Michigan woman runs first marathon at Disney World, ends up in first place

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The happiest place on earth was especially so earlier this month after one Grand Rapids woman won the annual Walt Disney World Marathon in Orlando.

Stephanie Muscat took home gold last week in the race, which was all the more surprising considering the fact that Muscat had never raced that far before. Before she committed to the race, she remembers having conversations with her sister saying 26.2 miles was simply too much.

“We always talked about never doing a marathon, we thought it sounded terrible, not in our wheelhouse at all,” Muscat said.

But Muscat, who grew up swimming all her life, had found a new love for running over the past few years. She even competed on Grand Valley State University’s swim team after moving to Michigan from England as a teenager. But after graduation, she decided to pick up running to stay in shape.

Muscat started with a 5K and remembers how difficult crossing the finish line was.

“I thought I was going to throw up. It was the hardest 3 miles of my entire life,” she said.

Despite the feeling of nausea, she had caught the runner’s bug and then began taking on bigger and bigger races, eventually running the 25K River Bank Run this past May. Right after the race, she called her sister again, this time with a new attitude toward marathons.

“I was like, ‘Hey, what do you think about doing a marathon?’ And she was like, ‘Absolutely not,'” Muscat said. “I was able to convince her to do it within 20 seconds and she was like, ‘OK, fine. As long as it’s a fun one.’”

That’s how the two ended up in Orlando to start the year. The Muscats had grown up going to Disney World and watching the movies. It played a very big part in Muscat’s life — and now plays an even bigger part after the race.

When the race kicked off, Muscat quickly found herself in the lead. Her parents were waiting for her at the 8-mile mark, and Muscat’s only wish was to have them see her in first place, even if it was just for a moment.

They did, and the cheers from them kept her going. A pacer told her that she had a good mile lead on the second-place runner, and before she knew it, she was turning the final corner. After two hours and 48 minutes of running, Muscat broke through tape and crossed the finish line.

“That’s really when it sunk in,” she said. “I saw the two people and they rolled out the tape that you run through and I was like, ‘No way.’ It was the best feeling in the entire world and it’s a feeling that I will never forget. I remember sprinting that last 0.1 or whatever it was, thinking, ‘I need to remember every angle part of this moment right now.’ And as soon as I crossed the finish line, it was the craziest experience I’ve ever dealt with. I had people coming to take photos and giving me my medal. I hadn’t even taken a sip of water yet and I was like, ‘What is happening? What world is this? Like this is my first-ever marathon and I won it.’”

But Muscat wasn’t done that day. After claiming her prize and soaking in the moment of doing something for the first time, she went right back to doing what she grew up enjoying.

“We went to EPCOT and we walked 13.1 miles,” she said.

Despite the marathon-and-a-half of movement that day, Muscat said it actually helped her muscles recover. She’s going to need it too, as she now prepares to run the Boston Marathon in April.

But she won’t be done with running marathons after that either. She has already been invited back to Disney World next year to defend her title.

“I love it there,” she said. “So, even if I were to come in dead last, it would be the experience of a lifetime.”