Wk of Jan. 13th-- WISH Walking/Running Club

[princessrunner]

Kelley: So sorry about the Garmin. I thought I lost mine before the race and remembered that I packed it inside my sneaks. I hope you are able to locate yours.

WISH scream teamers: Thank you again for being there for all us runners/walkers this weekend. What you did was very special and helped so many of us through the BMZ!!!

I am back to reality here in the great white north. We got nearly a foot of snow yesterday. On the up side, I did not have to work yesterday so I got to spend the day with my kids as there was no school. I was thinking of Steve (SilverE) flying in yesterday, or not, but was hoping that he could make it. Hoping everyone who traveled yesterday had great trips and that all of you flying or driving this week make it home safe and sound.

I am still sore in my right calf at the Achilles insertion point but nothing that I cannot ignore. I am heading to the gym this afternoon for some light elliptical and weights. Looking forward to running again though not right off quick!!!

 

[windwalker]

Just a quick fly by from Erica and I to send our love and congradulations to all. Our soreness and poor Erica's chaffing are healing up nicely and we are still keeping on the go.

I will start working on the team miles game when I get back this weekend. We all need all the motivation we can get.

Goofy Panda and Goofy Erica

 

[princessrunner]

Oh, I hope Erica is not in too bad a shape. No fun for a birthday girl!!!

It was great meeting both Erica and you, silly Panda. Your support has helped me out greatly. I tried to find you after the half but was not able to. I hung around with Lily et al for awhile after I finished but did not see you, Robert, Linda, Kim, Mike, etcetera. I started cramping up and finally decided it was time to head back to the hotel. I went to dinner with Colleen, Mike and Kathy, SilverSteve, Steve and Krista, Jodi (I think I am forgetting some people, sorry!!) and we had a great meal. I did watch the full start but did not see any of you there either. Had to catch the bus back to the hotel to pick up ME but not before seeing that the full finisher was done in the same amount of time it took me to do the half!!! YIKES!!!

I hope you all had a great weekend and are enjoying your time left in WDW. Safe travels home and, again, thank you so much for everything!!!

 

[Cruella de mom]

I have to tell you that this weekend was the most fun I have ever ever had in my whole life! I am still bouncing off the walls with excitement!

Ran the half faster than I intended & finished in 2:13:13. Ran the full with my team for the first 17 miles, then I took off and finshed the race on my own. This left me free to chat with some of my DIS friends along the way. I ended up finishing in 5:28:18. I actually had some guy tell me to "just stop dancing" when we were running in Epcot at mile 25.

I was actually dancing on chairs at our TNT Victory party sunday night!

The only bummer was that the cantina in Mexico refused to serve me a margarita until I finshed the race. Evidently they have some rule about serving alcohol to runners.

I will post a longer report on the report thread, but I have to say THANK YOU to my WISH friends first.

Thank you WISH Team! You were great!

I don't remember who gave out the hugs & oranges at mile 20, but you have no idea how much I needed both of those! Thank you.

And Thank you to Howard and Lynne and Kevin and Steve for keeping me "somewhat" calm before the start of the half. It was fun running the first 100 yards with you!

Cecilia

 

[KelNottAt]

The Disney Magic lives!

Housekeeping found my Garmin and Lost & Found will mail it to me!

Yippee!!

 

[MomofCKJ]

The Disney Magic lives!

Housekeeping found my Garmin and Lost & Found will mail it to me!

Yippee!!

Great news! Thank goodness for the Pixie Dust!

Allyson

 

[Kristi1357]

Ok, just a few thoughts, etc. before I go do some more unpacking....

Who the heck do we start a letter writing campaign to about this running out of / misplacing medals thing? Last year it was unacceptable. Again this year?

To the WISHers scream teaming along the way on the Half - you meant more to me than you will ever know. I was having the hardest time. My training was really lacking and it showed. Thank God Chad stayed with me, or I may have quit (probably not, but that thought kept entering my mind.). During mile 2, I was so upset with myself that I started to cry, then started hyperventilating. Not good. I got calmed down and ripped off my pace band for a 3 hour half. Since I wans't going to be able to keep that pace, I told Chad we should just have fun. We stopped for alot of character pictures. Anne's oranges just before entering Epcot were the darn best things we ever tasted!

John & Karen rock! Those backpacks are the best. THANK YOU!!!

I am sad I still somehow missed meeting people at the various meets!
How does this happen?

