I'd like to say the we were woken by the alarm at 3am, but the reality of life with a 4 month old (at least, my 4 month old) is that Madeline started fussing around 3am, as if she knew she had an important role in getting us ready to run the 2013 Walt Disney World Half Marathon - feeding her before the race!
We had laid as much as possible out the night before, and my mom was waiting for a wake up call to leave her warm bed across the hall and come stay in our room, so someone would be there when the kids woke up. Joe and I quickly got dressed, I took my temperature to make sure the fever from the flu was still gone, I fed Madeline and put her back to bed, and by about 3:40 we were headed down to the front of the resort with our bagels in hand to wait for a shuttle bus to Epcot and the start of the race. I had loaded my SPI belt with tissues, stuffed the pockets in my running skirt with cough drops and took some Dayquil before we left, and made sure that I had plenty of water to stay hydrated. I was a bit nervous about the race, but had told myself that I had to at least try - I had put too much into training and come too far to just stay in bed. Plus, I knew how hard it would be to walk the parks for the rest of the week seeing everyone with their medals hanging around their necks, knowing how close I had come to earning one. So I was determined to at least go out and try.
The race program advised the runners to be on a bus by 4am, to make sure we were at the starting corrals in time. The race began at 5:30am, but they said they would close the corrals at 5am, and that there was a 20 minute walk just to get to the corrals. The Art of Animation resort had opened in 2012, after the 2012 Marathon weekend, so I'm assuming they were just guessing how many busses they would need, but fell quite short. The line of people waiting for a bus wrapped across the front of the main lobby and down the side toward the Nemo pool. Joe and I were astonished at how many people were out there, and we slowly made our way to the bus stand, a little after 4am. The cast member charged with running the bus service said that we were getting onto the 18th bus that morning, and there were still lots of people in line behind us! Crazy!
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| Testing the wings out on the bus ride. |
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| Getting off the bus at Epcot; not aware that we had approximately a mile walk to the starting line! |
Since we were running a little late, we got off the bus, headed to the porta potties, through bag check and off toward the corrals. We had registered with the charity The Magic Foundation, and thus had been assigned to corral H, the last corral, for walkers and all the charity groups.
I don't know how many people actually ended up running in the half marathon, but it was CROWDED walking to the corrals! People were packed in like sardines, walking through a service road on the back side of Epcot out to Overpass Lane. We were told there were something like 25,000 runners at the race, and I believe it!
We finally made it into our corral with plenty of time - as we were walking up, the fireworks shot off the overpass to signal the start of the race. Since we were the last corral, we had almost an hour to wait before it was our turn to run through the start. I say run loosely, because there were so many people and the road was so narrow that it was a really slow jog/fast walking pace for the first 2 miles.
By this time, my nerves were calmed but my throat was killing me. I had managed to drink two full bottles of water while waiting to start, so when Joe opted to stop at the porta potties before mile 3, I was game. I had decided that I would stop and walk through every water/powerade station, to ensure that the flu + warmer than average temps wouldn't sideline my efforts. After mile 3 the field started to open up a bit, and we opted to pass by the character photo stops to just keep moving forward. I had trained to run the race in about a 10:00-10:15 pace, but between all of the walkers going shoulder to shoulder and not feeling great, we were averaging closer to a 11:30-12:30 pace. I think we were able to pick it up a bit between miles 3-5, when we ran past the Contemporary, around the side of the Magic Kingdom, through a service entrance and onto Main Street, U.S.A!
At this point, I was feeling pretty good (all things considered), but I think a lot of that was just the excitement of making it to the halfway point and finally being in the Magic Kingdom. The course narrowed a lot, and as you can tell from the pictures, the crowds were still pretty thick. We ran down Main Street, hung a right through Tomorrowland and then Fantasyland before looping back toward the castle from the back.
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| About to run through the castle! |
After running through the castle, we opted to stop for a few Disney race photos, which we haven't bought yet or I'd post them here. We picked back up running through the rest of the park, and then just as quickly as we had entered, we were crossing the train tracks and out the other side of the park. The course continued on some narrow, single lane service roads down the side of the Magic Kingdom, toward the Grand Floridian and the neighboring golf courses. People had resigned to walking a lot then, and that's when the race became rather frustrating. I could tell I still had energy to run, but there simply wasn't space to do so without running off the roads. I popped a few Clif Bloks to keep my energy up, and we walk/jogged for the next few miles until we were on main roads again.
Before the race began (and before the flu) I had been on target to PR the race without much effort, based on my training runs. As we ran, I knew that my goal was just to finish, and I'm almost glad that I hadn't run feeling 100% because the corral placement with so many walkers and super slow joggers really was annoying. With 23,000+ participants, and many there just to finish a Disney race, there wasn't a whole lot of effort on keeping lanes open for people who wanted to run. It's a good thing the weather was so warm, or Joe may not have even worked up a sweat during the Half! :) At least we know for future races how important it is to get an earlier corral start.
