It's been forever since I've posted I'm almost 2 weeks late on posting about my marathon! It's been crazy for me! Since I've last posted, we had our vacation to Disney, moved from south Alabama to Ohio, and I started a new job. So, as you can see, it's been great but very busy!
My husband, Calee, and I arrived to Disney World the day before the race to pick up our packets and get settled into our hotel. We grabbed an early pasta dinner and tried our best to get in bed early because of the early start time of 5:30 a.m. The next morning our alarms went off at 2:45 a.m. because we had to be on the shuttle by 3:30. My body didn't know what to think about that! We froze our butts off waiting for them to let us line up in our corrals.
Me and Calee and me with my #1 fan!
We finally lined up in our corrals and waited. Every time a corral took off, huge fire works went off. It was so pretty and you could feel the heat from it!
As we headed out, I was so excited! I wanted to sprint but of course that's a bad idea. I kept my pace as close to 9:05 as possible. We ran through Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. It was so amazing running through all the parks, especially Magic Kingdom. The highlight was probably running through Cinderella's castle. The only thing I didn't like is how much highway we had to run on.
The first 5 miles flew by and I was already halfway done in a flash! I was right on track with my pace but at mile 16 I started loosing my pace. The course was pretty difficult because of the highways and ramps being slanted. I had to reevaluate my goal of a sub 4 hours and I was completely fine with that. I just wanted to finish and a PR would be fantastic! By mile 22, I was wiped out and so ready to finish. I felt my feet blistering and my quads burning. I started counting backwards, "only 4 miles, only 3.5 miles, only 3 miles!" My garmin was slightly ahead of the miles so as it was beeping 25 miles, I was only at 24.8 and believe me, that makes a difference! I finally got to Epcot and I could see the big ball (the finish line) ahead of me. Oh my gosh, I'm almost there! As I was approaching the finish I heard and saw my husband cheering for me. That gave me a boost I needed for a little jolt in my legs and I finished strong! I was so happy and a little emotional. Not crying, but just overjoyed!! My garmin read 4:05:28. Woohoo a PR! I didn't mind that I didn't beat 4 hours. That will just give me a goal for my next marathon.
Here's the breakdown...
Distance: 26.2 miles
Garmin distance: 26.37
Net Time: 4:06:35
Garmin time: 4:05:28
Overall Place: 2542 / 13536
Gender Place: 631 / 6273
Division Place: 83 / 629
5M Split: 45:31
10M Split: 1:31:16
Half: 2:00:04
20M Split: 3:05:14
Soon after that, Calee finished! Yay, congrats for finishing your 1st marathon!! I am so proud of her. She did an amazing job!
We got back to our hotel and she took an ice bath and I improvised with ice bags while eating my PB and honey.
We took a long nap and then Jerry, Calee, and I went to Planet Hollywood for a delicious dinner.
The next night we met up with a friend from work, Steve. This is us with our metals. We went to dinner and watched the national championship. We had a great time celebrating!
The next 3 days we spent at the parks but I'll have to share all about that in another post. I'm also buying my official photos so I'll have those to share too! I hope you all are staying warm. It is approximately 0 degrees in Ohio right now!
Leah B.