I also think I had more fun at the water stop and cheering for the Full. That was a total blast and I have quite a few pictures of our WISHers coming through at Animal Kingdom. I will get those up soon.

Lesson learned - I cannot half-@$$ my way through a half marathon since I know I have done this distance before. Yes, I got my Donald medal. But I will not be getting a cetificate. It was a very hard lesson for me. And I will not allow myself to spend such enormous amounts of money to travel to a race when I am not prepared.

 

[TnTsParty]

So glad to hear that Kelley - I know you are to housekeeping for actually finding it. That is so AWESOME that you will have it back soon.

 

[princessrunner]

John and Karen: I forgot to thank you in the previous post for the backpack. It is awesome and so are you both. It was great meeting and talking with you. I knew I was forgetting things, but not something so important!!!

Kristi: I saw you after the half and wish I had known how upset you were. Try and focus on the positive things like, heck, you finished right. You had fun. This whole experience is not only about goals and PRs it is about personal experience and growth. I wanted to finish faster than I did but I was able to run the whole way which I did not think I could do. Try and keep the good things at the front and put the other things on the "to do better" list for next time!! And remember first and foremost, you did finish!!!!! And here is the you could have used after the race that I feel bad I did not give you, sweat and all!!!

 

[hoosmi]

Well, the WISH team has created two new monsters! My mom and her friend, Betsy, watched the full from the YC/BC. Betsy was wearing my WISH hat and my mom a WISH bracelet. My mom called to tell me that the entire drive back (four hours), they talked about doing the half next year! They're already planning their WISH wardrobes...

They want me to get them my MfM book and training plans, and my mom I think wants a Garmin or a Nike+. It's hard to tell since she was talking about "that thing that tells you how far you've gone." They are cracking me up!

Jen in GA

 

[fan_of_small_world]

Kelley - Yea for Mousekeeping! I'm so glad they found your Garmin!

Lisa - Based on your post earlier on this thread (page 3 maybe) about Marathoning for Mortals, I went out and bought not only that but also Running for Mortals, since I'm completely starting from scratch as a runner. I skimmed them and they look great, so thank you for the advice!

Kristi - I'm registered for my first WDW half and I'm already having nightmares (literally - I posted about it on the first page of this thread) about not getting a medal at the finish. (I realized later that I'd read Sandy's account about not getting her medal at the finish, and I guess it was on my mind while I slept!) So I'll join your letter-writing campaign - just let me know the address!

CONGRATULATIONS again to all the runners/walkers as they return home, and to the scream teamers as well for helping so many people through the races!

 

[angietuck2]

I meant to thank John and Karen as well, although I didn't even get to keep my backpack!!! My 8 year old took it and wants to know where he can get a WISH shirt. He had a great time cheering for the "Green " team this weekend as well.

angie

 

[Kira G.]

Hello, and welcome home everyone back from WDW! You're who I want to be next year!

I just finished my run for the day. I am aiming to do a 25-30 minute run/walk 3 times a week for four weeks, and then I'll look at adding a day and adding elements. Right now aiming for consistency, and doing pretty well.

I am incredibly lucky in where I live - a 1 1/2 block walk from my house in northwest Philadelphia is an entrance into the Wissahickon trails, and when you're on them you feel like you're miles from the city. I can live in the city and run in the woods! And today was absolutely beautiful! Snow flurries are falling, and the forest looked amazing. I would have missed the whole thing if I hadn't started this training process.

The first 15 minutes went great (I am running 5, walking 1 for now). Then I had to cross back over a creek. Until about 4 years ago there was a beautiful bridge over the creek along this trail, but it was washed away in a torrential summer flood (and the city is not promising to EVER rebuild it ). Usually there are some nice stepping stones over the creek, but they must have gotten rearranged in the weekend rain. I tried a different set of rocks, and then WHOOPS - first one foot and then the other up to my shins in water!! Yuck!

Luckily I was almost done, so after my feet warmed up a bit I did my last 5 minutes of running and then walked home to peel off my wet things. Pretty funny! My next run will be on the roads, and then I'll bring my kids down to the creek over the weekend to fix up the stepping stones.

Overall, however, I am just grateful to have the motivation to get out there on a day like today and get to enjoy the beauty of the woods. Thanks everyone for inspiring me to take this on!

 

[Maherae]

Newcomers!!

