Well, Colleen and I got back last night from a great weekend in Orlando and
really had a lot of fun. Here's a brief account of our time.
Saturday started out right with our Delta flight actually being on time and
having pilots to fly the plane. The big surprise was that we managed to
catch an upgrade and got to fly down sitting in the front of the plane.
Colleen decided you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and proceeded
to have a couple of bloody mary's as a good way to prep for her half
marathon. (I stuck to the water.) The expo was good as I got to meet Jeff
Galloway and Bill Rogers, as well as spending too much money on stuff I
really didn't need. I think the highlight of the weekend was the APD dinner
Saturday night. It was great seeing old friends and meeting up with new
ones. My only regret was that there wasn't enough time to get around to
meet everyone who was there.
Race morning, as everyone knows, was pretty chilly. Coming from the
mid-west we're pretty used to this, but I wasn't prepared for it to stay
quite so cold for quite so long. I dressed as in years past in only a
singlet and shorts and stayed cold through 10 or 12 miles. My race plan was
to run 8 min splits for the entire day. With the cold though I just
couldn't loosen up and run mostly 8:15-8:20 all the way through to the 1/2.
At that point I was about 6 minutes behind my goal time so I made the
decision this would not be a fast marathon for me and chose to back off and
enjoy the rest of the day. I finished in a comfortable 3:52, well off my
plans but well within my comfort zone. After the race I ran into Jakson and
Dave Lawrence. Jakson and I had hoped to run together but never found each
other in the morning. That's probably just as well as he ran the race I had
planned on and I don't think I could have kept up this time. While talking
with Dave I almost had to pull out of him how he did. He was much more
interested in everyone else's race story. He finally got this sheepish grin
on his face and *confessed* that he had won the race walking division again!
This in spite of the fact that he had told me the day before that he wasn't
trained and was planning on taking it easy this year. It was really a treat
meeting up with Dave who is obviously quite talented but quite humble about
his abilities as well. You're a true competitor Dave. I then met up with
my wife Colleen, who caught a monorail ride back from the 1/2 finish just in
time to catch the end of my race. She had a good day, completing the 1/2 in
about 3:06 on very light training and a good case of PF.
Finished off the weekend by spending as much of Sunday at MK as Colleen's
foot would allow. We ran into Beth Dunham, her Mom and kids outside of
Splash Mountain. The kids looked like they were ready to go all day and
Beth gave me a look that just said "can't someone please get me a beer!".
They were all having a good time and we got to briefly recount our races.
Monday was spent at Epcot where we ran into a new dead friend, Becky. She
had run the 1/2, was quite sore and had to work on top of all that. She was
running the home theater demo in one of the Innoventions areas. We got to
have a nice chat and she really did a good job with her demo in spite of the
fact that she was really having a tough time with the stairs she had to keep
climbing. (Her Epcot co-workers were also giving her a good ribbing with
each step she took.) Yesterday got us ready to come back home to the cold
as there was a good cold wind whipping up and it was a very un-Florida like
day. Now it's back to the real world, work, and decisions about the next
race to put on the calendar.
Thanks to everyone for such a wonderful year of support and camaraderie.
I've enjoyed chatting with everyone on the list as we got ready for this
race and hope that the conversations continue though the new year as we
starting thinking about Disney 2002. A couple of special thanks also go out
to Holly for the usual excellent work in providing this forum for us, Jakson
and Craig for the work on the shirts -- that's more time consuming that you
think, Charlie for once again providing us a place to meet our friends and
get to know each other, Wendy for providing inspiration for everyone you
meet through your actions, and mostly everyone on this list for all the
enjoyment and motivation you've given me over the years.
Till we meet again,
Tom Laux
Cincinnati, OH
