It's petty, right? You should run for yourself. Do it because it makes you feel good. Run faster than you did during the last race. Run to set a personal record. Just enjoy seeing what your body can do. But nope, I run for the race jewelry. And I am starting a rather nice collection.
I was rather disappointed to have to sit out of the Disney Princess Half this past February, but was proud of my mom for completing it. She walked it, but she trained for that walk. She was so scared of being taken by the course "sweepers", that at one point around Mile 10, someone told her that she was 20 seconds behind and would be swept off course if she didn't catch up. My mom, who has never ran a day in her life, started to run, because the fear of her goal going unfulfilled scared her...and then she got the gold! Her gold Disney Princess Half-Marathon Finisher's medal. And she was hooked! She wore that thing all day Sunday and I'm pretty sure that she wore it to work on Monday...she may even wear it sometimes at home when no one is looking. :) But even though I couldn't complete the Princess Half, I did run the Beauty and the Beast Royal Family 5K. The medal wasn't as cool as the Princess Half medal. My meager little rubber medal paled in comparison to my Mom's shiny gold medal, but it was mine and I wore it proudly.
The next race was the Dick's Sporting Goods Champion 5K at ESPN's The Weekend. That was fun and it was nice to have an official time. It was my first experience with the D-chip and my first REAL medal! Nice and big and heavy! Loved it!
The Expedition Everest Challenge, my third RunDisney race was probably the most fun that I've had at ANY race to date. We arrived in Orlando around 2:30, picked up our race packets from the ESPN Wide World of Sports Ppavilion, and headed over to our hotel to check-in. We didn't have much time to rest before we were off for a bite before heading over to Animal Kingdom for the race.
The Expedition Everest Challenge is a 5K race and obstacle course and scavenger hunt. Chad and I completed the challenge as a team. We ran together, had an official time together, and completed the obstacle course and scavenger hunt together. We even held hands as we crossed the finish line together!
Upon our arrival, Chad, My Mom (our only fan), and I headed to the area where everyone was waiting for the races to begin. There was good music, wacky costumes, and just a feeling of positivity and excitement. We tried to get into the spirit by taking our own pre-race photos. You know the ones, when your hair still looks good, face isn't flushed and sweaty, and you still look "fresh".
Around 8:00, we began to line up by waves. Chad and I were assigned to Wave 4. The people around us were having a great time. Everyone was friendly. We all sang and dance as we eagerly waited for our wave's countdown. You could see the desire to take off on our path, find our pacing, complete our obstacles, do the scavenger hunt, cross the finish line, earn our medals, and enjoy the post-race party.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE! Wave 1 takes off. All of the waves are scheduled to take off five minutes in between one another. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE! Wave 2 takes off. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE! Wave 3 takes off. And soon it was going to be our turn. I looked around at the people in my wave. I saw a few people who looked like "runners". But mostly, I saw a bunch of runners who looked like me. They weren't long and lean. They didn't have the lithe bodies that most of us imagine runners to have. They came in all sizes, shapes, weights, heights, and ages. And that is comforting to me. You don't have to look like a runner to BE a runner. I tried to clear my mind. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I tried to envision my race. Tried to see the medal going around my neck. And then I heard it...
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE! The fireworks burst and we were off. Chad and I set out and quickly found an easy pace. I am going to thank one of my students here for giving me a tip that I found to be most valuable. He told me that I should focus on one person in front of me with whom I felt I could catch up. He said that once you catch up with that person, find another, and another, etc. And I used that technique at the Dick's 5K and am pretty sure that I shaved off a little bit of time.
I searched and easily found my target. I called him YellowHat. YellowHat was tall enough to be visible over the crowd, his yellow hat was easy to spot, and he had a pretty good pace. I cannot be sure, but I think that Chad and I ran most of the first mile without stopping. I don't remember too much when I run because I try to keep my mind free and focused. If we walked at all, it was briefly. YellowHat helped us reach our fastest time for the first mile. We don't know the exact time, but we know it was around 10 minutes. Our previous record was at the Dick's 5K and that was somewhere around 11 to 12 minutes.
I was grateful to YellowHat for being such a good target. But as I started trying to increase my speed to catch up, I found myself wheezing. I wasn't wheezing from running too fast, but I was wheezing because my allergies were kicked into overdrive. As beautiful as Animal Kingdom was to run through, it brought on itchy eyes, hoarse breathing, and lots of coughing. YellowHat became more and more out of my reach. It was disappointing sure, but just as YellowHat dropped out of view, my husband started doing something unexpected. He started coaching me!
For those of you that don't know. Chad ran in high school. He coached cross-country when he taught in Indiana. And I've given him a lot of flack because he hasn't really given me a lot of help in the past. After our last race, I told him that I am not at the point yet of being a strong, capable runner and that I wished instead of looking like I was holding him up, that he would be more positive and help me. Maybe that conversation rang through his ears. Maybe it was the atmosphere before the race. Maybe his adrenaline was pumping because we had set a new PR for mile one. Whatever it was, it helped me push through my allergies.
We jogged. We ran. We walked when I needed to walk. We jumped haystacks, weaved our way through an obstacle of tires, and finally reached the last obstacle which was a net climb (like military boot camp style). We decided to go around the last obstacle because the line was long to crawl under or go over and we wanted to finish. And when we did, we were fairly confident that we had done well, but weren't sure how well.
As soon as we finished, we had to head off to a destination inside of the park to start the scavenger hunt. Clue One was easy-Mile. Clue Two was ridiculously hard-Ocean. I still don't know how we figured it out, except that we had a lot of guidance from the "experts" on the course. And Clues Three-Undeveloped and Four-Nuts, were easy, too.
Clue Five read:
Take your password (the solution to each clue).
If you're letter-perfect and orderly, you'll know what to do.
First things, first! Remember that and then.
Put what you've got together and finish with the number 10!
We were stumped and stood looking at the clue. Another team (a mom and her son) asked if we could help them so we looked at each other's clues, which were different, so I wasn't sure. But then...I saw it. Chad was holding all of the clues first to last and I saw "first things first"=the first letter to each password M-O-U-N and finish with ten=MOUNTAIN! Duh, Everest is a mountain! I told the other team and Chad and I took off like bats out of hell. We showed our final clue and were relieved to find that we were correct.
We received our medal and headed to the Dino-land area of Animal Kingdom to party. And we danced. Rode Everest. Took pics with Safari Minnie and Mickey, and just acted silly. It was the perfect end to a really fun race. I was glad that my mom was there to see me race. She still cannot believe that this is my fourth race, and sometimes neither can I. But I am happy to report that Chad and I set a new PR. We shaved off close to two minutes from the Dick's time, and beat our original PR from the Jingle Run in downtown Bradenton (our only non-Disney race) by about 15-20 seconds.
So we may not be the fastest, but we are still doing it! Our medals don't look any different than those who ran faster than us, and we certainly were far from being last. And for now, I am okay with that.
