Maggie and I arrived at Disney World Friday morning after leaving home on
Thursday and sleeping overnight in a truck stop. On arrival, we first went
to the Wide World of Sports where I picked up my packet. We checked out
the expo, but I didn't find anything that called out to me to buy it.
Then we checked in at Fort Wilderness and went to Epcot, where we spent
some time walking around -- not the smartest thing to do even two days
before the marathon. We had dinner at the Coronado Springs food court and
had a very satisfying visit with Keley Smith-Keller of the marathonwalkers
group. (We didn't buy any food, but ate the raw stuff we carried with us,
which we can easily get away with in a food court.)
Saturday morning we slept in and got to the Wide World of Sports just
before the lectures were about to begin. Somehow Maggie wasn't interested
in listening to the lectures, so she stayed in our camper and wrote on her
portable word processor between naps. I always enjoy them even though I
didn't learn anything new. All the speakers reiterated the most important
maxims for marathon success: don't start off too fast and don't wear, use
or ingest anything that you haven't already tried in training.
At dinner time we went to the official pasta dinner at the All-Star
Cafe. We had hoped to meet up with the Penguins, and messages had been
left on our cell phones, but unfortunately I hadn't mastered the drill for
retrieving messages when roaming, so we weren't able to connect, but we did
have pleasant conversations with our table mates.
As raw foodists, we couldn't eat the pasta, but we got our money's worth by
eating plate after plate of salad, using the large pasta plates instead of
the small salad plates. We also liked the disposable plates on which the
pasta was served. They were a lot nicer than the plates we carried in our
camper, so we kept the ones we had used and also pulled a bunch out of the
trash can to take home and sterilize in our dishwasher.
Sunday morning I got up at 2:30 am. After listing to the weatheradio to
find out how cold it was (in the 30s) I vaselined my crotch, armpits and
nipples and dressed in a couple of layers of Coolmax topped off with an
old, worn jacket that Maggie had been after me to get rid of.
I caught the bus after a very short wait. With all the road closings, the
bus driver got lost and had to radio for directions, but we got to the
staging area in plenty of time to hang around and freeze. Again I looked
for the Penguins and didn't find them.
When the move to the corrals was called, I followed the crowd, got to my
corral, and had more time to stand around and freeze. At last, the
barriers came down, the gun fired and I got moving.
It quickly became unpleasantly obvious that I was off my speed. Nothing
bothered me, but I just couldn't work up any speed. So I just kept
going. At mile 10 it finally got warm enough for me to shed my jacket and
drop it at the side of the road. I kept right on going in reasonable
comfort until, during the last mile around the World Showcase I was able to
pick it up a bit and passed a bunch of walkers. I finished in a dreadfully
slow 6:34:03 chip time for my 42nd marathon finish and my seventh Disney.
The rest of the day we spent a quiet evening "at home." Monday morning we
set out to visit our Florida friends.
Despite my unprepossessing result, I am not giving up on Disney. On the
contrary, I have already sent my registration for the 2005 marathon.
Charles Cohn
