Marathon #5: Part Deux

It’s funny how the only time this week that I’ve been able to sit down and blog is during the Super Bowl. If you know me well, you know that this is entirely uncharacteristic of me to be distracted from the world’s most important game! But, life has changed.

Life has changed so much that:

-Waking up at 6:45am is sleeping in.

-When the house smells like pureed sweet potatoes, it smells good.

-Going out with our friends for dollar beers and dollar hot dogs is a great Saturday night and the fact that we are in bed by 9pm on a Saturday night is even better.

-Going out on Saturday night is a miracle.

-I use the word “Poopy” at least 80 times a day.

-Either Jason, Lucia or I have had a cold/flu/fever/cough/ear infection for the past 75 days.

-It takes all day to clean our house. It stays clean for 65 seconds.

-I have to schedule everything. EVERYTHING. If its not on the agenda… its not happening, and even if it is on the agenda, there’s no guarantee its going to actually happen.

-Lucia’s laugh makes me crack up hysterically no matter how often I hear it.

-I like the taste of Gerber’s Apple flavor baby cereal and I consider mixing some for myself in the morning before I go to work.

-I can’t really remember a time that Jason and I weren’t married, or that Lucia wasn’t a part of our lives.

-We’re really happy. Who would have thought that moving further South was a good thing (I’m saving a little more on this topic for another post… I have a lot to say about this!)

-It doesn’t take me 25 minutes to get out of bed anymore, the second I hear Lucia on the monitor, I am up and ready to go. She’s the most reliable alarm clock ever!

-Life is glorious.

So, yes, life has changed in very good way. I know it may seem like I’m complaining, but I don’t mean to be. I actually wouldn’t have it any other way. It just makes blogging about my little running escap

ades a little harder than I thought it would be. So here I am, writing whatever thought comes to mind, and glancing over my computer every other 5 minutes just to make sure the Packers are still winning (Sorry Steeler Fans, I’m a die hard Cowboys fan, and the Steelers winning this game just isn’t good for America’s team).

So lets get back to Marathon #5; The Disney World Marathon. My previous entry was about MY race, but I wanted to make sure I wrote a little bit about the actual race itself. My overall impression… AWESOME. If you have fond memories of Disney as a child this race is for you. Every mile was enjoyable, there was plenty of entertainment, and there were surprisingly a lot of spectators. The water/aid stations were great, almost at every mile. There were bananas,

oranges, and candy at about every 3 miles (unfortunately I didn’t opt to grab any). There were probably about six GU stations in the last half of the race. And, I’m going to guestimate about 7-8 medical stations complete with barrels of biofreeze and vaseline. It was very well run, and very well organized.

The race course was wonderful, it took you through all of the Disney World parks beginning and ending with Epcot. The race started with awesome fireworks (and we all know how much I love fireworks). There are Disney characters all along the way and fabulous photo ops! I had a wonderful time, my family really enjoyed it, and reliving some of my greatest childhood memories on a 26.2 mile adventure was priceless! It definitely brought out my inner child!

My one piece of advice for anyone who wants to run this race is to run it for fun. Run with Mickey Mouse ears, stop and take your pictures with all the characters on the way, and take some extra time to enjoy the scenery. It’s a flat, fast course so you’re going to run well, but if you don’t take the time to enjoy it, you’ll regret it later. Since this was my comeback race, and my competitive side got the best of me, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have. The only picture I have of me with a character is when I crossed the finish line and Donald Duck gave me a high five. I don’t have a picture of me in front of the magic kindom in my race gear, I sped through Epcot, and I pretended like I didn’t want anything to do with Sleeping Beauty when I saw her at mile 11 (she is my favorite princess of all time). So, if you’re running the 2012 Disney, enjoy it! That will be my plan, at least! I have two more races this year to take seriously. When I do the 2012 Goofy challenge (13.1 miles on Saturday and 26.2 on Sunday of marathon weekend) I will be taking it slow and easy, and enjoying every minute of it!:)