Hooray!
Jeremy and I both crossed the finish line of the '08 Disney Marathon. We'd done two half-marathons before, but this was the first full. The experience was awesome and we're really happy we did it. It was as enjoyable as that much physical discomfort could be. We are fortunate to have wonderful friends and family who came and offered support or sent words of encouragement from different parts of the country. That truly made the event endurable!
From start to finish the race was well organized and the conditions were great. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge the night before the run. Transport to the start of the race was very simple; at 3:45 am on Sunday we walked right onto a big fancy bus that took us from the hotel to the race's start. We both felt pretty well rested, having slept at least 8 hours every night the week leading up to the big run. On Saturday night we fell asleep by 9 pm with no problem since we were up REALLY early that morning to catch a flight. The bus ride over to the start was pretty quiet as most folks were sleepy. The significance of what we were about to do really hit me when I got on the bus and saw the other runners. They were all so athletic looking. Nobody on the bus looked like a casual runner. That freaked me out a teensy bit. I'm not really all that athletic or serious about running.
Once we got off the bus at Epcot I calmed down a bit as I saw more people who looked like me and less like Olympians. They kept us in a holding area for about an hour and played loud music. To keep warm we bought some throw away sweats. It was so warm and humid - even at 4:30 am - that we just checked our stuff. Here's a few photos of us pre-race. Notice my AWESOME sweatshirt. And no, I have no idea who she is.
We managed to get assigned to Corral D, which was at the very front of the slower runner start. (There were two starts - one for the people on our bus, the fast runners, and a second for the slow pokes.) After watching some middle-aged white dude perform his rendition of the "Soulja Boy" dance to the pre-race warm up music, the race kicked off at 6. It was so dark!
The first few miles were really quiet. Very few spectators could get to the start of the marathon because it is largely on back roads. When we hit Epcot we saw a few folks as we ran next to the giant sphere. (That is also an excellent place to use the theme-park restrooms.)
We were going strong when we saw my Mom, Dad, and sister at mile 9. It was great to see them!
We ran into the Magic Kingdom shortly afterwards. I felt great until about mile 13 when my arches started to get really sore. This was a pain I hadn't anticipated at all - I have never had arch discomfort on training runs so I think that the asphalt we ran on did it. John and Melissa cheered for us at miles 9 and 13 which was so cool! They screamed for us so loudly that the people around us asked if they too could join "Team Brown". It was awesome.
This post is getting really long. I"ll take a break for now and post some more pictures soon.
