That night I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Once I got to sleep, around 10ish, I just kept waking up every half hour or so. Got up at 4:15, but because we lost an hour due to the time change, it felt like 3:30. I was out of there by 4:40 and made it to the parking lot at Epcot just before 5 a.m. I gave Brenda a call. She had just pulled into the parking lot too. We planned on hanging in our cars for a little bit then meeting up. Around 5:15 we met by my car, found someone to take a photo of us, then headed over to the porta potties. Got in pretty quick. I decided not to check a bag, so we walked back to my car, which wasn't far, to drop it off. We saw that people were walking to the start already, so started heading in that direction with them. It was a bit of a walk, I don't know, a quarter to half a mile. Stopped at the porta potties again then headed to our corral. We were both surprised that we were in the first one, but it was great to be so close to the start. There were 3 corrals. Any men running in the race were placed in the 2nd or 3rd area.
It was really great to have someone with me to talk to while waiting there for the hour before the race. The temps were in the mid 50s and it was dark and foggy.
The race had a very quiet start. I was surprised there were no fireworks like they have for the January race. I wished Brenda a good race, then we parted ways.
I started out good. There were a couple of hills early in the first mile, made it through those just fine. I was keeping a good pace through mile 5, but then started to feel the slow down. At this point we started running through the Magic Kingdom. That was fun. Lots of crowd support. I ran through the castle, noticed lots of photographers, but it was pretty crowded, so not sure they got a shot of me. When we got to the front of the Castle, there were a couple of photographers taking photos if you wanted to stop. So I ran over, stood for 2 seconds while they got the shot, then ran on. :)
splits, mile 1 to 5: 9:23, 9:36, 9:51, 9:53, 9:55
At this point I really wanted my sport beans and water. I didn't carry a bottle of water with me this race, so had to wait til I got to the water stop. Just after mile 6 I got there. I ate half a bag of sport beans and drank water while walking through the stop.
Splits, miles 6 to 9: 10:25, 11:30, 10:26, 11:06
I was slowing down alot, but just wanted to keep going. My toe that had a major blister on it from the marathon really hurt. At the next water stop just past mile 8, I walked for a bit and then again at mile 10. The last 2 hills were tough, and had to walk those two. At the 12 mile water stop, I looked behind me and saw Brenda not to far back. That motivated me to keep going! :)
Splits, miles 10 to 13: 11:29, 11:30, 11:59, 10:50
The last mile was the longest ever! I felt like I was going to throw up! But I made it to the finish line. Finished in 2:20:12. This is not a great time for me, but not my worst and at 3 weeks post marathon, I'll take it.
Got my very pretty finishers medal, a banana, water and poweraide, then headed on out of there. I just wanted to get back to the hotel for a shower. I was very sweaty!
I would love to run this race again next year. The water stops were great. They had about 3 different kinds of fuels at the mile 8 stop. Lots of food and drink at the finish. At the most of the water stops after mile 5 there were volunteers with vaseline and Biofreeze. The only downside was the shirt. But now I know they run very small.
WTG, Jenna!
ReplyDeleteI hope you had fun!!! I had a blast! I am definitely doing this next year!