Sunday, January 27, 2013

A Marathon


I had this plan of documenting my marathon training as I went, at least taking a few minutes to write something after long runs as a way of remembering what the actual journey to the marathon was. Naturally, me being me, that didn't happen. What I do remember is around the 14 and 16 mile long runs, I was struggling. My shorter runs had become much better, and I was running much faster, but my long runs were disastrous. I made the decision to move my 4 mile easy runs to Thursday nights instead of Friday mornings, thereby giving me a full day of recovery before my long run on Saturday morning. I also started forcing some actual food (banana or bagel, instead of just gels along the way) into my body before I started my long run. Things seemed better, but still not amazing.

I went to Orlando for a random weekend and ran about 14 miles there, and felt amazing. When I returned to CR something clicked. I felt great on my long runs. I ran 20 milers on back to back weekends and after each did matinee performances for the Christmas show I was in. I ran 22 miles, in CR with the altitude and hills (something I would remind myself of before and during the marathon) and I survived. I was ready.

I went on vacation, driving all over CR with my parents and grandfather. I woke up early and ran. I ran in new places I'd never been to before. I ran on beaches (and destroyed my calves). I just ran. My family returned home, and I was left to survive the last week of tapering without distraction. I got nervous and twitchy. I began to think I wasn't doing enough. I asked experienced marathoners for advice. They all told me I was fine and I needed to stick to the plan. I stuck to the plan. (Thank goodness I still had swimming!) I got a massage. I ran my last 3 mile shake out run, and I got on the plane.

A friend picked me up at the airport and took me back to her place to stay for the night. The next morning, Bange arrived and picked up a rental car at the airport and came to get me. We headed to the expo. It was HUGE. Definitely Disney caliber. I picked up my race packet, verified my tag, got my goodie bag (unimpressed Disney – definitely could make some improvements!). We walked the expo, probably longer than I should have, but not too awful. I was bummed when ALL the marathon gear was sold out. Guess I should have ordered that $60 hoodie online, ahead of time. :(
Outside the expo
One of the vendors had a wall with all the participants' names. I was surprised to find that I was one of SIX Skippers running that weekend. (I ended up being the 2nd fastest Skipper to run the marathon)
Expo!!
We had lunch with Bange's sister-in-law who had completed her first half that morning. She and her friends were celebrating with drinks and were highly amusing. We went back to my friend's house where I worked on my playlist. We went to dinner with my grandparents who were, quite randomly, in town. I carbed up.

We headed to the hotel where My Rumming Buddy and her husband were waiting. It was MUCH later than I wanted to get back. I laid out my gear, fill my water bottles. I took my traditional pre-race tequila shot (Thanks to my TicaMom who knows me so well that she gave me a single serving bottle of tequila a couple days before I left saying, "You'll need this for before the race.") and set a second alarm.
Cheers little turtle!
Bottom's up!
We all went to bed. At some point there was snoring and I remember being highly annoyed, not by the snoring itself, but by the fact that it meant that someone was asleep and I definitely was not! Having not yet actually fallen asleep, I sat straight up in bed when Rumming Buddy clapped her hands twice and declared, “Let's GO!” We all began to spring into action when her husband said, “That clock is off, it says it's 11:30pm.” Rumming Buddy looked at her phone and said, “Weird. My phone says 11:30 too.” I picked up my phone, rolled my eyes and grumbled, “That's because it's only 11:30pm!!! Go back to bed people!” We all scrambled back into bed, stopping to laugh at the ridiculousness that had just occurred.

At 3:30am two cell phone alarms sounded simultaneously. This time we all sprang into action for real. Bite of Clif Bar. Water. Body Glide. Water. Clif Bar. Shorts. Headphones. Sports Bra. Tank. Water. Headbands. iPod. Water. Shit I've only had two bites of my Clif bar – EAT! Water. Compression socks. Clif Bar. Shoes. Water. Fuel Belt. Clif Bar. Water. Sunglasses. Throw all the random stuff into the bag and take it all to the car. Head to the bus!

Wait. Wait. Wait. Time ticking. Buses not coming fast enough for the giant line. We should have left earlier. Finally a man shows up asking if anyone is in Corral A or B. That small handful get rushed onto a bus and the man tells us there are several buses that will be pulling up in just a few minutes. Breathe. Water.

The four of us (and MANY others) shuffle onto the bus. Here we go. The bus ride is a blur. I think there was laughing about the 11:30pm *clapclap* “Let's go!” incident. We begin the walk to the corrals. A photographer has me and Rumming Buddy pose for a picture. We keep walking. Another photographer. This time we get all four of us. Support team definitely needs to be in some pics.
Me and Rumming Buddy
With our amazing support crew!

