you saw in the previous training cycle and where the deficiencies lie. With that in mind, let's take a look:

6/10/2019 - Today
11/3/2019 - Wine and Dine
1/20/2020 - Dopey
2/23/2020 - Princess
4/19/2020 - Star Wars

You have the following between plans:

Today to W&D - 21 weeks
W&D to Dopey - 11 weeks
Dopey to Princess - 5 weeks
Princess to SW - 8 weeks

Dopey to SW - 13 weeks

The first thing you'd want to do is evaluate your goals. What do you want to accomplish at each of the race weekends? And which would you want to consider your "A" events? A marathon in my book is always considered an "A" event because of the duration necessary to complete it. Meaning Dopey is an automatic "A" event. You have to ask yourself what the goal of Dopey is, because that would dictate whether W&D can be an "A" or whether it should be treated more like a "B". Where an "A" event is the focus, and a "B" event is treated as a tune-up or a training specific run. I think with 11 weeks in advance of Dopey, W&D could be either. But if W&D were treated like a "B", then it wouldn't necessitate any time off from training for Dopey and you just jump right in.

After Dopey, Princess is way to close for it to be an "A" race. Where the goal is to make gains between the training cycles enough to see a measurable difference in performance. The gains made/seen at Princess will be solely those that had already occurred at Dopey. I usually recommend two weeks off after Dopey (marathon is 42k and thus 14 days using the 3k idea). So that only leaves three weeks prior to Princess. So I see that easily as a "B" race training run. Then, the next focus after Dopey would be the SW race. With 13 weeks between you should just have enough time to see some minimal gains (2 weeks off + 11 weeks training). The bare minimum to see measurable gains from a training cycle is 8 weeks. But you're usually better off with 12 weeks.

Some of the timing is based on the life cycle of mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell). They regenerate every 14 days or so in their lifecycle. An "A" raced marathon absolutely decimates the mitochondria. So it takes about 2 weeks before you can even have the same density/volume of mitochondria as you did right prior to Dopey. So taking that time off will allow them to regenerate without the added stress of additional run training trying to prepare for Princess.

So if I were designing the training, I'd do the following:

Cruise week
Extra training cycle - July through September (Work on 5k/10k speed pacing. Boost VO2max prior to two consecutive endurance focused training cycles)
1 week completely easy (max training run is 45 min)
Dopey training cycle - September through January (Wine and Dine as "B" tune-up HM fitness test race, with a sole easy week afterwards, focus is marathon endurance)
2 weeks off
SW training cycle - January through April (Princess as "B" very very easy training run, with a sole easy week afterwards, focus is on half marathon endurance)
1 week off

The key to balancing the "Extra cycle" with the "Dopey cycle" is making sure there's enough room to grow in training load from the end of the 1st cycle into the second cycle.

 

[Dopey 2020]

Makes sense, I'll start marking up my calendar. I like trying to PR at W and D but dopey and especially the marathon is absolutely my main focus

 

[apdebord]

SAFD: When my grandmother met her favorite Princess, Snow White, at Cinderella’s. She cried as soon as Snow White started walking to us and of course the rest of us lost it as well.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

This would be my 3rd DM but first Dopey. I am getting the slippery slope I've read about for 2+ years. Started with, I could do Goofy this year to prepare for Dopey '21. Well, the wife would prefer the 10k to the half, so, what's two more mornings and 9.3 more miles? I think I have an addiction (but at least, as my wife points out, a healthy one).

I decided to go for Dopey because if I loved the marathon enough to do it again, I would want to attempt Goofy or Dopey. But if I didn't love the marathon enough to do it again, then I might regret missing out on my one chance to attempt Goofy or Dopey. Suffice it say, I'm back for Dopey #2 because Marathon #1 as part of Dopey #1 was really fun.

Over the weekend I registered for the Dopey!! First ever marathon.
Not getting any younger and who knows, maybe I will love it and can do it again??

That was me. I found something very rewarding about the marathon distance.

Sundays are for Disney: what have been your favorite or most memorable character meet and greet experiences? These could be typical meet and greets or ones during a race

I've got a few in no particular order. Non race first.

