Despite the 80+ degree weather and the humidity - Sarah and I made it! We ran/walked/hobble-shuffled 26.2 miles!
I was super excited for the disney part and even though all of that was great, I'm not sure it was worth the pain and suffering of the heat and humidity. That was the worst part of the race.
I'll try to take you through the day as best as I can.
Pre-race, pre-5am!
We all woke up in the middle of the night. I tried to eat a little since the race wouldn't start for a few hours still. Once there we lined up in our corrals (thankfully I got moved up to corral D from corral H due to my half marathon time. The corrals are the order in which you go out. Being moved up means I left a significant amount of time earlier than corral H - which was a huge deal with the forecasted heat and humidity we were to face. The more mileage we could get done before the sun came up the better). Once in the corral we sat/stood and waited. There were 25.000 people in the marathon race. So as you can imagine even after the start there is not a lot of running initially. There is a fair amount of avoiding running over people - so lots of starting, stopping, and changing pace. Not exactly what my legs are used to. This lasted on and off for the whole race because of the number of people and due to the course narrowing in certain parts.
Here is a picture of the course map.
Mile 1 - already hot and sweaty due to the humidity. Had a university band that was great.
Mile 3 - I started out in a golden skirt, red bows on my shoes, red fingernails - a minor attempt at being Snow White. I wasn't up for wearing a big white collar or doing the sleeves. My skirt lasted 3 miles and then was ditched because the silky material caused my hydration belt to ride up on my waist. Not gonna last for 26 miles. So at mile 3 it was bye bye skirt. I made it myself.
Around this time, I overhear a conversation between a runner and either a coach or a friend - she was asking if she was ok, because she was planning on running ahead. Slower runner said yes, that she felt fine, blah blah. And coach/friend said "Don't worry, it'll get cooler after the sun comes up." Huh? What?! I wanted to scream liar, but I refrained. Haha. Trust me - it was not cooler after the sun came up.
Also around this time another band was playing - some slow and somber song. I'm pretty sure if they played that song any time after mile 18 I would have sat down, cried, and quit right there. No one clapped for them as we passed. They were bad. It was sad. I guess if there motivation was to make us run faster past them because it was so bad then maybe it worked, but pumping us up, it did not.
Mile 5 - we got to run down Main Street of Magic Kingdom and run through Cinderella's castle! Mom was there waiting in her designated ChEAR squad area. I texted her before we entered so she would know to look for us. We found Mom as we exited the castle and we had our picture taken by the disney photographers at that point in the race. The castle was completely magical as it still had on the list from the Christmas decorations.
There will be better pictures to post later.
I am already down 1 red bow on my shoes.
The one there on my left foot lasted until the end.
This is a marathon where you stop and take pictures along the route :). They even had character stops along the way as well.
Example: Mickey and Minnie was we entered the castle. We could have waited in line to take our picture with them, but we didn't.
Miles 6-8 - nothing special that I remember. Still a lot of people. Still dodging people and unable to get into a good running rhythm, but still feeling pretty good as well.
Mile 9 - We got to run around the Speedway. There were old and new cars parked on the track for us to look at as we ran by. TowMater, McQueen and the girl car from the movie CARS was there as well.
A fellow runner told the people sitting in their lawn chairs next to their cars, good job? Sarah was wondering what they were doing such a good job at - sitting?
Miles 10-11 - still feeling pretty good, moving ourselves from the Speedway to the Animal Kingdom.
Mile 12 - the start of Animal Kingdom. They had some goats, a sheep, a couple small donkeys, and a pig we could stop and have our picture with. We did not stop, we just kept running.
Mile 13 - ran through some of the trees at Animal Kingdom. We reached the halfway point! Woo Hoo!! It was hot at this point, there was even more sweat. I felt much worse at this halfway point than I did at my half marathon in Tucson in November or any other 13 mile run I have ever done. I have been running half marathon distance every weekend since November, except for two during my taper weeks. It wasn't my legs that were the problem - it was the heat.
Training in 50-60 degree temps with little to no humidity is one thing and running in nearly record high whether in Orlando is another. Temps >80 and humid. There were severe weather postings all over the website prior to the marathon. It's usually on average 10-15 degrees cooler than on our race day. Lucky us. So hot and tired we were already at the halfway point, but still going strong.
Mile 14-17 - the WORST stretch of the entire marathon. We ran along "Osceola Parkway," which is a large split 4 lane road. Hot pavement with sun beating down on you for 3 miles. No shade whatsoever. My right knee started to hurt somewhere in this time frame, it was due to some slanting of the road on certain parts of the course earlier. When this happens it causes an uneven distribution of stress and forces on the knees. My right knee was feeling it. Somewhere in this deserty stretch I stopped at one of the med tents for some Biofreeze. Biofreeze is some type of cooling gel. As Sarah said - don't get it in your eye. So I took my Biofreeze given to me on a tongue depressor and slopped it on my knee. It helped for a while.
