To infinity and beyond!

Now that I've had time to reflect on the race, I thought I'd add my story and a bit of my perspective :-)

Getting up at 3:15 to head to the race was not really my idea of fun (especially since the time change from CA to FL was not working in my favor).  We managed to sleepwalk to the monorail, through bag checking, a portapotty stop, and make it to our starting corral.  That process easily tacked a mile or two of walking onto the race distance!  Since they were predicting hot weather, we all were drinking water to make sure that we were adequately hydrated.  Turns out that decision was a bit of a mistake: 1) We had to wait an hour after the race started to cross the starting line, 2) the lines for the portapotties were looooong, 3) there were plenty of hydration stations along the race, and 4) it was humid enough to drink the air.

Everyone was excited to cross the starting line and get moving!  We settled into our chosen walk/run ratio right from the start, and the first few miles went by pretty quickly.  Briana's janky joints started causing problems sometime in mile 3, and so we all slowed down to accommodate them.  The fog and humidity was pretty intense, but the loop through Magic Kingdom was just awesome to me - definitely one of the highlights of the race to run through Cinderella's castle and down main street!

Briana's ankle was obviously not doing well at that point, and she told me that she wanted me to finish the race no matter what.  My heart broke when she and Kyle fell behind the pacers, this was something she had trained so long and hard for, and it was so uncertain of whether she'd achieve that goal.  That was when I took off on my own to finish the race, trying to hold back tears of frustration and sadness.

I quickly settled into the walk/run ratio that I had done most of my training at, and found that I had to weave in and out of the crowd, which seemed to have given up on running entirely by that point.  The return to Epcot had a couple of long hills.  I am a bit of a strange person... when I see a hill, I see something that needs to be summitted, preferably as quickly as possible.  While the rest of the crowd groaned and muttered at the Toy Story drill sergeant, I kicked myself into high gear and practically flew out of earshot.

Heading into Epcot was bittersweet - I was so happy to be almost done, but I was also sad for Briana and the fact that her race wasn't going as planned.  Coming up to the giant Epcot ball was like coming home though.  Let's face it, for a nerdy engineer like me, Epcot is the coolest place in DisneyWorld.  The last 1.1 miles of the race seemed to stretch on forever, but the finish line eventually emerged.  I crossed it, smiling because I had accomplished my goal of finishing the race, but with tears streaming down my face because I was alone instead of by Briana's side.

I've always told myself that I can do anything once, and so far I've turned out to be right.  This race was my first half marathon, and I'm pretty certain that it was also my last.  I'm really glad that I joined Briana - I personally got a lot out of the training process.  In the midst of all my unpredictable life changes in the past year and a half, it was awesome to have this event to look forward to, and to force myself to stay physically active.  Unfortunately, my body really doesn't seem to appreciate running or endurance events; although I (surprisingly) didn't acquire any running related injuries, the process did affect some chronic conditions that I have in undesirable ways.

Although I'm hanging up my running shoes for the time being, I'll likely still contribute some food and fitness related posts as long as Briana will let me :-)  I'm so excited to see what goals she tackles next!

Cindy