It was just awesome to be scream teaming this year!! chimera/Mel taught me a lot last year while screaming for the full..and I learned even more this year!! I am so proud of each and every member that participated in any way shape or form. And for those of you at home who "stood by the stuff," cheering, keeping the threads going THANK YOU!!!

I have a couple of stories...

We had breakfast at Boma's on Friday, after the 5K. As we were leaving, a man came up and started talking to me about WISH. By then, I had taken my WISH race shirt off and put the 5K shirt on to go into Boma's, so I had to ask him how he knew I was a WISHer. His answer?....Your SOCKS!!!!!! Yea, Dave!!!! He went on to tell me that he is a lurker, and really enjoys reading our posts and learning from them. But he noticed my socks!!!!

So many people stopped to tell me (a screamer only, mind you!!) how much they liked our shirts, or to ask "What did WISH stand for?" which then led into describing this zany group.., or how impressed they were with our presence...

During the full, TXBelle/Heather and I were screaming at mile 20 when a man who was also screaming came up to tell us that he is a lurker on the Dis, and has been for quite a while. He couldn't get over how this group had started out so small on the boards and had grown so much!! He said he was seeing WISH shirts everywhere!!

One last one...driving home on Monday, we stopped at a McD's outside of Tallahassee. There was a woman, Barbara, wearing a marathon shirt. So, I told her congratulations and headed out the door. She yells, "Were you there?" to which I replied, "Yes, I was with the group that had the safety yellow/green WISH shirts." Her face lit up, and she wanted to know what WISH stood for, that she had seen them all over the course, and they were so friendly and good about yelling for everyone. I told her to "Come on over!" and how to get to us. GO WISH TEAM!!!!!

Back to ....

 

[skfulkers]

Anne--I just wanted to let you know how much your support and scream teamin' along the course meant to me. I know it meant a lot to everyone. When I saw you and Heather near mile 21 at the out-n-back and you gave me the ice and the damp washcloth--it literally carried me for the next two miles. I've told Krista so many times over the last two days how much you helped me through the tough part of that course. You were great! Thank you so much for your dedication. This team wouldn't be near the same without you!

Steve

 

[hockeygirl]

Anne--I just wanted to say Thank you so much for being out there this weekend scream teaming!! You have no idea how great it was having all the WISH team out there cheering us on! Your washcloth at the out and back was great! I kept that with me until just before the end, using at each water stop to cool down. YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

 

[andromedaslove]

Anne--I just wanted to say Thank you so much for being out there this weekend scream teaming!! You have no idea how great it was having all the WISH team out there cheering us on! Your washcloth at the out and back was great! I kept that with me until just before the end, using at each water stop to cool down. YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

Darn it!! How did I miss the wash cloths?! I was only about 4-5 minutes ahead of Steve!! I can say that I absolutely LOVED seeing all of the WISHers out there cheering us on!! It made it that much easier to put one foot in front of the other and keep going!!

Dana

 

[hoosmi]

Anne- I wondered who gave me the washcloth. Everything was a little fuzzy about then.

Bree and I ran together for about the last 16 miles. When we weren't talking about how we were never, ever doing a full again , we were praising the washcloth. I made a point out of having mine around my neck in my finisher's photo- that's how attached I was to it. (But then I lost it somewhere on my way back to the hotel, which made me sad. Rest in peace, dear washcloth. Our time together was so short, but so special.)

Thank you!

Jen in GA

 

[getnthinr]

Wow, there are so many threads about the races and the WISH meets and the Scream Teamers and I want to make sure the word gets out to everyone:

THANKS SO MUCH FOR BEING THERE!!!!

Whether you were a Scream Teamer who carried us exhausted runners and walkers through a long day, or a runner/walker who passed by and shouted encouragement to your fellow WISHers, or someone who brought swell gifts for the WISHers to the WISH meets, or just a brave soul who introduced themselves for the first time "in person" -- You all made my weekend so incredibly special. I got through my 3rd Goofy with your awesome support and I cannot begin to adequately express my gratitude. I am so indebted to you!

My mini Goofy race report is here and contains more thanks:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1681468&page=3

Special thanks to Anne, Karen, Matt, and celebrity Steve (official poster child of the marathon memoriabilia -- tell 'em, Steve) and so many others whose names I can't bring to mind right now.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!

 

[Chropistopy]

OK...after 3 successful 1/2 marathons, I just registered for the full in 2009. Heaven help me!! I'm already nervous! Here's to another year of training!!