Eighty-Five Point Nine.

That's how many miles I ran this year. Oh, not on treadmills or during early morning jogs. I didn't do any of that. No warmup, no extra walking… no training at all for me. Those almost-ninety miles were the miles I covered while running all of the Disney Endurance Events… marathons, half-marathons, and all 5, 10, and 13K runs they offer (well, at least per weekend event, anyway…sometimes there were 5K runs at the same time as longer runs, and I always did the longer run instead).

It all started in January 2009, after I finished the Goofy Challenge. For the uninitiated, this is the WDW Half-Marathon on Saturday and the Full Marathon the very next day: 39.3 miles on a single weekend. I don't really train for my distance runs, and this was no exception, so I was so pleased to have finally finished this race (I washed out a year earlier) that I resolved I might as well do every race Disney offers during this year. I wasn't about to subject myself to another Goofy, so if I ever wanted a complete collection of medals, it would have to be now.

Here were the races:

That's eight races, for a total of 89.5 miles. But I have more than eight medals. I got bonus medals every so often. The Goofy Challenge gives you the normal Finisher's Medals, but then also a Goofy medal. I coveted that one, big time.

Then, if you run the DL half marathon and one of the big WDW marathons/half-marathons, then you got a Coast to Coast medal, which I find to be the prettiest of the bunch in 2009.

Lastly, the three fall Endurance events gave you a bonus medal if you did any two of the three. I didn't ask if I was qualified for a special triple whammy medal for doing all three. For that matter, I should ask someone at Disney if I get a special medal for doing all their races in a single year!

There are probably others like me who did all the races. After all, each event draws a few thousand people. But I'm not sure how many others did it with no training or special exercising. I don't avoid training as a point of pride; I'm just lazy (well, I tell myself I'm busy raising two kids, maintaining a happy marriage, keeping a job, visiting theme parks on weekends, writing Disney blogs and books, and cooking/cleaning… but the reality is, I'm just lazy).

The lack of training explains why I just kind of poke along at these runs. My usual gait is about 5 MPH, or 12-minute miles. Disney usually expects you to maintain 16-minute miles or better (they let you go at 18-minute miles for the Tower of Terror run for some reason). So the pacing requirements means that an out of shape runner like me could go at jogging speed (12-minute miles) for half the race, then at walking speed (20-minute miles, or 3 MPH as you see on the treadmill) for the second half of the race, neatly averaging out to the required minimum pace set out by Disney. Thus, it's possible to think of each race as really only "half" a race. The Princess Half Marathon really means just 7 miles of jogging -- I can do the rest at a walk, if I wanted to, and still make Disney's pacing requirements.

Sometimes I did that, but often I was seized by the moment and just kept on running. This happened at the Goofy Challenge. I tried to "just walk" the second half of the Saturday event, knowing I'd have a full 26.2 miles the next day, but I couldn't bring myself to saunter that long, and kept jogging every so often. On the full marathon, I managed to go a complete 20 miles at my jogging pace, which was astounding to me considering I had just done 13 miles the day before, and I hadn't done a lick of practicing/training in the months prior.

All of the above is my apology for the embarrassing results of my official times, which anybody can look up online:

That's a grand total of 1115 minutes for my 85.9 miles, or 12.98 minutes per mile. Yatta! I came in under 13-minutes per mile for the whole-year average!! Barely, but who's counting significant digits when you're cavorting around the room adorning with 11 medals jangling and weighing you down? For the record, by the way, one does indeed feel like Mr. T when that many finisher's medals are worn at once.

And how much did all of this cost? I didn't have to stay in hotels or fly anywhere (except Anaheim, but for simplicity's sake let's leave that calculation aside), so we'll look only at registration costs:

I'll have to pay some serious money to professional frame my medals all together, too, but let's leave that aside for now. $760 for 85.9 miles is the equivalent to $8.85 paid for each and every mile. Or do the math for my eleven medals: that's $69.09 per medal. Or a different calculation; 1115 minutes running factored into my $760 means I paid the equivalent of 68 cents per minute for the privilege of running.

It *WAS* a privilege, though. When else am I going to be able to do all these runs in one year? I could have done it backward, at twice the pace, when I was 18 years old, but I'm about to turn forty and, as the saying goes, I'm not getting any younger.

I was doubly motivated to finish these races because I'd heard some were due to be retired: the Tower of Terror 13K and the Race for the Taste 10K. It turned out later that the Race for the Taste is morphing into a complete Half Marathon in 2010 (Disney Wine and Dine) - one assumes that Disney harvests more interest from folks who would have to fly in when the race is longer and more significant.

The other upcoming change is that the Expedition Everest Challenge will be moving to June of next year, which is Madness with a capital "M." Orlando is barely habitable in the deep summer months, and while June is sometimes tolerable, sometimes it's not. I'd rather see races in the middle of winter. Nothing in November? December?

But no more traditional runs for me next year. I'm looking forward to doing "different" things next time around. At the Everest day, I'll watch and take photos as my seven year old runs the 100-yard sprint (for a plastic medal, natch). Maybe I'll do fun runs like the 5K runs that will come with the Marathon weekend or Princess weekend.

And one thing I've already signed up to do is be a Volunteer at the Marathon Weekend, I hope to be placed in the Finisher's area somewhere. This should be great fun to have a new perspective on the event.

And then there are the "other" events Disney offers. I didn't touch the Muddy Buddy race, which is a two-person race through mud (seriously), where one of you rides a bike and the other runs, and then at predetermined waypoints, the one in front (with the bike) drops off the bike and starts running, and then the trailing runner picks up the bike and keeps going. This leapfrogging continues for a while, but not having done the race, I can't comment on if it's any fun.

And of course, there is a triathlon here on property, but it's not a Disney event per se. The Ironman 70.3 Florida takes place May 16, 2010. I grew up swimming and could handle one loop around Bay Lake (is that water habitable??) and the 13 mile run is no biggie, but 56 miles on a bike with an average speed of 14 MPH… is that fast or slow? I don't have a bike, apart from a $100 junker I bought for commuting the three miles to work in the non-summer months. Just doin' my part for the environment. Plus the IronMan website seems to imply I'd have to qualify for this race, and it's not obvious what to do or where to click to find out more info. I think they wouldn't want me, since I don't train and have bad finishing times on my marathons. All of the above means I'll probably have to take a pass on the triathlon.

I told myself at the start of the year that I needed to do this before I became too old. I do intend to slow down quite a bit now. I may not step out of the athletic world entirely, but it's time to slow down and "smell the roses." Here's hoping that said sniffing occurs as I pass them by on a trot during those shorter 5K runs, this time with my family beside me.

Readers are invited to join Kevin on Facebook, where he offers regular "Where in Walt Disney World" photo quizzes.

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above titles, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.