Walk down a red carpet through the giant mouse ears. Picture!

You can't see it, but there is in fact a red carpet welcoming us.

Exchange good lucks and I love you's with the support squad, and Rumming Buddy and I split off. Porta Potty stop. Ew! Keep walking. Get to corrals. Stand. Wait. Sit. Wait. Fireworks!! More Fireworks! This is happening.
INCREDIBLE!

One more trip to the Porta Potty – still ew! Back to the corrals. Wait. More fireworks. Honey Stinger Chews. Yum! And suddenly we're actually moving forward. Corral F start. Fireworks. Corral G start. Fireworks! Earbuds in. My Chick Bad. Sing random lyrics of song to Rumming Buddy who just laughs at me. Moving forward. Corral H. This is us. It's finally us. Announcer “Blahblahblah saved the best for last blahblahblah.” Mickey counts down. FIREWORKS!! Extra Fireworks because we're the last corral. Let's do this!!

Slowly jogging forward. Cross the start line. Do I seriously have to pee again?!? SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Bob and weave through the crowd trying to stay close to Rumming Buddy. Is that our crew?!? Wave big. Finally get their attention. Keep moving. Mile one – Porta Potties. Are people seriously stopping at a mile one?!? Weird! Captain Jack and Barbosa!! Just smile, no time to stop.


Bob and weave. Bob and weave. Still so many people. Mile 2 – over 24 minutes. Gotta move. Tell Rumming Buddy I'm going to pick it up. We wish each other well, confirming to each other that we both know we can do this. I head off.

Focus. Focus. Need to move faster, but not too fast to kill myself. Mile 3 appears remarkably fast. Keep bobbing and weaving. Take Gatorade (lemon lime – so gross!) and water and thank the volunteers at every aid station. Run on the grass a lot to escape the crowd. Bob and weave. Coming up on Mile 4. Should see support squad. Scanning scanning. Where are they? Trail of people end. No crew sightings. Dangit!

Castle!! There's the castle!! Royal Mickey and Minnie taking pics with a HUGE line of people. Run through the castle. Try to smile at all the photographers. Please let one of those be good. The sun comes up to full force. Sunglasses! Bob and weave.





Speedway! Have to enter the speedway through a tunnel. ANDDDD. We're. Walking. Ugh! I hate walking. Ok. Out of the tunnel. Run around the speedway. Pretty Corvette. Pretty Charger. Ooooh old Mustang. Speedways are big. Thank goodness these nice people brought their cars to entertain me. MATER!!

Mile 14. Man I'm tired. What?!? No, I can't be tired. Way to early to be tired. Focus. You've got this. I really am tired. Come on. This is mental. You are stronger. You've done 22 miles in MUCH harder conditions. You are NOT tired!! My legs hurt. COME ON!! Mile 15. Gu. That should help some. Wait. I just broke through to an 11 minute average. At mile 15. That's not far from 10:52/mile. 10:52/mile = 4:45. This is possible. I'm not tired!! I have a race to run. I can do this. Focus. Mile 19. Feeling good. Look, a giant Mickey Mouse hot air balloon. Loop around the stadium. Search the stands for the crew. Nothing. :(



Mile 20 “spectacular.” Not sure what I was expecting, but was disappointed by the "spectacular." Cool, but not spectacular. Cross mile 20. Check watch. YES!!! FREAKING AWESOME. Maintain and you get your 4:45!!! Don't let up now. Focus. Just 10k to go. Maintain your pace. Focus. You've got this.

Back out to this hellacious hot road. I didn't like this road running into ESPN, it's not really better running out. Distract myself by searching the inbound crowd for Rumming Buddy. No luck. There's a lot of trash at the aid stations. I'm now taking multiple cups at every aid station. Powerade. Water to dump on myself. Water to drink. It's freaking HOT. Keep yelling “thank you” to volunteers. Some thank me for running, others offer words of encouragement. Volunteers are awesome! Turn off the evil road, shade! I like shade.

This means we're headed back towards Epcot right? I like Epcot. Yay!! Countries. So glad we're coming here later. 23. That said 23 miles. When did lemon-lime Powerade start tasting good? I'm so freaking close. Still on pace for 4:45. I love this. Woah. That felt weird. What the?!?! Uh oh. I think I have an angry toenail! That's ok. It survived this long. It'll survive another two and half miles. Bob and weave. I really do love Epcot.

Final stretch.

Finish in sight!

