the wonderful world of disney

When I was in undergrad at Baylor (Sic 'em!), I was in a philosophy of leisure class. (Go ahead and laugh for a minute, I know that sounds ridiculous.) We were having a discussion during one class about forms of recreation and how much that differs among people. We all had to go around and say one thing we really loved doing for recreation and one thing that sounded so awful in which you could never imagine yourself participating. So I said, I loved snow skiing and that I would never, ever run a marathon...

My roommate from college, a long-time, incredible runner, also likes to quote a statement I made once in college, "Life's too short to do stuff I don't like, and I don't like running." And I fervently stuck by this statement for about...2 months.

I ended up spending the following summer as a white-water rafting, backpacking, and rock climbing guide in Colorado, acclimatizing quite well to life at 7500 ft. When I came back to Waco at the end of the summer, I was super fit and needed to figure out how I was going to keep up this level of fitness. So I ran. As a means to become a better mountaineer, a better climber, a better cyclist, etc, I started running. And I'm pretty sure, my roommate had a good, "Haha! Told ya so!" moment.

My first race was a half-marathon, the Bearathon in the Spring of my senior year. That was three and a half years ago, and I now I've done several 5Ks, 10Ks, 10 milers, and half-s. I made a complete one-eighty and put a full marathon on my thirty list last year. About the same time, I made fun new friend from my old office in DC who was looking for a first-time marathon friend too, and we signed up for the Disney Marathon. After a little peer pressure, we got three other friends to sign up and one to come along as a cheerleader. I bought Hal Higdon's book and started training fall of 2008.

The marathon itself was one of the most fun things I think I've ever done. You feel so good when people are cheering for you, and it feels like a real accomplishment. The current US population is 304 million and only 425,000 ran a marathon this year, and I'm one of them. Training was the worst part because the Disney was January 11th, so I was doing 15-20 mile training runs alone in December in Indiana. Crossing the finish line felt great, but really, the whole experience was awesome. I think I learned too that anyone can run a marathon if you just discipline yourself with the training, and I also recommend running one to anyone out there that has ever thought about it.

So that's another check off my list! Also, I think I now consider running as an equal counterpart to my other recreational activities, instead of just a means to them. This all coming from the girl who once said "Life's too short to do stuff I don't like, and I don't like running."

We rode rides the entire day before, from 10 am to 7 pm.  Maybe our times would have improved had we actually rested the day before. But ehh- we had fun!

The start line.  We boarded the bus from our resort hotel at 3 am, and the race started around 5:50 am.  There were like 25,000 people I think.

We also rode rights the entire day after! We're in the back row with our hands up, except S who was gripping the Hollywood Hotel's elevator handles with white knuckles!

Note that all six of us had medals when I actually first explained that we had one cheerleader.  Somehow Active.com messed up and I had two registrations, so both Kellen* and Ellen ran the marathon!