The medical tents have Vaseline - to help prevent chaffing (thankfully, I have not had problems with that), Tylenol (no ibuprofen or NSAIDs on marathon day to protect the kidneys- I won't explain here - too boring). I don't know what else was at a medical tent - that's all I remember.
At the turn into ESPN wide world of sports we pass people who were on their mile 20 and we can hear the announcer talking about how it's less than 6 miles less, blah blah, blah.... Ugh.
We can also see across the highway to where they are running and there is Shade - beautiful, glorious, wonderful shade. I would have paid big bucks for shade at that point. I'm sure Sarah got tired of hearing me talk about shade and how Disney should put out giant fans for us.
I pointed the shade out to Sarah - giving us something to look forward to. :)
Mile 18 - fake smiles
Miles 18-20 - prior to the marathon, I was looking forward to these miles, because as the map shows at mile 19 was the "Mile 20 Spectacular." It's Disney, so I am expecting something great and wonderful - fireworks, music, singing, dancing, flips, etc.
During the actual marathon, I was just thinking make it to mile 20 with only our scheduled walk/snack times every 3 miles. Make it to mile 20, because after mile 20 Sarah told me I can walk as much as I want. Make it to 20. I'm hot and in pain at this point. The Biofreeze has worn off and my knee talks to me with every step. My body is so hot. It can't cool off, despite throwing water on myself at nearly every aide station or watering myself down with the water soaked sponge handed to us at some point along the way.
At mile 18 there was a giant Mickey hot air balloon - I made Sarah stop for a picture (see above).
Somewhere during mile 18 Sarah asked to walk for a bit and I was more than happy to oblige, due to the aching knee, overheated body, and stifling heat. We jogged/walked until the baseball stadium - we would run through that.
That Spectacular I was talking about earlier - well it wasn't inside the stadium. We were up on the big screen at some point, but we didn't see it because by the time we realized that they were filming people running by we had already passed it. Trust me - it didn't even matter at that point we were just proud we ran through the stadium. We exited and ran around a track at the wide world of sports - they had some people doing a 200 meter sprint or something there. Then we exited heading back out to Osceola Parkway.
But at that point we had made it - MILE 20 woo hoo. Some say the last 6 miles is the 2nd half of the race.
Mile 20-21 - again we are trying to jog as much as possible. As we exited the wide world of sports - I tell Sarah - lets run until we get to the shade - we turn the corner onto Osceola Parkway and I look and am defeated - the shade is gone. Time has passed, the sun has moved, and that promising oasis of shade I saw from the other side of the street at mile 16/17 has disappeared. :(
I was devastated. So we continued on. We passed the DJ - now telling us that we had less than 6 miles to go. He announced where people are from, I gave a weak "Tucson" but he heard it and announced it. Woo woo
Along this stretch were some people who were part of characters. The characters much larger than them. They stood inside at the base of the character. You could see the person and if they grabbed these levers near them, they could make the giant characters arms move. I think this was part of the mile 20 spectacular. I did not take a picture. My body was too hot and achy at this point to take a picture and well, it wasn't THAT spectacular.
Under either the mile 20 or 21 mile marker was Mickey and some other characters. We trudged on. Knowing that this part of the race sucked as we had seen it from the other side. The upside as Sarah said was that we weren't on mile 16. :)
I pass a guy who looks worse than me who's shirt on the back says "it's my birthday and my first marathon!" I wish him happy birthday, thinking I bet he regrets this move. I tell Sarah that for our next big birthdays - we will not be doing this. Her plan consists of a beach and drinks. Sounds good to me.
We walked some along this part, despite the lack of shade. There were signs on the side of the road that disney had posted to try and break up the monotony of this part of the run.
"What is another word for Thesaurus?"
"What would a world be like without any hypothetical situations?"
Stuff like that. And it did amuse us. I didn't fall down laughing, but it distracted me for a while.
At some point in here - Sarah turns to me and asks if I can jog 200 steps. I say sure. I lose count after about 20-30 steps. I count steps on the treadmill, but didn't have the brain power or focus to do it at this point. Sarah counts steps at this point in the race. I told her I do better with - until that sign or corner or whatever. So she counted and I just tried to keep moving for as long as my body could tolerate, before the heat became too much or my knee pain.
I stopped again for Biofreeze at a med tent. I look at the volunteers and ask for a tongue depressor, because they only have Vaseline on a stick at this stand. Volunteer looks at me and says this is our last one. I look at the ground, covered in sticks, trying to find one less dirty. No way am i putting this stuff on my leg with my hands, because I know I will be touching my face and the last thing I need is a burning eyeball. Volunteer says there are gloves up ahead. So I grab a glove and rub - Biofreeze all over both my knees and calves. It can't hurt, right?
