Dopey/goofy challenge :P

vmclach

Hi everyone! I just signed up for the goody challenge which is a half marathon on Saturday 1/10 then a full marathon the next day 1/11. I wanted to do dopey but they were sold out :-( anywho.. What are your thoughts on races like this? I know I can finish this sort of endeavor BUT realistically what pace would I be running these at? Should I run/walk one of them? Lol.. What would you do?! I feel like you'd train for it similar to a 50k...

I'd really like to give it a go and actually "try"/"race" [as much as you could race] both races lol. Obviously id stop to take pictures if I wanted or "enjoy" myself.

I know hal hid. Has a plan out there. More wondering if it's possible to really "race" both.. By race I mean, I have a 1:33 half PR so id run like 1:50 & a 3:27 full PR so like a 3:50? I've done a 50k ~9:10 pace before with 2k elevation.

I don't know maybe I'll end up walking a lot more of both than I'm anticipating but I'm excited

jturnerx

Happy to have done it once a few years ago. Never want to do it again. You spend very little time in the actual parks and way too much time on access roads next to freeways, often very canted roads at that. Maybe the course has changed since but that was my experience. How hard you want to run it depends on how quickly you can recover from that sort of road abuse.

I think your estimates of 20-30 minutes slower than PR effort seem reasonable. See how you feel after the half. Interestingly the half felt more brutal to me than the full. I think the half had us running on a lot more canted roads and that did a number on my legs. The full seemed to be on more level roads or at least spread the canted sections out more so you could recover between them.

If you have been training for ultras already Goofy will be a piece of cake if you aren't trying to PR at each event. I think it's being on the road that much rather than the distance that can be challenging.

kristinegift

I think you'd have to take one of them fairly easy, though you can still have challenging goals in mind. My dad did the Goofy in 2009; he ran the half with me in 2:10-2:15, and then he ran the marathon and his own speed the next day (around 3:50-4:00, but I'm not totally sure). We had trained this way for months beforehand; he'd run a long run with me on Saturday and then run double on Sunday.

It's a crazy awesome race though and a huge undertaking training-wise! Good luck!

sinister2014

they have cut the numbers down at disney events in the last year to try to alleviate the congestion on the course. i ran the 1/2 marathon in 2013 and it was a mad house. if you're in the A or B corral you may be able to get out ahead of the mess, but if you're in one of the further back corrals you're going to be navigating through ALOT of walkers.

i was surprised at the number of goofy entrants that were 'running' the marathon in 6 1/2+ hours. i thought this was a challenge i wanted to take on one day, but if you want to run a race through parts of the park (which is kinda cool) pick the half or the full and spend the other day hanging out in the park. i think running just one of the races gives you general idea of what the event is all about.

if you're doing it just for the running challenge i'd pick an ultra somewhere cool.

vmclach

they have cut the numbers down at disney events in the last year to try to alleviate the congestion on the course. i ran the 1/2 marathon in 2013 and it was a mad house. if you're in the A or B corral you may be able to get out ahead of the mess, but if you're in one of the further back corrals you're going to be navigating through ALOT of walkers.

i was surprised at the number of goofy entrants that were 'running' the marathon in 6 1/2+ hours. i thought this was a challenge i wanted to take on one day, but if you want to run a race through parts of the park (which is kinda cool) pick the half or the full and spend the other day hanging out in the park. i think running just one of the races gives you general idea of what the event is all about.

if you're doing it just for the running challenge i'd pick an ultra somewhere cool.

Thanks for the tips! It's for both the challenge & the location. We put down 3:30 for our marathon time & have confirmation of times, but yes that's always a problem at the big races. It would be nice to be in the fast corral for the half as well.

I am still trying to nail down my next ultra. I-unlike most- prefer roads/flat surfaces. So I'm
Rather picky :P any suggestions?

sinister2014

with a 3:30 marathon time i'm guessing you will be in the A corral for sure. i had a 2:08 half marathon time and was put in corral B for the half, but because my friend didn't put a time in she got bumped back to the E corral so that's where we had to start.

road ultras? comrades? LOL. all the ultras around here are on trails or in the mountains.

jturnerx

I am still trying to nail down my next ultra. I-unlike most- prefer roads/flat surfaces. So I'm
Rather picky :P any suggestions?

You might want to consider doing a timed event. The usual flavors are 6 hour, 12 hour and 24 hour. I just did a 6 hour (1st AG) this past weekend and a 24 hour (2nd AG) 3 weeks ago. Timed events that I know of in my area are typically on short, flat (or rolling) courses since the emphasis for most tends to be to run as many miles as you can in the time allotted. The overall winner of the 24 hour was a woman who did 131 miles!

A flat 50k around here has 4,000 feet of gain, they typically push the 6,000-7,000 feet range. 50 milers in the 10,000 feet range. I like both the timed events and the more traditional hilly courses.

vmclach

I've heard a lot of people tell me that the times events would be good for me.

