A Triple Race Report!
As always, the numbers up front!
Royal Family 5k
Old PR: 24:39
New PR:
21:49 
Pace: 6:59
Splits: 7:00, 7:11, 6:59, :39 (.14 miles, 5:23 pace)
Urban Dare Tampa
3 hours and 40 minutes of fun, approximately 10 miles traveled, multiple backtracks, hours of cell phone minutes used, 1 bilster for DW, and a result of beating many teams, and losing to many other teams!
WDW Princess Half Marathon
Old PR: 1:55:02
New PR:
1:54:58!!!
Pace: 8:41
Overall: 427/6150
Gender: 30/198
Splits: 8:44, 8:52, 9:38, 8:54, 8:20, 8:32, 8:46, 8:26, 8:35, 8:33, 8:33, 8:38, 8:01, 2:21 (.33 miles, 7:03 pace)
What a weekend! As usual things didn't quite go as planned, which in this case was a good thing. I'd decided well before the weekend that I would try for a PR in the 5k since it had been forever since I ran one hard, and then I would just see how the HM went since I knew the Urban Dare would also involve a lot of footwork.
Well needless to say I really floored it through the 5k, and was rewarded with a complete demolishing of my old PR. Taking a couple min off my HM PR a few weeks ago is one thing, but the same amount of time over a much shorter distance was qutie a pleasant surprise! It has been since high school basically that I saw a 6:xx something split during a race...
Was great fun as always seeing the WISHers before the race, including
syko who clobbered everyone and was easily the first to cross the line, and later rewarded me with a great travel pack of what I refer to as "gobbly gook" but my wife refers to as heaven in a package! Various feminine products that I am not the expert on, but she was raving about. I'm sure syko give more information on those.
Wendy also gave me some great BLING, which was a little princess pin that blinked in all kinds of psychadelic colors which I sported throughout both race mornings.
Everyone seemed like they enjoyed the race, I was at the exit of Epcot right up until the last finishers went by a little over an hour on the 3 mile split clock, so it looked like they were letting everyone go at their own pace which was great. All kinds of familys of all ages out there, great to see people making the effort to get or stay healthy.
A quick shower and meal then we jumped in the car to head down to Tampa for the Urban Dare. Google it for more info or if you love the Amazing Race, as we always have fun with these. Our previous attempt was out in LA, but every city gives a different set of challenges and locations to find. This time as usual was not mistake free, and we had to double back a few times much to DW's chagrin. One clue in particular was so difficult and random it was really blind luck that anyone must have been able to find it, we just happened onto it by hearing what other teams had done when we ran into them later. Kept my Garmin on just for fun, and discovered we were out there for 3 hours and 40 minutes or so, and covered about 10 miles between all the different locations. This includes all stopped time and time spent doing challenges or puzzles or whatnot however. In general it was a great time, but boy were my feet sore by the end of it!
Having totalled about 13 miles on foot for the day and having really sore muscles due to all the walking muscles for the Urban Dare that I rarely use quite that much, I didn't have my hopes up for Sunday. So much so in fact we went to Bennigans in Tampa for dinner (there was no way we were going to be back in Orlando in time for the WISH meeting at POR) and I splurged on southwestern egg rolls and buffalo wings, not exactly ideal pre-race food. I then decided if I was going to enjoy it I might as well bring back the outfit from January with the full on Mickey hat and gloves. At the expo I'd also confirmed I'd be starting back in Corral B, and come race morning it was apparent it was going to take quite a while to cross the start, so my hope of seeing sub 2:00 gun time on the official clock when I crossed the line seemed to be dashed. I figured I'd at least be able to keep jogging through the finish and make it back out to the overpass in time to catch some of the WISHers as they came through.
