(This is long ... don't feel you have to read it)
What a fun week! Not quite sure where to begin but I had so much fun seeing new and old WISHers. I got to have a dinner and a breakfast with Kim and Mike and dinner with Debra (deekaypee) and DOOD from Team 'Ohana. I stayed at the Poly and got an upgrade to CL which was awesome! It's nice being able to pop back into the lounge for a quick breakfast or at the end of the day for a drink and a quick bite. The lounge staff also remembered me from last January and made sure I had lots of food for my Sunday breakfast.
I was late for the WISH meet on Friday
I couldn't believe that I ran into traffic on land and sea! I came out of my room and saw a boat at the dock. I ran for it and it got to MK pretty quickly. The problem was it had to queue with other boats that were waiting to dock and I ended up stuck on the Seven Seas Lagoon for about 15 minutes. I caught the Pop bus as soon as it arrived but as we turned out of MK, we hit a huge backlog of cars near the Richard Petty track/Hess gas station. We didn't move for about 10 minutes. I couldn't see a reason for the traffic except for the number cars on the road. I thought I was okay until the bus turned onto Osceola Parkway and then the bus was stuck in another jam of cars - I'm assuming they were headed to WWoS. So what was a 15 minute trip, turned into an hour and I missed the group photo. I did get a picture with Hakuna Matada minus Dave and Sally. I stuck around and had dinner with Mike, Liz, Robert, Mary and her DH. Next time I'll have to budget more travel time or just rent a car. I did run into Dave and Sally in AK on Tuesday during lunch! Forgot to get a photo though
Because it was my first full, I didn't feel comfortable scream teaming on Saturday morning. Sorry guys - I wanted to make sure I was well rested for Sunday. I knew if I got up early Saturday, I'd want to take a nap and then I wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Anyway, I headed back to the expo to get a few more pictures and to get my ankles taped up at the KT booth. I ended up having to buy some tape because I wanted both ankles taped. Btw
did anyone buying the tape notice the price on the box? The special was 1 roll for $15 or 2 rolls for $20. The price on the box was $12.99. Good deal if you're getting two rolls ... but for one...
Morning of the race, I was up at about 2:45AM. I started eating and hydrating but felt pretty nervous so I had a hard time eating. The nice thing about staying at the Poly was that I could leave later. I was on the monorail by 4:15AM and at Epcot by 4:30AM. I had forgotten how long the walk was from the start area to the corrals. I was in D which seemed to be about in the middle. I thought I'd better make another stop at the porta-potties before queueing up. The lines near the start were incredibly long. I decided to be very un-lady like and use the bushes
I found another female runner who didn't want to wait in line either so we both acted as lookouts for each other.
I got to D and found Tandy (rubato) whom I was running with. She was doing the Goofy but this was her first full also. We decided to do run/walk intervals of 10/1. We both had tendinitis and so were just looking to finish.
I have to say, I love how Disney does fireworks and gives a send off for each of the waves. We were in four so we were off just after 5:45AM. We started on running on the outside of Epcot and then made our way into the parks. I had someone waiting for me at the 4 mile mark which was the walkway from the Epcot parking lot into the park. It's always such a boost to see someone you know cheering you on!
As we were exiting the park, I spotted Scrooge McDuck and I've always wanted a picture with him so I stopped and got a picture. I only had my iPhone so the picture didn't come out that well but I got my character pic!
I don't remember too much about the miles leaving Epcot into Magic Kingdom. My friend was waiting for me at the TTC and I was surprised that we saw each other because it was so crowded there. I did have to stop for a washroom break at this point. There was a lineup of people - but it seemed like there were lineups at the port-a-potties too so I figured I might as well use the bathrooms here.
Heading towards MK, the water bridge hill was not as bad as I remembered it. I remember hating that hill in the half marathon. I finally got rid of my throwaway shirt after running through the castle. But I still managed to get castle pictures on the ASI site even though my bib was covered. I'm guessing they added photos of me based on Tandy's bib. I didn't see too many interesting characters in MK. I saw the princess from Tangled but there was a line so I didn't bother to stop.
We came out of MK and headed down Floridian Way - that's the road that runs outside of Shades of Green, the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian. I spotted my friend again and I think I have a video of me running by quickly. We were around the 13 mile mark and I was feeling pretty good at this point still.