26. That seriously just said 26!! Push. Push harder. You've come this far. You will finish strong. Push.So many people!! So much support. Where are MY people? This is amazing. I see the finish line. Give it everything. So close. Sprinting. DONE!!! Hands in the air! I don't think I got my hands up in time for a picture. Whatever. I crossed the finish line. WATCH. What's the watch say?!? 4:42:11!!! It can't possibly be off by more than one minute. I did it!!! I freaking did it!!!






Medal. So heavy. I love it!! Crying now. Well, my body isn't actually producing tears... but I'm definitely crying. A volunteer asks if I'm okay. Yeah. I'm good. (I think I said that out loud). Powerade. Snacks. Banana. Thank the volunteers. Another Powerade. Photo in front of the finisher backdrop. Asked the photographer if my face was snotty before I let her take the pic. Bags of ice. Oooooh ice! Still walking, just hold the ice on my neck and shoulders.


Medal + ice + Powerade = Happy Runner!

Big area sectioned off with lots of chairs and benches inside. People with bags of ice saran wrapped to their knees. That looks delightful!!! Stumble into area. Stand. Stare. Not sure what I'm doing. Nice man comes up and says, “Can I help you?” I point to someone with knee ice bags and say, “I think I want that please.” He guides me to a chair and after I tell him I want to keep the two bags of ice I already have in my hand, he runs off to get more and comes back and wraps my knees. I was right. It is delightful. Stand up. OOOOWWWWW. That's not easy.

Can't find people. Where are they? How's Rumming Buddy doing? Is she close? I don't want to miss her finishing. I should find people. Slowly shuffle/stumble to the “S” tent. Manage to sit down on the ground. Blue Powerade. Why didn't they have this on the course instead of that nasty lemon-lime?! Move extra ice between quads, hams and glutes. Realize that my clothes are literally soaking wet. Bange!! I see her. She's looking, but I'm sitting and not about to try to stand. I start yelling her name. I swear I'm capable of yelling louder than that. Yell her name a couple more times. She finds me. She remembers the importance of the post race banana pic (I forgot I had a banana).


She fills me on Rumming Buddy. Dropped back quite a bit. Still have about an hour until we expect her to cross. Hope she's doing okay. Sit. Breathe. Ice. Try not to cry. Banana. Powerade. Talk to Bange. They never saw us again after the start line sighting. They did get splits both via text and Facebook. They were confused when my pace kept getting faster. Smile. I did that! Think I might lose a knee cap, or both, to frost bite, remove saran wrapped ice packs. Decide to go scope out the finish line. Rumming Buddy's crew is packed into a crowd and we can't reach them. Smiles, waves, congrats over the crowd. We go to find another spot to watch from. The moment we arrive, I have to pee again. Stumble back to Porta Potties, still ew, but impressively, still stocked with toilet paper. Go Disney!

Stumble back to spot to watch for Rumming Buddy. Cheer for random strangers. Where is she? Come on. Where is she? Cheer for more random strangers. Check watch. She should be here. I hope she's okay. She's gotta be okay. She's okay, I know she's okay. Come on Rumming Buddy. Is that her?!?! I think that's her!! Turn on video. Scream so loud and so hard that video is unwatchable due to bouncing, but she saw us, so it's okay. Stumble back to meeting area. Hug Rumming Buddy and congratulate her. “It is freaking hot here friend!” she says. I know. I had a bit of an advantage in training in heat instead of snow.

She wants her official time. It didn't occur to me that it might be different than the texts said. I wonder off to find info. The times are what we thought they were.  Me - 4:41:37 (the watch was pretty close!) Average pace - 10:44/mile. A good 15+ seconds faster than any of my long training runs. Thank you for being at sea level Florida! Rumming Buddy - 6:11:33. Heat hit her pretty hard and she decided if she had to walk, she may as well stop for some photo ops with the characters. Bottom line... we both finished.

We are the champions!!! Matching medals and matching Disney Princess headbands (a marathon present from Rumming Buddy). When we paused for this picture, I set my bag of post race snacks on the ground. After the pic, I just stared at the bag and pathetically asked if someone would please pick up my stuff and hand it to me. Bange happily obliged. Support crew = priceless!

Celebrating with dinner in Downtown Disney. 
I've never run such a packed race. In retrospect, part of me thinks in some ways the crowds helped me. I was so afraid of getting stuck behind slow people that I was constantly focused on bobbing and weaving my way forward. Since I start in the last corral, I passed LOTS of people and was probably only passed by about a dozen people throughout the entire race.

Rumming Buddy and I are sure we will "runDisney" again. The Goofy is certainly in our future. We both agreed that future Disney races will simply be for fun though. We'll stop for pics with characters and just enjoy ourselves. New PRs will be for other races... Perhaps Carmel in April?

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