Reformed couch potato conquers Disney's Dopey Challenge

For four days straight in early January, Kathleen Benson woke at 2:30 a.m., laced up her running shoes and prepared to race through Walt Disney World.

By the end of the four days, the manager of the Schaumburg Park District's Bock Neighborhood Center had completed her first marathon and earned six medals.

Benson, an Elgin resident, was among 6,200 competitive runners to complete the Dopey Challenge, a series of four races at Disney World that covered a total of 46.8 miles.

Benson, who joined the Schaumburg Park District staff in July 2014, said she is a reformed couch potato who started running in February 2013 at the suggestion of her sister, Lauren, an avid runner.

"She wanted to do an 8K in St. Louis, where she lives," Benson said.

Benson found a training regimen on the web and began following it. After she completed the 8K, running-enthusiast friends encouraged her to step it up to 10 miles. When that goal was reached, another goal came into focus.

"It's only 3.1 miles more to do the half marathon," she said.

The Dopey Challenge, named for one of the seven dwarfs in the story of Snow White, is a test of endurance and strategy.

In its second year, the event begins with a 5K. The second day, runners go for a 10K race. On the third day, competitors chase after a half marathon. And on the fourth day, for anyone still game, runners do a marathon.

This year, Benson said, 7,000 runners started the challenge; 6,200 finished.

Each day of the challenge, Benson said she would travel to Epcot Center, where each race began at 5:30 a.m., before the park opened to the public. The courses took runners through Disney World's theme parks.

The weather was cool for Florida. While Chicago was in an arctic deep freeze, Orlando was colder than normal, with temperatures in the 30s on the first day and 40s for the second and third days. Mercifully, on the day of the marathon, the mercury rose to the 50s, providing optimal running conditions.

Benson began her Dopey Challenge training routine in July. It included running four miles, three or four days per week, and running anywhere between six and 20 miles on a weekend day.

She also did two mini-simulations of the Dopey Challenge before attempting the actual event: a four-mile run on day one, a five-mile run on day two, a 10-mile run on day three, capped with a 20-mile run on day four.

Her preparation paid off.

"Had I not done all the work, I wouldn't be able to (finish the challenge)," Benson said.

She completed the marathon in 5 hours and 12 minutes, and the half-marathon in 2 hours and 57 minutes.

For the first two races, Benson chose a more leisurely pace, even stopping to have her picture taken with costumed Disney characters. The 5K took her about 55 minutes - a good 20 of which were spent in line, waiting for her character photo shoot - and her 10K time was 1 hour and 26 minutes, again much of it standing still in line.

The idea behind taking it relatively easy during the preliminary races was to save her strength for the big race.

"You know that the marathon is the big one and it's the last day," she said. "You have to conserve energy."

Benson said she'd heard many stories about marathon runners hitting "the wall," the point in the race where the body resists expending any more energy.

"Usually in a marathon you hit the wall at 20 miles," she said. "I hit the wall at about 22 miles."

Even so, she kept going, finishing out the remaining 4.2 miles to cross the finish line. Near the end of the race, Benson interspersed two minutes of walking with three minutes of running, but said, "I never stopped."

Benson said she got into running partially to improve her health and appearance.

"I lost 30 pounds just by running," she said. "I definitely wanted to get in better shape."

Two days after she returned to Schaumburg, Benson was back at it, readying for the next challenge and completing a three-mile training run. Besides running about three times a week, she cross-trains with bicycle riding, elliptical machines and yoga.

One of her long-term goals is to complete a half-marathon in each of the 50 states. With the recent addition of Florida, she's competed in 10 states so far.

She's also on the lookout for other running challenges.

"I am really motivated to do races by how great the medal is," she joked, her six Dopey Challenge awards draped around her neck. "It's all about the bling."