Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon
I’ll preface this that this half marathon in some ways was my worst marathon but in other ways the best. It was a strange experience.
My phone alarm went off at 2:00AM and I was up and ready! I made my pre-race toast but forgot to take a photo of it as my husband was slow moving out of bed...I wanted us to get on the first monorail that was supposed to be starting around 2:30AM!
Mr. Dis_Yoda
Dis_Yoda
We walked over to the monorail station only to find out they are having technical difficulties getting the monorail running this morning. Ugh! I didn’t want extra stress this morning. When asked if they had a backup plan, I was given a blank stare…
Totally didn’t like that stress!
The monorail finally started running 35 minutes later where it got rather backed by those of us at the Grand Floridian and then those at the Contemporary. We then had to switch monorails at the TTC and then walk from the Monorail Station to the Corrals. It was after 4AM when we finally arrived and that just stressed me out. My husband knew I wanted to get to my corral so he kissed me goodbye so he could get some water/bathroom and I went on my way.
It was a longer walk this morning to the corral. By the time I sat down in the corral to try to calm myself down before the race start, I had already walked 2.21 miles that morning! Crazy!
Corral I
I had a little over 30 minutes to zen out. Betsy stopped by and said hi as she got into her corral (H!) since I was near the edge of that corral.
At 5:04AM, my husband was off and my corrals started moving forward little by little. The early corrals were going off every 4 minutes and eventually the larger ones were every 6 minutes.
Start Line
I was off with Corral I at 6:38AM and I think I started off decently through EPCOT. R2D2 was out again in the same spot.
R2D2
Mile 1 went well for me as the course wasn’t too crowded and I was feeling ok.
Blurry Mile 1
Better Chewy
Mile 2: 1:11:49
Mile 2 to 3 was really frustrating as the course was narrow so it was mostly walking at this point. Totally did not want to be walking so much this early as I knew I wasn’t tired yet and wanted to bank the amount of time I could.
Mile 3: 1:29:19
I did love how we went through Hollywood Studios around Echo Lake and they had Kylo Ren out on the stage in front of the Chinese Theater!
The 501st were out in the area used for Fantasmic..
Mile 3 to 4 was again slow. Some of that was from the course crowding some of that was from stopping to take horrible photos, some of it was just me.
Mile 4: 1:47:56
I remember my thought process not being the best in between these miles. The bankment on the ramp leading up to overpass above Hollywood Studios sucks, especially that early in the race. As someone with a left ankle issue and sometimes IT band problems, I knew I physically was going to be in a little bit of trouble doing that two days in a row.
Mile 5: 2:04:05
Mile 6: 2:23:07
Star Wars Rebels
Entering Animal Kingdom
Mile 7: 2:41:21
Shortly after Mile 7, there was the spot that I’m sure a lot of people ended up using to cut the course. There was a row of 10 porta potties that could easily be used by people on both sides of the course. I won’t lie. I actually had a thought about it. I was being slow. I wasn’t overall in a great place mentally and I knew I was undertrained and it was showing physically on me. This is all my fault. I never really had a thought like that before.
My ethics won out. I knew it would mean a lot less to cheat myself. I was at my own fault for why I wasn’t doing well.
Disney had to tempt me a second time about a quarter mile after this with another spot that could easily be used.
I continued on.
Mile 8: 2:58:58
Dinoland
They had more 501st out at the entrance of Animal Kingdom as we were leaving.
More 501st
More!
And More!
Mile 9: 3:17:05
Mile 10: 3:35:35
Mile 11:
At the 11 Mile Mark, the official race pacers were yelling at us saying we were only 2 minutes ahead of pacers. With as slow as I was being, I knew I was at risk. I tried to speed up but it wasn’t working.
The balloon ladies were right behind me as I turned into the Wide World of Sports Dirt Trail. It was super crowded as well as we got onto the trail so I could hear the younger balloon lady just yelling that we needed to not get in their way as they had a pace to keep. One lady who also was at the end of her stamina asked if she was safe and she replied, you can still get swept at the baseball fields. I got annoyed at this as I knew Disney wouldn’t actually sweep someone at that point as it was less than a quarter mile from the finish line. Based on my knowledge of Disney & sweep points, I figured once you go into Wide World of Sports you would be safe as there was no place for buses to sweep you. (This was true)
Balloon Ladies Past Me
Every bit of energy was gone in me but I kept just trucking forward. I wasn’t going to give up this close to the end.
Mile 12: 4:13:08
I think every bit of me was done at this point but I still kept on moving.
Mile 13: 4:32:42
Garmin Results
My worst race ever!
All The Medals
Official Results Dis_Yoda: 3:56:54 @ 18:05 pace
Official Results Mr. Dis_Yoda: 2:07:02 @ 9:42 pace
In my haze of getting my medals, I completely missed getting the water and the powerade bottles. I didn’t miss getting the Dr. Cool towel to put around my neck though. I realized this once I was at the food box/banana place and there was not any energy in me to go back and get it. I figured I would be ok.
I ate the banana while getting to the buses and then the oreos. There was a cooler of water by the buses so I stopped to drink 3 paper cups full. I found the line for my hotel and wavered in there. Then it hit me. A gurgling in my stomach, a clammy sweat all over my body and I got ill in the grass there. I apologized to those near me and they were super kind about it all. One nice lady gave me a peppermint as she said it should help me balance out and feel better if its something with my blood sugar.
I’m sure you’ve read through this and are like, is this girl crazy? Nothing really positive was said in the midst of this report...totally true.
But despite all the badness that was this race, it showed me how far I’ve come along mentally in the past year. I’ve posted before that I had a bad mental breakdown during the 2015 Light Side Half Marathon in
Disneyland that lasted from Mile 5 to Mile 12. The 3 months following that race were really rough on me as I struggled with a severe depression and it took getting professional help to pull me out of it. There were a lot of other things going on that was causing me to be pulled in that downward spiral and I think I’ve posted about it before on the boards.
Outside of my temptation to course cut (which I didn’t do), I never had truly depressive moment during this race. I may have been physically drained but I was strong enough to keep on moving, even if it was slow and it wasn’t pretty. (My photopass photos from this race will never see the light of day as they are BAD) To me that is a total win! I really liked the course in comparison to Princess as well.