1. Goofy force choking me after he saw my Darth Goofy pin.

2. Proposing to Minnie Mouse. This was entirely her idea, but it was really fun to play along.

3. My 9 year old little brother running away from Cinderella during dinner in the castle. Years later, her stepsisters flirted it up with him during the Disneyland Christmas parade and he was terrified for a different reason.

4. Practicing lightsaber technique with Jedi Mickey and Princess Leia Minnie.

5. Chip and Dale reenacting the fight scene from The Matrix when I asked them when Disney was going to give them their own movie since they are much cooler than singing squirrels.

6. Princess Aurora seeing "My Patronus is a Wookiee" shirt and asking me if Chewbacca liked to dance. She then invited him to come to the forest and dance with her forest friends, which caused me to remember Chewbacca dancing to When You Wish Upon A Star on The Muppet Show, and visualizing Chewbacca as Briar Rose's dream prince.

7. I was holding a spot in line for my niece to meet a princess. In a nearby line were Cruella De Vil and the Evil Queen from Snow White. When a little boy went up to Cruella with his red lightsaber, Cruella held it up and turned to the Queen and said "Your majesty! If the Hunstman fails you, perhaps this will do the trick!!!"

Races and/or Medal Photos in the parks afterwards again in no particular order:

1. Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle during the 2012 Disneyland Half. My first ever character stop in a race. I would later see both of them at MVMCP after the Wine & Dine Half, so it was cool to complete the runDisney circle that year since it was my first Coast to Coast.

2. Darth Vader saying the Dark Side is looking forward to completing your training the weekend of the 2017 Avengers Half. I took all my Star Wars medals to that weekend for pictures with Vader and Chewbacca.

3. Mickey counting all my marathon weekend medals and applauding me.

4. Minnie getting very excited about my BB-8 10K medal from 2017. Also, Minnie making the marathon medal and 10K medals from 2019 kiss.

5. Chewbacca giving me a huge hug after the 2017 Kessel Run on the final night of a very magical trip. In some weird ways, I almost view the 2017 Kessel Run as more difficult than the Dopey marathon. In reality it was not, but I think the challenges that I had to deal with in training for that race gave it extra meaning.

6. Chip and Dale in general. I high fived them right before crossing the finish line at my first half marathon and once again right before crossing the finish line of the marathon. They also had insane amounts of fun showing the photographer how the spinner medals work. One day Chip even took me by the hand and marched me to the meet and greet area where he proceeded to show me a magic trick and make the park map he was holding disappear. At various other times, they have played rock, paper, scissors to determine which one of them won the race, done jumping jacks with me to warm up, and eaten my medal(s) just to make sure they were real.

7. Snow White saw my Dopey medal and with perfect intonation exclaimed "I see you've been skipping through the kingdom. Dopey will be so excited."

Anyway, it was a few years before I really gave into the magic and suspension of disbelief that meeting characters requires, but I’m definitely there now. It’s only as much fun as you allow it to be.

In a sense, I think I have more fun meeting the characters now as an adult. In my childhood, visits were every few years, so by the time I truly remember going for the first time, I was old enough to have fun, but also old enough to understand that they were friends of Mickey and Minnie. Now the fun comes in seeing just how in character they are. Chip and Dale are hysterical to watch because you never know what they're going to do next. I describe it as now I'm old enough to appreciate it when they truly are the characters.

Emperor hugs are the best hugs.

The Emperor gives hugs?!? I do not see him doing that. Even to his most loyal followers. Speaking of which, Ariel saw my Darth Vader riding the carousel shirt and commented that she did not know that he rode the carousel. Also, she likes red lightsabers.

 

[flav]

SAFD: Where to start!
I am always excited to see characters. They are so attentive and interactive. Some flashes!