By mile 8.5 we were back on wide, major roads, but my energy was really starting to drop off. Joe, trying to be supportive, commented that although I certainly wasn't doing well, he was proud that I was still out there. In his own way, he was trying acknowledge that things hadn't gone the way I had wanted, and he was trying to help me avoid the frustrating inner thoughts that come when people start congratulating you on a good run when you know inside that it wasn't. At this point, though, I was just happy that I knew I wasn't going to have to drop out of the race - I could finish it! I think I was down to walking about a half mile, then jogging a half mile, until we saw the Epcot dome and knew we were close. I tried to pick up the pace and jogged the last mile, through the Epcot parking lot, around the cheering supporters inside Epcot, and back out again, into the parking lot for the final tenth of a mile. At this point, I gave it all I had (which wasn't much), and couldn't believe how many people were still walking, even up to the finish!
Tricia, bless her, had waited in the stands to watch us finish, even though it was close to 2 hours after Scott had crossed the finish line. Thanks to the wonders of GPS tracking and a husband who was swapping texts throughout the race, she knew when to watch for us and managed to capture a few pictures of us about to cross the finish line.
As I crossed the line, arms raised above my head, tears started to well up in my eyes. I don't know if Joe noticed, but I was really a bit overcome with emotion at what I had just accomplished. No, it certainly wasn't the race I had anticipated, and I still haven't checked my "official" time because I know how disappointing it is. (For the record, it's somewhere around 2 hours 55 minutes). But at that moment, all I could think about was how proud I was for finishing. I mean, I ran a half marathon, with the flu, after marginal training, and having a baby just 4 months earlier (a baby who certainly hasn't been easy to boot!). And more importantly, when given the advice to give up and not run, I didn't.
Many people won't remember that after I had Joseph, I had signed up to run the KC Half Marathon. That race would have been 8 months after he was born, but I didn't take it seriously, didn't train, and didn't even try to run any aspect of it. I'm pretty sure I slept in that morning. Joe and I also had signed up for and paid to run the Disney Marathon a few years earlier, didn't train, and didn't run.
I have a history of telling myself I am strong enough to run these races, and then my fear of failure keeps me from even trying to start doing what will be necessary to get the job done. It's a fault I've had for a long time, and Joe has been around long enough to see it rear its head over and over. The accomplishments I'm most proud since 2003 generally have only happened because I had his encouragement and support. This race was no different. On days when I was scared to go for a long training run, because I had never run that far before, he made sure I got out the door. He made it possible for me to leave the kids behind and train as often as I did, even though he missed a few of his own training runs to make it happen. I had told him after I had Madeline that I was serious about getting back into shape by running, and that completing a half marathon was important to me. This time, he didn't let me back down and sink into my fears.
When the NP sent me home from Walgreen's with instructions not to race Friday night, Joe encouraged me not to quit, but to at least try. And although my normal pace is considerably slower than his race pace, he stayed right behind me the entire way, letting me set the pace. Anyone who has ever run with Joe knows he's a talker; I generally can't stand trying to carry on a conversation and much prefer to zone out in my music. I was concerned how things would go for this race, but I shouldn't have been (there wasn't any beerita involved!). I never turned on my music, another first, and although I didn't talk too much, I never became frustrated with him. In reality, he was the perfect running partner that day, and I know that had I not had him by my side, there's a much bigger chance that I wouldn't have that silly Donald medal today. I love you, Joe!
Because we were so slow to finish the race, we had to book it to get over to the ESPN World of Sports Complex for Joseph's fun run. My parents had fed the kids and managed to get them onto the bus and over to ESPN in plenty of time for the race, but we were cutting it close. We ended up just grabbing a cab from Epcot, and arrived in time to find Joseph running around, having lots of fun playing on the track.
We encouraged him to eat a snack while waiting for the 100m dash to start, and he, Joe and my mom danced to the warm up music the DJs were playing.
Joe lined Joseph up at the start of the 2nd heat, and the race photos show just how much fun Joseph was having. He took off, started running as fast as he could, but unfortunately drifted into another boy and ended up face planting onto the race track. By the time I spotted Joe and Joseph, Joe was carrying a hysterical little Joseph.
The poor kid definitely has some of his dad in him - he didn't want any part of the medal (or the finisher's shirt that says "I did it!") since he was so upset about falling. It took a while to get him calmed down, and since it was lunch time by this point, we just headed back to the hotel for a quick lunch and naps for everyone. Everyone except my parents, who opted to spend the day touring the Magic Kingdom! :)
I was really wiped out by mid day, and when we got back to the hotel room, I noticed that my fever was back up over 101 degrees. We ended up just taking it easy for the rest of the day, alternating naps with the kids. When Joseph woke up from his nap, he really wanted to go play at the pool. I wasn't too excited about it, but decided to take him so Joe could get a nap in and let Maddie nap.
Joseph LOVED the splashpad and the pool! He kept running around and around, never getting tired of playing in the water.
Check out this video I took - this is just a few minutes after we got down to the splash pad area. Joseph just went nuts running, and didn't even notice Nemo right above him until it was almost time to leave!
After an hour or so, he was starting to shiver as the sun was setting. We headed to the food court, where I treated him to a giant Mickey cupcake. He had lots of fun eating the Oreo cookie ears and frosting, and then stealing my mini cupcakes!
We ended up eating pizza in the room that night, and turning in early since I wasn't feeling well, the kids were tired and Joe had to be up early again the next morning for his big race - the Marathon!
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