January 11th, 2015 Full Marathon day—GOOFY!!
That alarm is harsh at 3:00 I gotta tell you.
We agreed to meet our co-worker at our room at 3:20. I opened the door to look down the hall towards their room and WHOOSH! All this confetti and streamers and such were on our door! Someone had decorated our room. It was very nice and thoughtful. Our co-worker works in Marketing and knew where our room was so I assumed it was her. When she and her husband showed up at 3:20 I laughed and made a comment about it and told them how we were going to put something on their door but forgot. I gave the decoration to her right then—how lame huh? But we all chuckled and headed toward the monorail. One of the good things about staying on the monorail for a race is that you get there in no time! It was really pretty sweet!
We met up with cccmouse again and RDeacon made it this time too! We texted our running buddies and co-workers and cooked up a plan to get all of us into the same corral, so we could run together for awhile. I don’t want to bring you into our web of mischief, but just know that it worked fine and all of us started together (except cccmouse—he is innocent in this and he was wayyy in front of us anyway. I don’t want his good name ruined
).
Here is a pic of us in the corral. In that pic we have: Two first time marathoners, three Goofys and one Dopey—lol Lots of nerves!
Sorry, but I am not much on pictures when running—it’s all I can do just to finish! Anyway…on with the show!
Our (Mary and I) plan was to run with the rabbits (our running buddies) for as long as we could and then stick with RDeacon as long as he could. RDeacon is FAST but he hadn’t trained for this distance so he was going to take it easy and hang with us slow pokes.
Fireworks and we’re off! We started about 6:15. It was cold but better than the weather from the half. I was wearing the same throwaway fleece from yesterday.
The first few miles are always so nice and easy—you get into your groove, the crowd thins out a little bit, it’s still very cool (no sun) and you feel good!
Through the MK parking lot toll booth and still feeling good. There are always HS bands along here playing songs—it’s really cool that those kids get out of bed for such things. I hope they get a free park admission or something
Through the TTC—still feeling good. I finally ditched my fleece. Everyone is still together, running as a pack.
Around the Contempo and into the MK—the Christmas tree is still up and Christmas music is playing. If that doesn’t put a spring in your step, just hang a right and BAM there’s the Castle. This will always be a “wow” moment for me. I have run up Main St (in races) half a dozen times and it still takes my breath away.
We stopped in MK to pee—we thought no one would be using the bathrooms on the “shortcut” between Frontierland and Adventureland—we were wrong. But it was a nice break.
Out of the MK and down along the golf course on the “backside” of MK… There are always lots of cheering people back here—it really helps.
Keep going and the road widens—it’s always a good feeling. You can spread out and run your race. Somewhere in here we lost RDeacon. He got hung up in traffic and was a little behind us. We thought we saw him a few feet behind us, but there were lots of people with his colored shirt on. We hoped he was OK. I knew he was undertrained and I was worried about him finishing.
Into the speedway—check out all the fancy cars. It was right about here that I started thinking I needed to slow down. I was getting tired and that concerned me because it was way too early. (Mile 8 or so.) I was just about to say something and Mary said, “I need to slow down—let these rabbits go.” Whew! Was that ever a relief. So off they went and Mary and I slowed down and settled into the long 18 miles to go.
Mile 10, 11 and 12 are awful boring—the backside of DAK. You run past a stinky water treatment plant and there really aren’t many cheerers. But then slowly you get into DAK and it feels a little better.
My feet were really hurting by this point. I have no idea why—we were only at mile 12 and we had run much farther than this. It was concerning.
My brother was texting us asking how it was going etc. They were tracking us on the website with texts. We just crossed the 12 mile marker and he said “Are you halfway yet?” My quick reply was “12 This sucks.”
Into DAK proper and back through Asia… At one point around mile 12.5 there is a hard left hand turn and just dumb luck I was looking right and said to myself, “Man that guy looks like my Brother…” Then I looked right and thought, “That looks like his wife…” lol Then it took about half a second and my brain finally told me—IT IS YOUR BROTHER DUMMY!!!
Those sneaky trickers had been putting us on the whole time! My Nephews had signs for us—it was really really cool and totally a shock. We stopped for about 30 seconds and talked with them.
Later on we found out that they originally were not coming, but Mary’s brother convinced them to come and decided to play it up as a surprise. They were the ones who decorated our room! I asked how they found out what room we were in and they said Mary’s brother told them—lol wow! They were texting me the night before and asked if we were headed to bed soon, etc. It was a great trick and it was well played. Other than the finish line, it was probably the highlight of the race for me.
