Wow, what a weekend. We arrived to beautiful, warm weather on
Thursday and had a blast...most likely a little too good of a blast.
We were worried about the warm temps until Saturday when we started
to worry about the cold and wind.
After surviving the case of the missing Mears bus, Alex and I started
in Corral D and were excited as the fireworks went off. It took 7
minutes to cross the line and off we went. My mission was to pull
Alex's pace back to the 13-minute range as she was running the full
and I was cutting out on the half. We had a great time and were
staying on pace for the first seven miles. Then I started feeling
the lack of those October training miles and had to let Alex go.
I slowed a little for the next couple miles; however, I could still
see Alex for the next mile or so. I saw my wife Mary and waved to
her at the Ticket and Transportation Center. As I hit a construction
patch at the guard shack going into the Magic Kingdom, I misstepped
and felt a pop in my right foot. I thought here we go again with the
broken foot. I walked though the Magic Kingdom testing my foot and
saw that nothing was really wrong. It was exhilarating to go through
the castle and definitely the kick I needed to jump-start my run
again. I hit a major congestion area as I left the park as got onto
Floridian Way which slowed my pace a little as the glob of runners
was only moving at about a 15 minute pace.
As I hit Mile 13 and it was easy to turn left. It's better to fight
another day when one is better prepared for battle than to push a bad
training year. As I run down the finish chute the audience was stone
silent. I yelled all the way down the chute and pumped the crowd
up.
I had a great time albeit shorter than I planned on last July. I
took the bus back to the Epcot Parking, picked up my warm ups from
the tent and limped back to the Boardwalk Villas where I plopped into
the Jacuzzi tub for about 20 minutes. I went back out to the
Boardwalk just in time to catch Alex running by. It was great to see
her go by. I could see the fatigue in her body, but her face was
still full of the early morning excitement and determination!
Charles Wait
