Hey Y'All,
Well I'm back from chilly Florida having completed my 5th Disney marathon.
As I said I was going to do before the race, this was to be a walking
marathon for me (my first) as I covered the 26.2 miles with my wife Colleen.
This was to be her second marathon overall as well as her second in two
months. She walked a 6:44 time in Dublin and was hoping to better that time
at Disney.
I'm sorry to have missed so many old friends at the APD. At the last minute
it was decided that we were going to spend the day at the Animal Kingdom and
see if we could still make the APD. Unfortunately we couldn't do both so we
missed dinner. Hopefully next year.
Although I had an 'A' corral bib, we lined up in the 'F' corral that my
wife's bib read which gave us a 7 minute wait to cross the starting line
once the gun went off. We had a really good first half of the race,
tracking all of the mile splits versus her race band that was set up for a
6:30 marathon. By the half way mark we were about 5 minutes under the 6:30
projected finish time. Highlight of the first half had to have been our
walk through the Magic Kingdom. When did they start bringing out all of the
characters for the race? :-) I had more fun and noticed more things in the
MK than I ever have in any of my 4 previous Disney's. (Plus all of the
pictures we stopped and took! You'd never know we were in a race!) So we
hit the halfway mark in 3:11 with Colleen still going strong.
Then the second half... As most everyone experienced, the torrential rain
hit us at mile 14 and we were immediately soaked to the skin and started
getting chilly. My wife really toughed it out though as 14-17 were our
hardest miles of the race, yet we lost virtually no time off the pace we
were keeping. Unfortunately for me the socks I wore were not good ones to
have on with wet feet and I immediately started getting some nasty blisters.
By about 17 we started to dry out and our spirits and pace picked up a bit
(although my feet continued to get worse and worse). Somewhere in there I
stopped at a med tend and put on a blister guard, but the damage was already
done and I knew I'd pay the price by the end of the race.
Colleen held together really well until about mile 23 when she finally tired
and started getting a bit cranky. But by then we were into *let's just
finish* territory and kept moving along pretty well. On the path from MGM
to Boardwalk we ran into Dave Lawrence who joined us for about a mile
stretch. Dave and I had a nice chat and caught up a bit until we hit Epcot
and he turned back. After that it was just hold the pace on in, which
Colleen really did well, finishing hand in hand with a big smile and almost
a 20 minute PR! The goal was 6:30 and we finished in 6:26:28 for a very
good time for my wife. For me it was about 3 hours slower than my last
marathon but about 100 times more fun!
After the race I stopped in the medical tend to have them check my feet.
Both heels had had blisters at one time, but now there were just nasty
patches where skin had once lived. (I'll be walking around in my
Birkenstocks for a few days still.) In addition to the heels I picked up
about 3 other big blisters that I'm currently nursing. The only good thing
is that none of them are irritated when I run, only walk, so I got out for a
recovery run on the Boardwalk on Monday and Tuesday mornings. On Tuesday I
ran into Dave Lawrence again so we ran (he walked) a few loops and re-lived
the race. Also on Sunday, after the race at the Magic Kingdom, I ran into
Bart Ooms from Belgium while waiting for the parade. It was great to see
these old friends again and catch up. Bart invited us to come to Belgium
and stay at his house. Bart, you'd better be carefully when you hand out
those invitations... we just might take you up on it!
So all in all we had another great Disney Marathon. I've got a bunch of
short races lined up over the next couple of months and then the Xenia
Marathon in April (if it goes this year, which is in question). An then my
back-to-back marathons of the Country Music and Flying Pig on consecutive
weekends in late April and early May. Hope these feet heal soon -- I've got
to get running.
Congrats to all the new and old Disney Marathoners! And especially all of
our super fast walkers who took home the hardware. Way to go!
Tom Laux
Cincinnati, OH