After we turned down Bear Island Road, I was feeling pretty hungry. If I do another marathon again, I'll have to figure out the nutrition thing. I had Clif blocs with me and I was eating them at every other water stop. This worked for me on my training runs but somehow wasn't quite enough on Sunday. Somewhere around mile 14, volunteers were handing out bananas. If you know me, I hate bananas - I'll eat fried plantains, banana bread etc. but not banana by themselves. Well, apparently I was hungry enough to eat one - it was GOOD
After the banana, I was still feeling hungry and my ankles started hurting. For a brief moment, I thought about not continuing. But just after mile 15, Tandy took a tumble as we were crossing the bridge.
She scraped her shoulder, elbow and pinkie pretty badly. But she was awesome! She picked herself back up and we kept on running. We did stop at a med tent so she could bandage up her finger. I would have been on the side of the road crying my eyes out if that had been me. If she could keep going, there was no way I could stop.
Running through AK was fun! I think the parks had just opened and there were a lot of people at the crossing points. One thing I have to say is that even though the volunteers were trying to hurry them along as they crossed, they weren't going very fast. I'm thinking that they only had to "run" several meters, shouldn't they go faster?
There was a really cool photo op with some of the Haunted Mansion characters outside the park. You could lie down in a grave and have your picture taken. I was afraid that if I did that, I wouldn't want to get back up again!
Once we got outside of AK, my ankles were really hurting
I decided to take a couple of Tylenol. They kicked in after about a mile and I felt a little better. We spotted a couple of WISH'ers on course handing out treats - I don't know their names but the first lady had Skittles and the second had orange slices, Twizzlers and pretzels. The orange slices were SO GOOD! Can you tell I was really hungry?
At this point I was just looking forward to the turnaround and being able to head into HS. Inside HS, I saw the volunteers handing out chocolate squares but didn't feel like I could eat any - it would have been nice if there was a water stop immediately after the chocolate.
Outside HS, we found a group of Team 'Ohana members scream teaming! We knew there was only a few miles left at this point so we kept going. But.... who should pass us at this point? Jeff Galloway! I said to Tandy that we have to beat him to the finish line! He was going pretty strong though so we had to push extra hard to keep up and pass him. He does the run/walk intervals as well so we kept passing each other. We tried to push hard and skip our walking breaks and we did end up putting in a good distance between us around Norway. We made it to Innoventions when we both decided that we badly needed that walking break. But only for 30 seconds! And then, there was the 26 mile marker sign! Tandy and I pushed for a sprint down the finishing chute but Jeff Galloway had caught up to us and passed us several seconds before we got to the finish. We chatted with him briefly before we got our medals and thanked him for pushing us through the final 5K.
Our final chip time was 4:55 but that included a couple of bathroom stops, character pics and a visit to the med tent so I think we actually did better than that.
I got my medal and a few character pictures and then walked back toward the monorail to head back to the hotel. So I guess this would be the only sore point of the race for me ... I had my space blanket wrapped around me and I went through the no bags line at Epcot. I decided not to wait for my friend because he was having his bag "checked" and it would take me a while to walk up the ramp to the monorail. As I made it half way up the ramp, I got stopped by a security guard (different than the one at the no bags line). He wanted to see what was in my race pack - I forgot I had it on and I have no idea how he saw it underneath the blanket. I was PO'ed because I was cold and had my hands full with a water bottle and a piece of fruit. I also didn't have anywhere to put these things down. And you all know how hard it is to bend down after running or walking a race. A few other runners came over and held my stuff but they were annoyed as well. I mean, I wasn't even going into the park so why did he care
Must have flunked out of the police academy
But I wasn't going to let that spoil my first full! We headed back to the room, I did my ice bath, showered and we were off to celebrate at WCC for lunch! Yay! I got a massage the next morning and I had my leanies meet at B&C. A few of us got the Kitchen Sink to share and it was yummy - except the bananas
So that's my first full! Thanks for reading!
The doc found a polyp, removed it and sent it in for a biopsy. He also did a EGD (esophagus and stomach exam) and found I have some diverticulosis (sp?) and took a sample for another biopsy. He said it may be caused by a bacterial infection that half of the population also gets. Antibiotics should do the trick it that is what it is. So, hopefully no cancer. I should have the results of the biopsys by next Wednesday. (yes, I'm a little stressed)
for you! I hope get good news when the test results come back! I forgot to ask how your mom's doing. I'll add you onto the race schedule for EE. It's May 7th right?
We spent the rest of the day having fun at the MK!
