On Sunday, January 7th, I marked the end of the overeating season with a
penance march, otherwise known as the Walt Disney World Marathon.
We arrived at the World late Thursday. After a couple of days of parks,
encounters and lectures, culminating with the Disney-Deads' Alternative
Pasta Dinner, my day on Sunday began at 2:30 am. After dressing
appropriately (undershirt and long-sleeve T on top, Coolmax underpants and
nylon shorts on the bottom) I headed to the bus stop nearest our Fort
Wilderness campsite to head for the start. It was fun meeting my fellow
Penguins and Deads in the staging area, especially those I hadn't gotten to
meet previously.
As late as possible I packed my jacket into my tote bag, checked it, and
wrapped myself in a Mylar blanket from a previous marathon. I headed for
the corrals as soon as the march began. I was assigned to the last corral
in the red start, but by being early I was able to position myself at the
front of the corral, in the corner away from the entrance. That would give
me the fastest possible start, and also allowed me to belly up to the fence
and take a last-minute dribble without being noticed.
I had to turn around to watch the Mickey and fireworks action on the
bridge. (I don't blame Disney for that; it was an inevitable result of
where they had to place the start line to get the requisite
distance.) When the fences dropped I threw my Mylar blanket over the
fence, started moving forward and got to the start line in 4 minutes and
21 seconds.
From then on I just kept moving, passing all the Disney landmarks so well
described by others and wetting my pants as needed. After the first few
miles I was continually passing slow walkers. The long stretches on the
back roads didn't bother me particularly, as I am always quite focused in a
marathon. In the stretch going away from the Wide World of Sports, it was
especially satisfying to see the long line of people behind me. That was
such a contrast to my school-sports experience, where I was always last.
At mile 24 I had a mishap. At the water stop, I collided with a volunteer
who was in the middle of the course and went crashing to the ground,
skinning my left knee and the tip of my right middle finger. (Although I
respect and admire the eagerness of the volunteers, they really should be
instructed to keep to the edge and stay off the course, especially at that
point where the course is very narrow and a runner's ability to right
himself might be impaired.) I was able to pick myself right up and get
going, losing about 30 seconds. Although my road rash was bleeding, I
decided not to stop for medical attention, but to wait until I
finished. Finish I did, after which I had my chip removed, collected my
medal, started eating the high-protein PowerBar that I had gotten in my
race packet and finally went to the medical station to have my road rashes
dealt with.
Somehow I couldn't manage to match the speed I had last year. My chip time
was 5:48:10, 2:44 slower than last year.
Then I hit the refreshments. I remembered the good bakery muffins they had
in 1999, so I was disappointed with the wrapped supermarket muffins they
had this year as well as last. Also, the bananas were green! They should
procure them a few days ahead of time to give them a chance to
ripen. Finally, I caught the bus back to Fort Wilderness.
After I got cleaned up, Maggie and I made the Disney-Deads Bragathon at the
Wilderness Lodge. When that wound down, we went to All-Star Movies and
caught the Penguin post-race celebration, which was still going strong.
Monday morning I went to Wide World of Sports to pick up my certificate and
get the bad news that, unlike last year, I was out of the hardware, being
7th out of 15 in M60-69 racewalkers. It was obviously a faster field than
last year, with several fellows ahead of me in the 5:30 range. However, in
M70+ there was only one man, who was slower than I, so wait till next year!
We then left the World and headed out to visit friends and eat our way
across Florida. We didn't get home until Friday night, which accounts for
the lateness of this report.
Charles Cohn