Amazingly though, there's just something about Disney, or maybe that Mickey outfit, that brings out the best in people. The first few miles I was weaving through the expected massive amounts of traffic, but stayed on the grass out of the way for the most part. I was able to say hello to probably a dozen WISHers through this first portion, was great to see the green in action again. Around mile 2.5 was when I caught up to
Becky who called out to me as I went past because I had missed her totally. Paced with her for a while and discovered that trying to get my gel out of my spibelt, open it and eat it, take an Endurolyte out of a twisty cap thing in my spibelt, eat that, all while holding a cup of water while also trying to hold my Mickey glove underneath one arm is basically impossible. Lost some time and that led to my slowest split of the day and I even remember saying to her that a PR was unreasonable and I'd try to go for something around 2:05 to 2:10. Up the road I went, and that was about the time I saw
syko coming back the other way, screaming like a banshee for all the WISHers, and well on her way to shalacking the rest of the field yet again for a 1st place finish.
My heart rate as always was highest other than the finish during the portion where we run through the TTC. I was helping liven up the crowd with my usual craziness. Just a great tunnel of energy there, love it every time. It wasn't until around mile 8 near Shades of Green that I started actually doing the math based on what I was averaging and what I had left. I wasn't really sure what the split between gun time on all the mile marker clocks and my chip time was going to be, but based on mile 1 I thought it was about 5 minutes. I realized that if I was able to maintain around the 8:30ish pace I was running I could get that sub 2 hour clock time at the finish I had been hoping for. So I kept pushing, and as I reached the portion where I went under the overpass I looked up and giggled, imagining what it must look like to see me up there late in the race while feeling not-so-good.
Taking a gander at the Forerunner with a couple miles to go I realized there was also an outside shot at a PR, but I knew there were still some hills to conquer. Another unpleasant surprise was the complete lack of water stations from mile 9.75 to around 12.25, so I took a gel at about 11 without having anything to wash it down with, not ideal.
In any case, I saw
Suzanne at the entrance to Epcot makin all kinds of motivational noise, and that was enough to press through the last mile without a problem. In the finishing stretch I heard Syko goin crazy on the right side, and could see in the distance the clock said 1:59 and change, and booked it on in to make sure. As luck would have it, once the chip results came back, I had PR'd by a whopping 4 seconds.
I realized this as I checked the forerunner while hurrying through the post race food line. It invigorated me quite a bit and I grabbed a muffin and gatorade and started wolfing them down, and then it was off to jog back up via the monorail path to the overpass. Thanks to my faster than expected finish I was able to cheer on probably a few thousand people including several WISHers, and it didn't appear any of them were in any danger of being swept. Once the sweepers made it to the overpass I jogged it back in to around 12.25 at the entrance to Epcot for a bit, and then cut across to the finish where I stayed until about the 4 hour mark when the very last finisher came through. Saw a whole lot of happy faces while there at mile 13 as people put the finishing touch on their accomplishment.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend although I didn't get to spend as much time with all the WISHers as I would have hoped. Between my sister in law's bday on Sunday (post HM we all went to Epcot and I got to walk several more miles weee) and doing the race in Tampa it was quite a busy weekend, and we're just now getting back home to write about it late Monday night.
Next up for me is probably Ironman China April 19th, I say probably because I seem to manage to just squeeze in races left and right when I see I have available weekends... Congratuations EVERYONE, you all continue to INSPIRE me every time I go down there, and every time I read the boards!
Edit: 5k photo evidence shows I was 7 seconds faster than my Garmin since I delayed stopping it until through the chute, updating my sig
GO! WISH Team GO! 
I saw one guy dressed as Minnie Mouse and another in a full Belle dress with his long hair in a ponytail and a blues dress and apron he was a pretty big guy and looked hilarious 
Chester was a great WISH scream teamer and drove up for the event. He wore his WISH shirt a neon green wig and mickey ears with a lovely green boa-- he seemed to be at every turn cheering which was a nice boost. 
Anne also was there outside of MK cheering-- I'm sure there were others and I thank you guys for being there but was to oblivious to catch who you were...
He did say that after the race he had tons of people asking him if he was ok, wanted a wheelchair, needed to sit, etc so maybe the race took a bit more out of him than he thought but by the time I finished he had recovered and was at the finish cheering for me.
