I had woke up at 4:30 on Thursday morning for a light workout and then headed off to work. I needed to wrap everything up that day because I had no way of accomplishing my work while gone (nor did I want to spend my vacation working). The problem was that I did not leave the office until 12:15 a.m. on Friday morning and I had to leave for the airport at 4:15 a.m.
I went home, started to wash the clothes I needed and then packed. I finished getting everything ready at 3:50 a.m. and then waited a little bit until my neighbor picked me up. I did get an hour and fifteen minutes of sleep total on my two flights down to Orlando, but it didn't feel like much. I spent the rest of the day driving around, meeting family that was coming down for the vacation and whatnot. To cut this short, I got three and a half hours of sleep the night before the race.
I felt fine on race morning and my pace for the first six miles indicated that I would reach a new PR. But shortly after we went through the Magic Kingdom, my body just wanted to lie down on the side of the road and sleep. I hanged in there, but people started passing me right and left.
My finishing time was 1:39 and some seconds. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I was nine minutes off my PR. With the 1:39 I placed 14th out of 389 men in my age group, which isn't so bad. The only thing that is biting me now is that if I had only matched my PR, I would have finished 4th. I certainly learned the hard way about the extreme importance of getting your rest.
Many of my relatives did this race as well, including my brother. I have to say that I am very proud of him. He had difficulty with the training for this (he's never run before and this past fall was the beginning of his graduate studies). He had asked me before the race if I'd be wearing a hat. I answered negatively, but he said he was going to wear one anyway. The hat he was wearing was the Ironman hat that was a gift from my IM this past summer. Todd finished the Disney half in 2:57 - three minutes faster thna his goal. When we had some time alone I mentioned how proud I was of him for pulling through. He said that each time he felt like quitting he reached to the hat and felt the Ironman stitching and thought of me, and how I had kept going in the IM and how he knew that somewhere ahead of him I was still pushing through it. We both started tearing up - one of those brother moments.
The whole family has discussed returning again next year for this weekend. I'd love to do it again and be sure to place in the top 5 in the AG.
|