And now, on with the countdown…
Well, with that little diversion we were feeling fresh and Mary says, “Let’s ride Everest!” I looked and she was serious—I felt like I could use the break, so we did! We got in the single rider line—we were in different trains. But it was fun and I am glad we did it. Plus the speed of the coaster cooled me down a little.
We got back on the course and headed to the halfway point. There it was: 13.1. It was all downhill from here! Yeah right. About mile 14.5 you get out onto the dreaded Osceola Parkway. Nothing but two miles and lots of runners. No shade—no nothing.
Right around here I had real doubts about finishing this race. We walked a little here--I didn’t want to, but I was so sore and feeling like crud. We took a Gu and ate some pretzels. Some woman had gummi worms and I ate a few. Another guy had flat Coke and Mary drank one and said it was the best Coke she ever had.
15, 16—into WWoS. Just as we made the turn into WWoS, it started raining. Oh joy… It cooled us off and it wasn’t a real heavy rain so it could have been worse, but it wasn’t what I had in mind for a race. Near the exit of WWoS, we saw one of our training buddies! She looked disoriented and I asked her if she was OK, she was fine she was just waiting for our other running pal (the one who gave us the ride in the town car). We walked for a spell and chatted with them until Mary announced, “OK time to run.” Off we went into the Braves Ball Field. Mary was proud to say that she indeed felt like crap. Lol We both did.
Exiting WWoS and onto DHS! About mile 21 I started feeling “funky.” My head was swimmy and I was almost ready to pack it in, so I ate some salt packets and a Gu. I even told Mary that if I didn’t make it to go on without me… We had just run a bad hill and with everything else I just got out of whack. She suggested we walk for just a little bit. I believe I had some Powerade and I was feeling better, but not great.
As you get into DHS, there are lots of cheering people so that always helps with distracting you from running 26.2 miles. (Why did I do this again?) DHS is a blur to me until the exit when I ate some more pretzels. (No rides to do in there! Lol)
You exit there and take the 10 mile pathway over to the Epcot Resorts (Kidding—it’s actually only about a mile or so). It started raining again and a little harder—we were nice and wet when we came up on the Boardwalk. In fact, running down the other side of the boat bridge, I told Mary to slow up and don’t slip—it would suck to pull a hammy at mile 24!
By now the doubts had passed—I still felt like crap and my feet were absolutely screaming, but I knew I would finish. Even if it was an awful time—sometimes the times just don’t matter.
I still hadn’t heard from RDeacon, or anyone else for that matter. I was a little concerned about that, but I also still had 2.2 miles to go. I asked Mary if she wanted to just run it out and she said no---nice and easy she replied.
Into Epcot…
Oh so close, but oh so far away. We kept talking to each other—“nice and easy” “one step in front of the other” “almost there”
At mile 26 they have a Gospel Choir, but in years past we are so slow that they just have a recording on—lol Not this year! They were actually singing and it sounded like Angels!
Coming out of Epcot –almost there. No NaCler to cheer us on this time—he has been a staple at our races (either with us or cheering for us) and I missed him out there.
I could see the finish and did it look terrific! I wanted to hug Mickey, but just high fived him. I heard my name a looked into the stands—it was my Brother and his family cheering us on. He took a few pics…In the first one we are just above the security person with the yellow jacket on.
Cross the line and hallelujah it’s over. I was never so glad to be done…ever.
I have still been unable to pinpoint it, but both Mary and I agree that it was the worst race ever. BUT, even with all that and stopping to ride Everest, we only finished three minutes slower than last year. We trained right, we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary...it just sucked. Sometimes you just have a bad run—that’s all there is to it.
For me personally, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. Not just a race, the hardest single THING. Three and done (let’s hope lol)!!
So after we got our Medals and some food in us, we came around to see my Brother and Mary’s Brother had shown up to see us! It was cool. I was leaning against a fence when he rolled up and he told me later that I didn’t even look like I ran……until I started walking. Hahah!
I texted Deacon and he said he was moving along, albeit slowly. I think he was at mile 23 by now. He also said that he was miserable and had blisters. But he was moving! He told me that NaCler asked him at mile 18 if he was going to do it again next year—ha! We decided that he was close enough that we would wait for him and cheer him on.
We waited and I texted him to smile when he got here because I was taking his pic. He told me that he had nothing left! And here he came!!!
He finished his first full marathon! And so did all the others that we ran with. One of them was only a few minutes ahead of Mary and I.
I just wanted a beer. And pizza at Via Napoli. So that’s what we did. My brother and his crew met us there—it was our celebratory pizza
We milled around Epcot a little and then went back to the Contemporary for our last night there. We packed up and fell asleep in no time.
Tomorrow we moved to the timeshare with my brother and Mary’s brother’s family.