I don’t quite understand why I like Disney World. I am not a massive Disney film fan, I hate all that is corporate America and I don’t even really like theme parks and yet there is something. Escapism. I like that for the duration of your stay magic really does exist and anything is possible. I know how that sounds, I know it makes no sense but there you have it. I am excited about going to Disney World and I am exctied about running at Disney World.

We’ve spent some time over the last week or so looking at places to eat and decided to book a few places for those meals where timing and type of food might be most important – the day before our run and the day of our run. As we have signed up for both the half and the full marathon to keep our options open (we are obviously aiming for the full) we  have booked dinner before both as well as somewhere to go once we’re done and have done the initial re-fuel at the race retreat.

If you are not in the slightest bit interested in Disney, stop reading now or skip right to the end. Here’s what we’ve booked with the running in mind:

Dinner the evening before the Half Marathon (which is Plan B but dinner will be lovely whatever!): Dinner at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. I think we have previously only had breakfast here but I may be wrong. The buffet makes sense because we can both choose what we want and they have plenty of runner friendly food to choose from.

The day of the half marathon (which is also the day before the marathon!) –  Breakfast – we have booked the race retreat so will see what our fuelling experiments discover. It may be that we have some peanut butter on toast or it may be that we have a banana or it may be that we take our own stuff to Florida with us. If we are not running, we’ll just have breakfast in the Wave at our hotel – should be ok not booking. Dinner is booked early at Tony’s, also in the Magic Kingdom – we both like it here and pasta seems like an excellent plan before the marathon (or just generally!). If we have run the half then we will add an early lunch in somewhere but we’ll book that nearer the time if we need to.

Marathon Day – Breakfast – we’re not messing about with trying out new stuff on the day. We have the race retreat so – as with the half, if they do stuff we have trialled and are happy with we may take advanatage of it, if not, we’ll have something with us. We will also be able to re-fuel at the race retreat immediately after the run which will be great. There’s no point in booking lunch – I might well still be running (crawling?). Instead we’d like to take advantage of the cool down party at Downtown Disney and celebrate what will hoepfully be an amazing running success. We have booked a table for early dinner at the Boathouse which looks like the perfect place for a celebration. If all goes well we should have plenty of time for a post-run bath and little snooze before heading over to the restaurant to eat. After dinner we’ll see – party or bed?

For the day after the marathon we have booked breakfast at the Crystal Palace – I like the breakfast here  – it’s a nice atmosphere and lovely building (try and hide the bacon from piglet!) and it is within crawling distance of our hotel but will make us leave the hotel and walk a little bit even if we are very sore.

Looking through the restaurants, reading the reviews, scanning menus and booking a few meals was fun but also a little scary. It is all getting to be a bit real now. This is happening. We are actually doing this. It’s more than just planning a holiday somehow. It’s hard to explain but the planning and looking what we might do and see around the marathon weekend keeps me motivated. I want the trip to be special and the running is part of that and I want to come back having successfully tackled the distance and having enjoyed it. Keeping that in mind helps with the ‘nah I’ll go tomorrow instead’ feeling.

I feel differently about the running now than I did a couple of months ago even. I don’t feel more confident exactly, I still have my demons, my ‘you silly fat cow, you can’t run’ voice and I often think it is absolutely right but I also have a slightly obsessive determination now. I’ve gone from ‘wouldn’t it be hilarious if I actually managed to do this’ to ‘ I am going to do this’. That’s not to say that the idea of me running a marathon isn’t utterly ridiculous, it is. It absolutely is – but somehow that really doesn’t matter. After all, it’s Disney. There’s nothing that can’t be achieved with a bit of fairy dust.