Mary Popins so gentle with my little 1.5 yo

Prince Charming opening the ball with 4 yo Cinderella

Lady Tremaine correcting our posture

Mad Hatter making faces when posing

Minnie writing a thank you and I love you note in French to my then unilingual 5 yo thus proving her 7 yo bilingual sister wrong (jaw dropping moment)

Aladdin holding 8 yo Jasmine shoe like he was in the wrong movie

Olaf met on Castaway Cay beach

Crush calling my tween his cousin

Woody and Jessie dancing with the Birthday girl

Gaston totally fascinating an 11 yo who did not want to see characters (officially anyway)

Goofy splashing in the pool (and the then 13 yo having got that it is more fun to play along than not)

Pluto giving hugs because someone needed one

 

[BigEeyore]

SAFD:
- Meeting Gaston at MK is SO much fun! He is absolutely hilarious and 100% in character!
- But my favorite ever character meet was the first time I met Darth Vader at HS in 2016. I didn't know that he would speak, so when we got in there and he was breathing and asking us if we were rebel spies, I just started this silly giggling - like when you are really scared but don't know what else to do so you just giggle a bunch??

 

[PrincessV]

The Emperor gives hugs?!? I do not see him doing that. Even to his most loyal followers.

To be fair, it's more of a side hug/lean-in, but oh yes - the Emperor is very cuddly lol!

 

[baxter24]

SAFD: My favorite character interaction took place when I was in high school (a longtime ago.....). Hollywood Studios (was MGM back then) had just opened and Rafiki was near where the Frozen Sing a long (wasn’t that attraction back then but you get the idea) just sitting on the ground appearing to meditate. Some people were walking by him not sure of what to do so I just walked up and sat down beside him and copied him. I think my mom may have a copy of the picture somewhere. I love it when the characters have the chance to goof off or do something different like he did!

 

[QueenFernando]

We're not big character people either. But DD was enamored with "SleepingBeautyPrincessAurora" (always said her named in one word like that) when she was little. We had to wait 45min to see the Princesses when she was 2.5. She was so excited and so patient for it. She's 13 now. No waiting for Princesses, but roller coasters.

 

[mr incredibleS1]

Well I'm in for "just the marathon", signed up today. I wanted to wait to sign up until we were able to get our flight booked. That was done yesterday, so I went to CVS, and bought a $25 Disney Gift card. I then transferred the refund I got from Disney for the cancelled half marathon in '17, and was able to sing up for the marathon for just $25 out of pocket. What a deal!

 

[regul8ter18]

This was my first on course picture during my first ever half marathon during W&D 2011.

 

[michigandergirl]

Look what I did today...



I’m in for the Goofy Challenge this time around and bringing a runDisney newbie with me. I’m so excited!!!

 

[dmross]

Glad to hear the slowing down in training has been beneficial! It really can make a difference from the racing gains standpoint, but also from an enjoyment of run training in general.

So designing a year long training schedule can be easy to do from a birds-eye view, but not something you want to get terribly specific with until you're about 2 weeks out from the new training cycle. Mostly because you want to save the specifics of the next training cycle to be dependent on what you saw in the previous training cycle and where the deficiencies lie. With that in mind, let's take a look:

6/10/2019 - Today
11/3/2019 - Wine and Dine
1/20/2020 - Dopey
2/23/2020 - Princess
4/19/2020 - Star Wars

You have the following between plans:

Today to W&D - 21 weeks
W&D to Dopey - 11 weeks
Dopey to Princess - 5 weeks
Princess to SW - 8 weeks

Dopey to SW - 13 weeks

The first thing you'd want to do is evaluate your goals. What do you want to accomplish at each of the race weekends? And which would you want to consider your "A" events? A marathon in my book is always considered an "A" event because of the duration necessary to complete it. Meaning Dopey is an automatic "A" event. You have to ask yourself what the goal of Dopey is, because that would dictate whether W&D can be an "A" or whether it should be treated more like a "B". Where an "A" event is the focus, and a "B" event is treated as a tune-up or a training specific run. I think with 11 weeks in advance of Dopey, W&D could be either. But if W&D were treated like a "B", then it wouldn't necessitate any time off from training for Dopey and you just jump right in.

After Dopey, Princess is way to close for it to be an "A" race. Where the goal is to make gains between the training cycles enough to see a measurable difference in performance. The gains made/seen at Princess will be solely those that had already occurred at Dopey. I usually recommend two weeks off after Dopey (marathon is 42k and thus 14 days using the 3k idea). So that only leaves three weeks prior to Princess. So I see that easily as a "B" race training run. Then, the next focus after Dopey would be the SW race. With 13 weeks between you should just have enough time to see some minimal gains (2 weeks off + 11 weeks training). The bare minimum to see measurable gains from a training cycle is 8 weeks. But you're usually better off with 12 weeks.

