Holy moly, it was a cold one! When I packed, I gave myself a short and capri option with every race outfit, but I’m so glad I packed my emergency pants! I also added the long-sleeved 10k race shirt as a base layer under my TNT short-sleeve shirt, and I was thankful I packed my ear warmers, too. I wore my throw-away jacked until Mile 3 or so, but I never got too hot with the long pants and 2 shirt layers. My ear warmers never budged either! I had time to stop for my Epcot picture on the way from the busses to the start line. The start line for the 5k and 10k is about a mile away. For the half and full, it's about 2 miles away. On a cold day, it was a warm-up I needed before waiting in the corral for about an hour before starting!
Again, I started off feeling strong. Alicia caught up with me after a character stop just before Mile 4 and we ran through the Magic Kingdom together. Disney allows spectators to line Main Street before the park opens and it was so great seeing Wendi and Tony! Wendi had given me my “finish eve” talk that morning (Just like a big holiday, Finish Eve is the day before your big race), and I remember her telling me I was rocking it! I also heard Janet yelling my name on Main Street, and I waved to her, too!
The half marathon was crowded. We basically stood in line to slowly walk through Cinderella’s Castle and again to get a picture in front of Cinderella’s castle (which hasn’t yet come through on my app, so I’ll need to email them to find it). Between that delay and a line for a bathroom break, my 6th mile was almost a half hour long!
I got kind of in a mental funk near Mile 7-8ish on a long stretch of highway… “My feet are cranky, and I have 32 miles left, how in the world am I going to do this…” Luckily Coach Jen was near to help distract me! A few miles later and I was getting down again, only to find Coach Ed to tell me in his oh-so-calm-and-reassuring-voice, “You’re doing great. I’m so proud of you! You’ve got this!”
Entering the Epcot parking lot area, I saw Puppet Runner! He’s known in the runDisney community by running races dressed as the chef from Ratatouille and holding Remy; he ran in that costume for the marathon! He also runs Atlanta races and has made the Atlanta Track Club pages, so I had to get an unofficial character stop selfie and thanked him for being out there cheering us on. By Mile 12, I found Wendi again for a hug boost, and I knew I’d finish just fine.
When I did the 5k, 10k, and half marathon in November, I felt good until about Mile 11 of the half when my feet just didn’t want to go anymore. But I didn’t hit a wall here during the race. Yes, my feet were cranky and sore, but they weren’t in pain. And everything else felt good, too. No blisters, no injuries. That afternoon, I could barely nap because my feet were throbbing so bad. I could feel my heart beat in my heels. I stretched, I took two Epsom salt baths, I massaged, and I took Ibuprofen. One pasta and chicken carb load later, I felt like I had done everything I could to get happy feet to the start line the next day!
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