Yes, that hurt. It was a long run. But I got to go through all four theme parks. I stopped to get my picture taken as often as possible with famous Disney characters. The operative word here is “stop”. Any valid excuse to stop running was taken. I didn’t really care if the character was one I liked or not, they were an excuse. Can you think of why else I would pose with the Power Rangers? Some of the runners were in costume as well; I saw the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty running along. Minnie Mouse or fairies were popular costumes for people to dress up as. (For the record, I deliberately chose the word “people” instead of “women”.)
The surprising thing was that it was warm this morning. I didn’t need the emergency blanket I had brought along with me. That did not bode well for the actual run. And it was hot. We did seem to be in the shade for a great deal of it, but you can’t get out of the sun entirely. I took to dumping water on my head and it was amazingly helpful.
I will say this about Disney; It is expensive but you get good quality. There were frequent water stops and support was good. The medals you get at the end are quite nice. And it must be hard to organize 26,000 people.
I did run low on my own gels at one point, so I decided to grab a Clif shot at the next aid station that had one. I am not a fan of Clif shots because past experience has shown they give me stomach problems on runs. But I figured there wouldn’t be much further to go and I really needed the energy. So when I saw a girl with a red Clif shot in hand, I ran towards it, demanding it. (Politeness left an hour back.) She stopped me, reached behind to hand me a brown one. Ten steps later I realized brown meant she had given me an expresso flavored one. I didn’t even bother to try it and I made my displeasure apparent to all nearby. Thankfully, I had grabbed a banana on a whim at the start of the station. I’ve never had one while running, and I didn’t really want to experiment, but I was hungry. And the bananas in Florida have been absolutely great. If you have the means, I highly recommend one. It seemed to work.
Near the end, while I was taking a walk break at an aid station I watched the four hour group go past me. I wanted to be under four hours, so I quickly passed them and tried to make some distance. I didn’t look back. It was a long trip around the Epcot lake, and I didn’t take anymore scheduled walk breaks. Then I got out of the park and the finish line was near. I started going faster. I saw the sign with thirty seconds to go to four hours so I sped faster. Ten seconds away my left leg started cramping up. I limped across the finish line at about 4:00:01. In my defense, I hadn’t crossed the start line when the timer went off, so I am under four hours. It just didn’t look that way.