Some of the timing is based on the life cycle of mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell). They regenerate every 14 days or so in their lifecycle. An "A" raced marathon absolutely decimates the mitochondria. So it takes about 2 weeks before you can even have the same density/volume of mitochondria as you did right prior to Dopey. So taking that time off will allow them to regenerate without the added stress of additional run training trying to prepare for Princess.

So if I were designing the training, I'd do the following:

Cruise week
Extra training cycle - July through September (Work on 5k/10k speed pacing. Boost VO2max prior to two consecutive endurance focused training cycles)
1 week completely easy (max training run is 45 min)
Dopey training cycle - September through January (Wine and Dine as "B" tune-up HM fitness test race, with a sole easy week afterwards, focus is marathon endurance)
2 weeks off
SW training cycle - January through April (Princess as "B" very very easy training run, with a sole easy week afterwards, focus is on half marathon endurance)
1 week off

The key to balancing the "Extra cycle" with the "Dopey cycle" is making sure there's enough room to grow in training load from the end of the 1st cycle into the second cycle.

I just love knowing what my mitochondria are up to....

 

[baxter24]

Does anyone know when cheer squad packages will be available? I’ve got a friend whose mom wants to buy one and figured I’d ask here just in case anyone knew. Sorry if this has already been asked and answered!

 

[courtneybeth]

Let's talk hotels..... DVC properties are booked solid, which is expected because the 11month rule and all that.... but what about booking a traditional hotel. I'm thinking of booking a moderate, probably the Port Orleans. I'm staying at the All Starts Music for an upcoming trip in September but not sure if I want to do a value for Dopey.

Questions:
1 - For those who have stayed at Value and Moderates, which did you like best for quiet, comfort, and all around just enjoyable times.
2 - Any specific hotel you recommend? I know all offer the same things but just wanted to know if there's a preference based on certain things, like food, bed comfort, logistics, etc.
3 - I may consider doing a deluxe again but not sure the spend is worth it. Just saying

 

[Jason Bryer]

Let's talk hotels..... DVC properties are booked solid, which is expected because the 11month rule and all that.... but what about booking a traditional hotel. I'm thinking of booking a moderate, probably the Port Orleans. I'm staying at the All Starts Music for an upcoming trip in September but not sure if I want to do a value for Dopey.

Questions:
1 - For those who have stayed at Value and Moderates, which did you like best for quiet, comfort, and all around just enjoyable times.
2 - Any specific hotel you recommend? I know all offer the same things but just wanted to know if there's a preference based on certain things, like food, bed comfort, logistics, etc.
3 - I may consider doing a deluxe again but not sure the spend is worth it. Just saying

In 2018 I stayed at an All Star resort and had a rental car (this was before you had to pay for parking). It was fine. The rooms are smaller which was fine since it was just my wife and oldest son (the marathon was on his birthday). It took about 10 minutes from parking lot to parking lot.

In 2019 we stayed at Dolphin. Rooms were bigger which was good since we shared with another couple. The location is the best and would recommend any resort on the Boardwalk. After the marathon we walked through Epcot (stopping for a few drinks), headed to the hotel to shower, then headed right back to Epcot for more drinking.

This year, I am thinking Pop or Art mostly because the gondolas will be up and running. If the other couple wants to split a room again, maybe we will go for something a bit more.

For a week long family trip in 2018 we stayed at the Polynesian having rented DVC points and can see that being a great option for race weekend too. Access to the monorail was fantastic and being only moments from MK and Epcot was really nice (I think we went to MK every day, even if just for an hour after hitting another park for the bulk of the day).

I have to say, all are good options. I have never had an issue with noise, but if that is concern avoid any of the resorts undergoing renovation. They were doing work one night at Poly which was annoying, though they did make up for it when we called down. I hear you on the cost. Keeping to budget this year is part of convincing my wife to do this for a third year in a row.