Back from the heat of Florida where it appears that winter came to visit while we were away. Got off the plane last night to 28 degree temps wearing sandals and T-shirt where I was either under-dressed or over-weathered! What a fun weekend it was for the entire Laux gang. Here’s my report, I’ll try to keep it short (but fail miserably).
Colleen and I flew down on Friday, hit the expo and then some shopping at Downtown Disney before heading over to Pop Century for dinner and our first Dead encounter of the weekend. Met up with the Druckenmiller Gang, Julie and her family, Dave and Eileen Lawrence, Robert and Linda, Mike Lozano, Stan and Sheila, Bart and Isabelle and Charles and Maggie. (Hopefully I didn’t miss anyone). True to form Bart brought chocolates from Belgium along with – beer! Got a couple of other surprises as Kris from Mass. called while we were having dinner. We passed my cell phone around so all could say hello. Then as we were heading out Bob took time out from herding cats in OK to also wish us well. It was a great start to the weekend.
Saturday morning I’m up at 3AM finding it hot and humid for the Half Marathon part of my Goofy. For the first time in years I didn’t need a throw away shirt, trash bags or even running gloves. Headed to the busses in the middle of the night wearing only a singlet and shorts. And the wrong shoes. (More on that later.) Met Dave and Eileen at the busses and then we headed to the “D” tent at Epcot for the early morning encounter where a good number of the group had assembled. I got to start near the front in the “A” corral of the first wave and had planned on running quick on Saturday. That worked for about 9 miles until coming out of MK I suddenly found the need to make a pit stop which cost me about 3 minutes. Having blown the time goal I started backing the pace down to about 7:30’s when the shoe problem hit. I’d brought a pair for each day and was running in my light weight short distance race shoes in the half. Usually these shoes are only used for raced to 10K and shortly after the MK stop they started causing hot spots on the balls of my feet. By 11 miles I was hopping up and down on my toes as I’d now rubbed two major blisters and they were really getting tender. Finished up the half in about 1:42 or so and immediately went to the med tent for help (of which they were little). I could barely walk Saturday afternoon and was becoming really concerned about the marathon the next day and my ability to start it much less finish. Saturday evening we met up with the Druckenmiller gang at the old APD spot for a nice pasta dinner and then went next door to CVS to find something to help my aching feet. (We also ran into Jackson having dinner with one of his training groups right at the table behind us. Always good to see some of the old Disney Deads gang.)
Sunday morning my entire gang (me, Colleen and her sister Maureen) are once again up at 3AM for the marathon. Got up and applied a number of BandAid Blister Guard pads on my feet and was relieved to find that when combined with my regular distance trainers I could walk (and hopefully run) relatively pain free. With the forecast for the day to be hot, hot, hot I decided before leaving that this was to be a fun marathon instead of one run by the watch. (Something I NEVER do!) So I packed the camera and left the watch and we headed out. Ran the marathon exactly as planned, stopping immediately after crossing the starting mat to take pictures of the race start and kept it up until the battery in my small digital camera died some 50 pics later. Along the route I chatted with other runners and generally had a good time, running about 8:30’s when I ran and about 11’s when I hit the parks. At about 19.5 I came upon Stan and Sheila cheering on their Dead friends. Being in no hurry whatsoever I stopped and we chatted and took pictures for about 5 minutes. Just as soon as I got running again I came upon Jack Eckles just before the hasher’s beer stop. We both stopped in and raised a toast and then I got running while Jack stayed for a minute to talk. Later on the Boardwalk was Dave and Eileen Lawrence saving me a spot on the steps so I took them up on it and sat for another minute for a chat (wasting tons of race time along the way :-) Eventually I got running again and decided I ought to finish the race and ran it on in to about a 4:10 finish, one of my poorer race times out of my 10 Disney marathons, but one of the more fun races I’ve done in some time. Every once in a while leaving the watch at home is good for the soul. Got back in time to shower up and head back out on the Boardwalk myself to cheer in some of the walking crowd including Julie, Mark D., Charles Wait (sore shoulder and all), my wife and her sister, Eileen D, Robert and Linda, and Charles Cohn.
The weekend continued Monday morning with the annual Boardwalk run where we had an excellent turnout for the loops around the lake. Later in the day my gang went to MK until about 5PM and then headed over to Epcot where we met up with the WDWDW II party (which had been going on since about noon). Sheila showed us that she is a true Irish woman and I believe Linda may have a bit of Irish in her blood as well J Colleen had a few libations herself and soon was sporting a henna tattoo around her ankle purchased in Morocco. Later we all had to thank Mr. and Mrs. D who scouted out a bunch of tables in England for us to sit and watch the fireworks show. The entire evening was just too much fun. Tuesday morning headed out for a morning run around the Boardwalk and ran into Dave so we headed out along the path to MGM and got in a few post marathon miles and swapped more stories. Having a late flight home we got to spend one more day at the parks and headed to MGM where, on our first ride of the day at Tower of Terror we all won one of the daily Dream Makers prizes that are being given away at the parks. Our prize was an MGM complete FastPass which gave us a fast pass to every ride at the park that uses them. (Unfortunately it was a pretty slow day at the park and we didn’t need to use a single one!) Later in the day, at the Living Seas at Epcot, I was talking with one of the education Cast Members about the fish in the tanks. It was near feeding time and he asked if we had a few extra minutes to walk up a flight of steps. He then proceeded to give us a mini “back stage tour” of the aquarium, getting to go upstairs to wear the divers were getting the food together and beginning to feed the fish. It was very cool and very interesting as it was a private tour for just the 5 in our group.
That about wraps up my version of the weekend.
Tom Laux
Cincinnati, OH
