WDW Half Marathon

I’ll say that I initially didn’t want to write this race report at all. But I feel like I should have *something* here about my very first half marathon.

The morning of the half marathon, Kirsten and I walked as far as we could together toward our corrals. We say this on the way:

Shortly after that, we had to part, since Kirsten was in a different corral. I found mine, and waited for the race to start.

And waited, and waited, and waited! Finally, we heard the countdown begin, and saw this:

Of course, being in Corral G, we had a long way to wait until we were able to go. After what seemed an eternity, our corral was next, and we could see the start line.

Disney has fun things along the course, and I tried taking a few pictures along the way, but I didn’t really want to stop for those pictures, so the ones before dawn didn’t really turn out. But shortly after Mile 3, we came to this:

Yup, we were entering the Magic Kingdom! Before long, I was running through Cinderella’s Castle. (See me up front at about 15 seconds in.)

I’m impressed that I was running for the whole video! After passing through the castle, I looked back and snapped this, my favorite picture of the day:

It was when we were exiting the Magic Kingdom that things started going downhill for me. The road getting us out the park were fairly narrow, and with the crowds, I just couldn’t keep running my intervals. So I ended up walking for a couple miles. Somewhere in there was the halfway point…and the just-over halfway point:

I also saw a couple of familiar faces on the side of the road — Maggie and Meredith from work. They were cheering on some other friends, too, and Meredith would be running the full marathon the next day.

Sometime around mile 8, the road widened out so I could run. However, my legs had cramped up, so it was really, really hard. In retrospect, I maybe should have worked through it a little, and they probably would have loosened up in time. But I just wasn’t feeling it. The sun was up, the temperature was up.

Around Mile 9.5, I stepped off the road and got this:

I didn’t stop at the medical tent to get it patched up, though, because I knew that I was in danger of getting swept up. I did continue to try and run occasionally, and walked as fast as I could. Around Mile 12, we were told we were safe, and so I walked the rest, without even trying to run.

I was finally arriving at Epcot.

I mustered enough energy when I got close to the finish to jog through and high-fived Mickey on my way over the finish line.

I *love* this video of me crossing the finish. Even more so because I was actually jogging for the entire video! If they had started a few seconds earlier, I’m fairly sure I was still walking, but who cares?

I picked up my finisher medal and food box on my way out, and stopped to get my official finisher picture. (Next time, remind me to put down the Gatorade!)

Kirsten met me at package pick-up, and we found Andrew in the family waiting area.

I’d be lying if I said I was happy at the end of the race. I was pissed. I didn’t get swept up, but I should have…at least in my mind. The only reason I didn’t was because I wasn’t in the last corral.