Passed walkers, passed walkers, then passed some more walkers. Oh yeah, then I passed some walkers. My goal for today was to break 2 hours. This was an agressive goal for me and meant I had to keep a 12:53 pace...just a tad faster than my best 10k time! First mile was 12:30, check. By mile 3, I was still on pace and feeling pretty good....I ran through all the water stops, but starting pouring water over my head anyways.

It was neat to re-visit the same route I ran in January for the mary....that incline at mile 19 was soooo much easier on fresh legs (and 20 degrees cooler)! Saw a girl with a disney mary shirt and chatted her up. We were enjoying how nice today was compared to the mary. I assumed she had finished that race, and didn't get swept like I did, so I felt GREAT when I realized that I was running a lot faster than she was :-) Go me!

Realized that the worst miles of the mary are between Animal Kingdom and MGM....boring route, no shade and several inclines that are sloped. Yuck. We hit a long straight out-and-back and while it was very refreshing to see how many folks were still behind me, there was a girl right behind me who was yelling 'Barbara!' every 10 seconds. Barbara! Barbara! Barbara! SOOOO annoying. and LOUD. Contemplating farting at her, but I couldn't muster it up.

Took a gel at mile 5. Thank God I brought gels, cuz I only managed to grab about 3 oz of powerade the whole race. I was in a hurry through those aid stations! Kept the routine of pouring water over my head.

Started to hit a low spot around mile 7...that mile was 13:30, and I was kissing my goal goodbye when we ran past the Swan resort. The road was very familiar to me and I had a clear vision of having to stop there to "rest" a few years back. Ha! It was 7 years ago, and the little walk from the Swan to the parking lot had wiped me out (I was over 100 lbs heavier then and the only exercise I got was chain-smoking). I suddenly felt so PROUD to run through there...having run 7 miles already, that I got this HUGE burst of speed (according to the Garmin, this was @ a 5 min/mi pace) and I tore it up, I think I passed 100+ people in the next few minutes.

Of course, I couldn't keep that momentum going, and a nasty little side stich made me slow it back down. This little momentum put me back on track and I just had to hold on.

Knew I was very close when I saw the chute and picked it up quite a bit to cross the finish line. I hope there's a photo of that....they might have actually caught me in the AIR.

Nothing!

Walking in circles by the timing chip removers....I just knew I'd throw up if I stopped cold. Got my ears and photo taken and grabbed some grub. Couldn't stomach the thought of warm powerade or warm water, so I drank nothing. I was thirsty too! Was so focused on getting away and finding something cold to drink that I totally forgot about my clothes in baggage check. Decided to leave without them.


Need to lose a lot more weight.


Ummmm.....its Disney, that means awful early times, lots of walkers and warm powerade. It also means nice medals, decent expo and a fun time.