Hey Y’All,

 

Well I’m back home in chilly Cincinnati where the weather here is just about the same as it was for our short winter vacation. My gang collected a total of 7 medals between the group – 1 Chicken, 4 Donald, 1 Mickey and 1 Goofy. We all had a good time but were disappointed the weekend went by so fast. With there now being two race days we didn’t really have any full days to enjoy the parks, something we’ve always been able to do in the past. May have to change plans a bit for next year.

 

So here’s a quick recap of my one legged Goofy race: We stayed at Saratoga Springs for the first time this year after missing out on Boardwalk due to registering late. The new resort is nice but pretty spread out and didn’t suite us well for not having rented a car. That was mostly due to bus issues we kept running into. Sat morning was chilly and we weren’t looking forward to standing in the Epcot parking lot for a couple of hours, and we didn’t need to. They goofed and marathon busses never came to Saratoga Springs for quite a while. (We got to the bus stop at 3:30 and didn’t get picked up until 4:45!) So unfortunately I missed the meeting at the “D” tent before the half. After an aborted test run on my bum tendon last week I decided the smart thing to do would be walk the ½ marathon with my wife, son and sister-in-law and then do an easy, easy run in the marathon. And that’s exactly what I did. I let the girls set the pace, we took pictures and pretty much had a nice walk covering the distance in 3:23. Not what I’m used to but what was best for my injury and a lot of fun to do as a group.

 

Marathon morning (after a LOT of complaining about the bus mess), I got picked up right away at 3:30 and was to Epcot by a little after 4. Found my way to the “D” tent where I met up with Mike Lozano, Sheila and Stan the Walrus Man, Charles and Bart, and met for the first time Vicki, Bob and his daughter Jordan and Alvaro who looked really, really cold! It was nice chatting and putting names with faces again. At the start of the race I decided that the smart and right thing to do was not to line up in “A” corral as my bib would allow but rather move back to where I wouldn’t be a hinder to the guys who belonged there. So I went back to “C” corral and immedately hear my name called out by Julie Miwa. So we got to start the race together which was fun. As far as the race goes I had two scenareos in my mind. First that my achilles would suddenly feel much better and I could run an easy 9 minute pace and do a 4 hour marathon or that it would completely fall apart, I’d have to walk/limp the entire way and do a 7 hour race. Reality was somewhere in between. Once we got going I found that I could run up to about a 10 minute pace with tolerable discomfort but no real pain. Faster than that I needed to push off harder and would get enough pain that made me think I was doing additional damage to the injury or might even rupture the tendon (which they had told me was a possibiliy). So I ran mostly between 10 and 11 minute miles, faster when there was less conjestion and slower when the course bottlenecked. Saw my wife at the Transportation and Ticket Center and again by the Grand Floridian and then her and my kids outside of MGM. All were great pickup’s as, even though my injury was tolerable durning the race, all the training miles I lost still made it a difficult journey. (Not surprisingly I also was bother by a sore knee on the opposite leg the entire marathon.) Each time I saw my gang I’d stop, chat, get pictures taken and lots of stretch. Those combined with a couple of leisurely potty stops cost me about 30 minutes of race time, which I just wasn’t real concerned with. Towards the end I decided that staying under 5 hours would be something to shoot for and I did, finishing in 4:58, I mere hour and a half slower than my last marathon in October J

 

Monday morning Adam was nice enough to pick up me and my little one Nathan and head over to BW for the Morning After encouunter. There we met up with Kent (way fast and way impressive with his sub-3 finish!), Bart who always runs Disney well including this year, Dave Lawrence, complaining about the steps after his first “running” half, Charles, Julie, and all the Druckenmillers, Mark, Ellen and Eileen. (I hope I didn’t miss anyone. I think I’m still a bit sleep deprived!) That’s always a nice get together and we walked (and some of us hobbled) about the lake and got some pastries afterwards.

 

So the weekend is once again behind us. I’ve collected my nineth Mickey, first Donald and first Goofy. I also collected a new marathon PW but a new Goofy race PR J Don’t know if I’ll run the whole Goofy thing again next year. If I do it’ll be a walk with Colleen in the Half and then a run in the full. I think I’d rather concentrate on doing well in one race (and maybe staying healthy). I’ve got to decide how much sleep I want to loose. Having to get up at 3am twice in a row really cut into our short vacation, not something we’d considered ahead of time. Now I’m back and in rest mode. No running until the pain in my ankle completely goes away and then probably not for a week or two after that. Then there will be a long road back to getting into race shape and trying to find some speed.

 

Hope everyone else enjoyed their trips and that those who couldn’t make it this year can come back in ’07. Btw, we’ve now already got our next Disney race planned. Colleen signed up for the Minnie 15K in May this morning. And after seeing the Disneyland Half medal she’s thinking about that one as well. Time to buy more Disney stock!

 

Tom Laux

Cincinnati, OH