New Model Clothes 2012: Disney Half Marathon..... Check!!!!

Disney was amazing!!! I completed my first half marathon in 2: 36: 00!! Let me give you the lowdown on the event. First the race is run early in the morning in an effort to fight off the heat as well as to limit the time the parks need to be blocked off for runners. Let me assure you that heat was not a factor on Saturday.

I set my wake up call for 3:30 am there was no need for it as I was wide awake at 3:15 thinking what have I gotten myself into? I ease out of bed in the hopes of not waking Isabelle who is contently sleeping in her hotel crib or thing 1 and thing 2 who are sharing the pull out. I get ready and out the door I go to meet my 3:40 ride, a cab, in the lobby. I wait about 10 minutes and see other runners waiting as well. "Where is the cab?" I keep thinking finally a couple shows up saying hello to a fellow runner and offering a ride, she declines because she has 4 in her party and the couple can only take 2 or 3. I chime in I'll take you up on that ride. They say sure and off I go with these strangers. My stress has been reduced for the moment. We get to the race and now it is time for me to find my running partner.

I make my way to the tent we (race partner) agreed to meet at and there he is pumped and ready and there I am cold and scared. Cold you say? You’re in FL how could you be cold? Well FL decided to throw me and 17,000 of my race buddies a cure ball it was 33 degrees and sleeting at 4:15am!! Sleeting in FL in January as my race partner sad this was going to be an EPIC race. So for an hour I make sure I have all my stuff drop off my bag and head for the mile walk tot eh start line. All the while thinking can I do this? What if my shin starts to give me trouble, what if I get caught by the bus, what if I let me running partner down??

6:18am we are off I cross the start line and try to run but all I can do is jog, there are so many people and just not enough room. Also you are dodging the jackets, shirts, trash bags, ponchos etc that are being peeled off as runners get hot or warmed up.

By mile 3 I am feeling good and happy to settle into a decent pace. Bands are playing on the side of the road and mile markers do not seem as far apart as they did during my training runs. I get ready to enter the Magic Kingdom and the race partner says enjoy it this will be the best mile of the race. I run down main street into tomorrow land and through Cinderella’s castle I feel good, I am headed out of the park and I start to feel the wall fast approaching. I gut it out till mile 8 where I feel like my legs are just dead weight. I finally have to take much needed walk break.
As we get to mile 10 I’m thinking I won’t break 2:30 like I had hoped and I realize I was scared for a reason, this is hard. Miles 10, 11 and some of 12 were a blur. But at some point during mile 12 I felt like I can make it and my running partner said let’s play the pick off game soon I was passing people all the while thinking where is the damn finish line? I finally saw the line and took off wanting to finish strong, I had no idea what my time was because at some point during my haze my running partner told me to stop being so type A and stop looking at my watch.

I crossed the line and turned to see Steve, my running partner who gave me a huge hug and told me how proud he was of me and what a great job I did. I was so excited to finish I had forgotten to turn off my watch so I really didn’t know what my exact time was. We made our way to the all important place to get our medals and collect our thermal blankets, we then headed to the medical tent so I could get some ice for my shin.

Next it was time to get my photo taken with my Donald Duck medal, then on to another line to wait for food. Steve turns to me and says "not to be uppity but I don’t like all these lines". See he is a good, and in my eyes great runner. His half marathon time is normally 1:45. So he doesn’t need to wait in all these long lines because hardly anyone is there with him. :)

I get my food, then my bag, then head to the massage tent for some much needed work on my legs I am freezing because I am wet from the sleet and the wind is ripping through me. As I lay on the table I am shivering from the cold. I finally get a chance to call Dan to tell him how I did he was very excited for me and was in the parking lot of Epcot waiting to pick me up.
We get back to the hotel and I take a hot bath to soak my weary legs then get dressed and head to Magic Kingdom despite the 33 temps outside. The kids don’t seem to mind and I think it is better to walk than let my legs get stiff and it was pretty cool to wear my medal and have folks congratulate me on my accomplishment.

So now that I have tacked and concurred the half I am ready to do it again and will participate in the DC half March 20th! I have been bitten by the bug I am a runner! I hope that in a years time I can run my first ever Marathon and who knows it might be Disney!