‘People were dropping like flies’
Stranger’s kindness helped one runner get through Disney’s hottest marathon on record
In all 26 years of the Walt Disney Marathon, there has never been a race as hot as this year.
Even on a cool day, a marathon is an unforgivable distance, a 26.2-mile test for what the human body can endure. But on Jan. 12, the heat index climbed to 87-degrees by noon, making the elements concerning enough for Disney to take the unprecedented step of shortening the course by nearly two miles for the slower runners who hadn’t finished yet.
It’s hard to pinpoint an explanation for why one moment in time is so hot, but “it’s all consistent with climate change” as the past 10 years brought the highest temperatures ever recorded in Florida and around the world, said Jayantha Obeysekera, a research professor at Florida International
University who is the director of the Sea Level Solutions Center.
For runDisney, the division of the theme park company that puts on races, the heat brought a new obstacle to what’s evolved into a big business for The Mouse. Some paid $590 to run all four races that weekend, the 5K, 10K, half and full marathons. The January event is the company’s signature race, but it puts on smaller runs throughout the year.
James Cameron, a 45-year-old runner from Long Island, New York, saw troubling signs this year’s Disney Marathon was different, images that still haunted him weeks later.
Every 100 yards or so, another person was down, lying on the side of the road. One woman slowed to a walk before collaps