I tried to run walk a marathon

Once a year there's an event called the Dopey Challenge and what it is, is four races over the course of four days. The first day is a 5k, second day is a 10k, third day is a half marathon, and the fourth day is a full marathon. And what makes this marathon magical, or the entire experience magical, is the fact that it happens at Disney World. I did this race last year and it's the second most fun that I've had running a marathon marathon, New York marathon being number one. And this year, for some reason, I'm going to try to PR. Which is not a good idea. But I only have three rules. The first rule is that I have to try to get this PR using the run-walk method. I personally have never done that method, or even tried it on purpose, that is. Currently my PR is 3 hours and 51 minutes. So to get past that I'd have to do an 8.5 minute per mile pace for four minutes, and then take 30 seconds and walk, and then repeat that throughout the process and it should be around 3 hours and 45 minutes or so. Personally, I'm not in run-walk shape. I'm barely even in marathon shape, let alone running three days before a marathon type of shape. Luckily though, there are pacers because without them your boy is probably going to be struggling. I mean, I'm going to be struggling regardless. Rule number two is I must watch one Thor movie each night. I haven't seen all the Thor movies, but I've seen all the other Marvel stuff. But I realized I haven't seen all of them. And I also just needed a movie series that only had four movies in it. And this was just the only one that I could easily have access to. And rule number three, the very last rule, is to just have fun because it's Disney and they will have characters posted up throughout the races. And so if all else fails, and I just feel like I'm losing it, I'm just going to just bank on having fun. I'm going to have fun while I'm doing it regardless, but I'm just, you know what I'm talking about. Now in case you're wondering about logistics, if you stay at a Disney resort, all the transportation is provided. You just hop on a bus. It'll take you to Epcot, which is where all the races start. And then you got to walk a little bit and then you'll get there. Thankfully, compared to last year when I did this, it's not as cold. It's like a smooth 60 degrees. Personally, I'm staying at Pop Century, which I'm surprised I got because typically it's the cheaper one out of the resorts, but I booked my hotel so late and I somehow got a room. So that's where I am. In total, you do about a mile's worth of walking when you get to the starting area and to your corral and all that stuff. As far as my time goes for the other races, no matter if you stop to use the bathroom, stop to take character pictures, the chip time doesn't stop. It keeps going. My 5K time was 29 minutes and 36 seconds. My 10K time was an hour and nine minutes and 28 seconds. And my half marathon was two hours, 10 minutes and three seconds. Now with this, I was keeping true to my second rule. I was watching the Thor movies. Somehow I didn't get a clip of me watching Ragnarok. But when I started the Dark World, it was already 10 o'clock. So naturally, I fell asleep during that and had to double up and watch that and start Love and Thunder the next day. Overall, I felt fine and then it was time for the marathon. I can't find the pace group, so I'm just on my own. That should have been my first sign that things weren't going to plan because I also didn't have any kind of run-walk method set up on my watch, so I was just running continuously this entire time. This is arguably the best part of the entire race. Now, I don't know if I was too hyped in that moment going down Main Street, but soon after that, still running through Magic Kingdom, I started feeling a bunch of pain in both of my knees. However, my thought process was, you know, I've done something like this before, I've dealt with this, so just make it to halfway and assess how you are from there. I ended up walking right after I saw that sign and I didn't feel ashamed or defeated or anything. I just knew my body needed some rest. And of course, right after this, I saw the pace group, at least what I thought was a 3.45 pace group, so I couldn't tell if I was actually catching up to them because they were still about half a mile ahead of me. So, I actually began my own run-walk method. I just ran for four minutes, however fast I could go, and then I walked for a minute and I also just knew that somehow the four-hour group was still behind me, or at least I thought that was actually the 4.15 group, but I just didn't know it at the time. At the end of the day, there's nothing like crossing that finish line. And for the rest of the race, and really the entire weekend, I stayed true to my number one personal rule, and that's just to have fun. So, I didn't PR or beat my own personal time, which I low-key kind of expected, to be honest, because of three races the day before a marathon, but I still had fun. My time was better than last year's time by 40 minutes, and this time included stopping for pictures with characters, and it was the same time that I had at the New York City Marathon, which says something. Now, I just wonder what my time would be at the Disney Marathon if I didn't stop for pictures or even have those races beforehand. Something to think about. But, the main thing that I learned was I'm not going to underestimate the run-walk method anymore, because it honestly helped me not hit that wall that people typically hit during a marathon. The pain in my knees started to go away, or at least I was not aware of it as much, and so it was kind of the classic, don't knock it until you try it. Now, granted, there could be a lot of other factors that could have aided me not hitting the wall. I did take a different gel, same brand, but a different type of gel that had caffeine in it, and I usually don't do that, so maybe that had some kind of contribution to me not hitting the wall. I don't know. I think the biggest thing is people make these challenges videos, these personal challenges, and even when you don't succeed at your goal that you have, I'm glad that I even tried or even just made something out of it, made a little way to motivate myself through this marathon, for example. Oh, and by the way, I finished Thor Love and Thunder at the airport, because I only had like 90 minutes after the marathon was over to get back to my hotel room, change, shower, pack, and check out all before, so I had to finish that at the airport, but now it's just kind of making me want to go back and watch all the Marvel movies, if I'm being honest.