On we trudge.
Mile 22-23 - We are coming into Hollywood Studios, which was one of my favorite parts of the marathon. The park had started to fill up with regular visitors at this point, so it looked like there were more fans cheering for us. It worked for me. There were lots of people, signs, and things to look at again. We ran toward a fake city facade and around a few corners. It broke up the monotony that was Osceola Parkway.
At some point I realize I forgot my mile 21 snack and I walk to snackie a bit.
Every water stop now consists of one cup for drinking and one cup for dousing ourselves. My preferred method is to take the cup and throw it directly in my face, Sarah preferred to toss it down the back of her neck. One aide station had a person standing there with a Dasani water bottle yelling "water for your head, water for your head." It was awesome.
Mile 24 - we pass. Again, walking/shuffle jogging/ limping. At this point nearly everything hurts. It hurts to walk and it hurts to jog, thankfully different things hurt. Walking my feet throb and jogging well my knees hurt. Walking also allows us to cool down just a bit in comparison to the shuffle-jog.
Everyone around us looks like we feel at this point - all walking and shuffling, no real jogging form taking place at this point in the race. Just keep running, just keep running (to the tune of Dory from finding Nemo) and there was a sign like that on the course :) woo hoo
Sometime into this mile - I ask Sarah "what mile are we on?" "24?" She says, "I don't know I think 23." I'm thinking no way - don't tell me I still have 3 more miles to go. I ask her if she wants me to ask someone. We debate this for a minute or two and then I just yell "What mile are we on?" A bystander answers back, "less than 2 miles to go." Thank goodness!
Mile 25 - We start jog-shuffle-hobbling. It feels much faster than it is because at this snail's pace we still manage to pass people :)
Sarah asks me if I can keep this up until the finish - I tell her, I can try. No promises. You see at this point in the race one single mile is much much much much longer than the miles at the beginning of the race!
So we jog and jog. We pass some people at a hotel who are in swimsuits near a pool and a fake beach. They suck. There is a photographer somewhere around here - I hope he got a picture of me, because I am interested to know what I looked like at this point.
I hear a fellow runner ask his friend, "What part of your body hurts the most?" I'm thinking a better question is what doesn't hurt right now.
We continue with our group of sweat soaked, hobbling runners into Epcot - the home stretch.
Sarah says I snapped at her when she asked me if I saw the ball - I sharply told her no. She then proceeded to point it out to me - I told her it was too far away.
Head down we continued on. In my head, "I am a marathoner. Four times per week, I run for me - my mind, body, and soul. Because of this, I am stronger. I am not tired. I am adapting and becoming, something, someone better. I will finish. I always finish."
I repeated that in my head the last 1.2 miles. All the way through Epcot, which I did not see nor enjoy.
Mile 26 - Turning the corner to the 26 mile marker is a Gospel Choir. Nothing could have been more perfect at that moment. Hallelujah! 0.2 miles left. We turn the corner at the finish line is in our sight.
We continue jogging, which I managed to do for the last 1.2 miles.
At the finish line I see Mickey to my left and Donald to my right. Sarah is to my right. There is a girl just a few paces behind me and to the right. I came all this way - you bet I'm high-fiving Mickey's hand. So I speed up to pass the girl and give Mickey a high five. Right after the finish - I turn to Sarah and give her a hug! She gave Donald a high-five. She told me she did it, because she knew I would give her crap if she didn't. Haha.
She tried to make me feel bad for not holding her hand as we crossed the finish line together in triumph. I know she was kidding. She told me she looked up and I was gone - off toward Mickey. Words took too much energy at that point in the race and Sarah and I have known each other long enough that msot of the time she knows what I'm thinking and vice versa.
I DID IT! I made it! I survived. That was my goal!!!!!
Below are pics of us getting our medals! (better pictures of the medal to follow in another post)
First stop after getting our medals and pictures taken -- ICE!
Then food.
Post marathon icing session near mister fans in the background w/ real food snacks.
Real smiles, because it's over.
Red bow on my left foot finished with us.
Mom at the finish line waiting for us!
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Post-Marathon
We hobbled to the car, got home, sit down shower, and ate some food. Tried to nap. It's hard to take a nap when whenever you put pressure on your knees or feet it hurts, even lying in bed. Later Mom got us some Tylenol which helped with the pain and that night I slept well!
Day 1 after the marathon - I was sore, but could walk mostly normal. We got pedicures.
Day 2 after the marathon - a little twinge in my IT band now and then, but basically back to normal :)
I know the question you want to ask - will I do it again?
Heck yeah! I've already got my next race picked out. See you in Sacramento come December?
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