I thought I would
give you rundown on today's Marathon.
First of all Disney
is annoyingly organized, they made you get to site
at 4AM (3 AM in Dallas), where you were herded in a giant staging area.
Then at 4:30 AM they walked all of us 6/10 of a mile to our respective
corrals. We were in position at 5AM one hour before the official
start. Instead on standing around, I decided to sit down on the
pavement and wait out the time. I could not see being on my feet an
extra hour that was unnecessary.
My plan for the race
was to have fun, run a steady pace, and try to be
strong at the end (for a change). I know Jeff would want 2-3 minutes
slower than our normal pace but I could not do that. So I planned on
trotting along at about a 10:20 pace for around a 4:30 race. I decided
to use a 6:1 ratio would was great except that some miles had 2 breaks
and others 1 so it made judging the pace a little more difficult.
This was by far the
first truly pleasurable experience I have had
running marathons. The race had 16,000 Marathoners and 6,000 Half
Marathoners. The Team in Training crowd was huge. Their supporters
were everywhere and very vocal. The race started at Epcot and
proceeded through various parks. The Disney characters were in full
force as were the employees. In the dead sections they set up
Jumbotrons and you could watch yourself run as the commentators were
calling out people's names. Knowing Disney, you can imagine the water
stations and restrooms were plentiful.
You finally end up
at Epcot and the finish was inspiring. The
announcer was shouting for us to sprint if we wanted to beat 4:30
official time so, I hauled butt the last few hundred yards and finished
under 4:30 (4:28 chip time). It was a remarkable feeling to be able to
sprint at the end of the race. At White Rock, I was crawling from 22
on.
The splits were as
close I have ever had (2:13:17 versus 2:15:33).
I saw Jeff on Friday
and he said that Fort Worth has a new Director and
he did want to talk about Dallas. Unfortunately, we were unable to
reconnect since he had his family here and I mine. I will speak to his
office on Tuesday.
I was able to walk
comfortably at the end and after a little ice back
at the room, I am raring to go, I will spin this afternoon after the
Bucs game. This was such a fun and memorable experience. If you want
a FUN marathon, I highly recommend the Disney Marathon.
Rhys (my 10 year old)
and I ran the Family Fun 5K on Saturday. We were
steady at an 11:00 pace, but somehow he smoked me again at the end. He
has a big smile on his face and is very proud of his tee-shirt.
See you soon.