There are road ultras but they are few & far!!! I've only come across maybe 4 that I can recall.. Chicago has a few. A 50 mile road & 2 road 50k... The one in Texas mad cow or something is a road 50k.. Even heard of a road 100 miler out east.. Around here, we don't have many flat ultras :-( marathons are just as fun in my book plenty of road marathons to do :P

Justkeepswimmin

Happy to have done it once a few years ago. Never want to do it again. You spend very little time in the actual parks and way too much time on access roads next to freeways, often very canted roads at that. Maybe the course has changed since but that was my experience. How hard you want to run it depends on how quickly you can recover from that sort of road abuse.

I think your estimates of 20-30 minutes slower than PR effort seem reasonable. See how you feel after the half. Interestingly the half felt more brutal to me than the full. I think the half had us running on a lot more canted roads and that did a number on my legs. The full seemed to be on more level roads or at least spread the canted sections out more so you could recover between them.

If you have been training for ultras already Goofy will be a piece of cake if you aren't trying to PR at each event. I think it's being on the road that much rather than the distance that can be challenging.

Super happy to read this - I want to do goofy in 2016 - and I did Princess this past February and appreciate the new word "canted" because I knew WHY the course annoyed the hell out of me - did not know there was a word for it. It is also helpful to know that at least in the past the full was NOT on those same awful "canted" sections or at least they were "more spread out".

greypilgrimess

I'll see you there, I'm doing the full on the Sunday!

I've been reading a lot on the Disney marathon weekend, it appears since this year they more than doubled the number of corrals, so if you're in B rather than A or something don't panic, I think it goes to something like K.

The average pace of runners on the Disney marathon seems to be a lot slower than that of many other marathons (The median time is roughly 5:15) so even if you weren't running your usual pace you would likely be ahead of the majority of the crowd. This might mean shorter photo lines too! But you'd probably miss the Expedition Everest ride since I don't think it would be open yet.

Disney seems like a race to enjoy rather than run for time, and many people who have done it suggest this, but if you train right you can probably do both. It would make sense to me to run a long-ish run once a week, with a double the day after, to get you used to the style of the event.

Canted - what does this word mean? I've not come across it before.

sinister2014

Happy to have done it once a few years ago. Never want to do it again. You spend very little time in the actual parks and way too much time on access roads next to freeways, often very canted roads at that. Maybe the course has changed since but that was my experience. How hard you want to run it depends on how quickly you can recover from that sort of road abuse.

I think your estimates of 20-30 minutes slower than PR effort seem reasonable. See how you feel after the half. Interestingly the half felt more brutal to me than the full. I think the half had us running on a lot more canted roads and that did a number on my legs. The full seemed to be on more level roads or at least spread the canted sections out more so you could recover between them.

If you have been training for ultras already Goofy will be a piece of cake if you aren't trying to PR at each event. I think it's being on the road that much rather than the distance that can be challenging.

Super happy to read this - I want to do goofy in 2016 - and I did Princess this past February and appreciate the new word "canted" because I knew WHY the course annoyed the hell out of me - did not know there was a word for it. It is also helpful to know that at least in the past the full was NOT on those same awful "canted" sections or at least they were "more spread out".

for what it's worth the first 9 miles of the full and the half are the exact same course

jturnerx

Canted - what does this word mean? I've not come across it before.

Really? For instance: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canted

Adjective
canted

1. Having angles.
a-six canted bolt head
a canted window

2. Inclined at an angle to something else; sloping.

wombat94

Not that "canted" is incorrect, but the curvature of a road surface is referred to technically as its camber


camber (ˈkæmbə)

— n
1. a slight upward curve to the centre of the surface of a road, ship's deck, etc
2. another name for bank
3. an outward inclination of the front wheels of a road vehicle so that they are slightly closer together at the bottom than at the top
4. Also called: hog a small arching curve of a beam or girder provided to lessen deflection and improve appearance
5. aerofoil curvature expressed by the ratio of the maximum height of the aerofoil mean line to its chord

— vb
6. to form or be formed with a surface that curves upwards to its centre

kristinegift

ALSO: In case in matters, mentally, for your time goal, Disney is super, super flat. I'm from Iowa, and I even thought it was ridiculously flat. The biggest hills are the ramps onto overpasses when you run on the highway between parks. So you've got that going in your favor on race day when you're running a marathon on tired legs!

vmclach

ALSO: In case in matters, mentally, for your time goal, Disney is super, super flat. I'm from Iowa, and I even thought it was ridiculously flat. The biggest hills are the ramps onto overpasses when you run on the highway between parks. So you've got that going in your favor on race day when you're running a marathon on tired legs!

You are?!??!? ;-) I'm constantly going down to Iowa for races lol! Just did the university of okoboji marathon this morning actually!! Glad to hear it's flat!!

kristinegift

ALSO: In case in matters, mentally, for your time goal, Disney is super, super flat. I'm from Iowa, and I even thought it was ridiculously flat. The biggest hills are the ramps onto overpasses when you run on the highway between parks. So you've got that going in your favor on race day when you're running a marathon on tired legs!

You are?!??!? ;-) I'm constantly going down to Iowa for races lol! Just did the university of okoboji marathon this morning actually!! Glad to hear it's flat!!

Nice! I didn't even know there was a marathon there! But yes. Disney = flat as a pancake. It's lovely for racing!