26.2

Well, I did it! I was really nervous. The farthest I had gone prior to race day was 21 on a treadmill, during which my knees and ankles began to ache from the impact. I was also nervous because with the tapering down you're supposed to do, I felt as though I was out of practice and lazy.
Berto and I flew into Orlando last Friday night after work and stayed at the Hyatt at the airport. The next morning, we went to the Hyatt Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando which is closer to Disney World. We picked up my registration packet and stuff and then I did my last run, just a quick mile and a half. The hotel has a nice jogging path around a lake, so Berto went with me.
I was nervous most of the day. I over analyzed everything that I ate trying to make sure I wouldn't have any uncomfortable bowel issues during the race. I had had some moments during training... We had to go to bed aroud 7pm, because we needed to wake up at 3:30 in order to get over to Epcot for the race at 6am. Chicago time that meant we were waking up at 2:30am.
I couldn't sleep that night. I must've woken up every 1-2 hours in a sweat thinking that I overslept and missed the entire reason we were in Florida. But, I didn't oversleep, and we arrived right on time after sharing a cab with two other marathoners staying at the Hyatt.
The marathon website had a fan route builder, so Berto had a schedule of where to go to see me along the way. I left him to follow his route, and began the .6 mile walk to the starting line. The lines to the port-a-potties for last minute peeing were 40+, and as we walked in the dark, you could see shadows coming in and out of the woods. Guys more stood more openly at the tree line while girls would disappear into the brush. I was still very nervous about having the go during the race, and knew I didn't have time to wait for the port-a-potty, so I followed two girls who looked my age into the woods where they had found a secluded, down-hill hiding place to pee!
After my squat, I felt ready to go and made my way to my starting corral, Corral H. AKA, the loser's corral apparently. We were the very last to start. After a welcome from Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, it took us what I found out later to be a little over 12 minutes to cross the starting line after the race clock started.
I spent the first 3 miles running in the grass on the side of the road passing people up. Before we had even hit the 1 mile mark, so many people from my corral were walking that it was difficult to maintain my goal pace of a 10-minute mile. I was weaving in and out of people, sometimes running through them, looking for any opening to maintain my pace. The first cheering section was at mile 2, but I couldn't even look for Berto. I was too focused on trying not to run into anyone. It was also still pretty dark out and difficult to make anyone out in the crowd. Right as we entered Epcot center, the path became so narrow that the people in front of me actually came to a complete stop for about 15 seconds while everyone shuffled through. I knew I needed to make up time later.
After we made it through Epcot, the path cleared up as we ran on the freeway toward the Magic Kingdom. Around mile 8, we saw the sun rise and ran through the second cheering section. Berto had taken the tram from Epcot to the parking lot outside the Magic Kingdom, and I actually saw him this time in between checking my pace on my iPod. I was feeling great around mile 9 when we saw our first of the Disney characters. If you weren't running for time, you could stop and take pictures with them all over the course. In Magic Kingdom, we saw Mulan, Mary Poppins, the Chipmunks, Mickey again, and so many others I can't even remember. We went down Mainstreet USA, through FutureLand and then up through Cinderella's Castle. You could wait in a line of about 25 to have your picture taken in front of the castle, but since I was still making up time from the first 4 miles, I opted out. The entire pirate ship from the Pirates of the Carribbean show was out along the track with Jack Sparrow and other sailors yelling out to "put some wind in our sails."
As we exited the park, there was another cheer section that Berto had walked over to from mile 8, I think this was somewhere around mile 12 or 13. Berto had the perfect photo op. I saw the red light begin to flash and knew based on the delay of my camera that he was going to get a great shot, until right at the last second this big sweaty man moved right in the front of me! The only pic Berto ended up getting was me from behind. Great!
The next 4 miles are really a blur. I don't remember much except for choking down my first energy gel pack. I could smell when we started to get close to Animal Kingdom; animal shit. I think it was my favorite park to run through though, because it was shady and looked like the jungle taking us up over bridges and around loops. There were steel drum bands, and I remember seeing Baloo and King Louie.
Once we exited the park, I knew the hardest part of the race had arrived. The next 3 miles ran through the Animal Kingdom parking lot and onto a long stretch of uphill highway towards Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex. There was little to no entertainment along this stretch except for one band at mile 20, before we turned around and backtracked for .5 mile! After the backtracking, I was really starting to feel pretty bad. We ran on a crooked off-ramp which hurt my already aching knee and hip. At this point, more people were walking around me than were running. I really wanted to take a walk break, but I knew I was so close to being done, and one of my goals I had set for myself was to never walk! We entered MGM Studios where we saw the Incredibles, the Monsters of Monsters Inc. and ran through a tunnel showing us Disney's costume making dept.
We passed mile 24 just outside of MGM, and I knew I was almost there! We ran along a path through a Disney resort and along some sort of dock to mile 25. There was a shooting pain in my knee and hip every couple hundred yards. The sun was fully-shining now, and it was getting pretty hot. I know I must've been looking pretty rough, because now all along the course, strangers were yelling out words of encouragement to me, reading my name off my bib. The last mile took us around the lake in Epcot Center, around all the different countries of the Epcot "world." I was really hurting, but there was no way I was stopping now. We finally made it to mile 26, and before I knew it, I rounded a corner and suddenly the finish line was only a hundred yards away! Determined to finish strong, I sprinted as hard as I could towards to the finish line raising my arms for the photographers whose lenses were moving back and forth trying to capture every runner's victory moment from their bridge over the finish line. As soon as I crossed the finish line and began walking, I instantly began crying. I don't remember feeling overwhelming emotion or feeling like I needed or wanted to cry, but the tears were just unstoppable. We walked to the station to have our time chip cut off and as the teenager snipped it off my shoe and said "Good job!" I cried even more. As a young girl placed a medal around my neck and told me "Congratulations!" I bawled! After telling this to my sister later, she suggested that people probably thought I was really obese at some point in my life and lost a lot of weight and ran a marathon. Maybe they just thought I was crazy. Either way, I continued to cry as each person at the photo, drink, food, and bag claim stations congratulated me. I met back up with Berto, still crying, and he congratulated and then made fun of me for crying. I couldn't barely walk anymore by this point, and I finally realized that I hadn't had to go to the bathroom anywhere during the race, completely unlike my other long runs! As soon as I remembered that I hadn't gone, I had to go instantly! After a quick stop, we found a cab back to the hotel for my normal after long-run routine; an ice bath followed by icey hot.
When I crossed the finish line, the clock said 4:37 and some seconds. Since we had had to wait awhile to cross the starting line, so I knew I must've finished under my goal of 4:30:00. Also the time on my iPod was around 4:24. Later that afternoon, the time from my chip was officially posted at 04:25:04.
Berto and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. I ate a gigantic cheeseburger and fries for the first time in months from the hotel's pool cafe. It was amazing! That night, I really wanted some more greasy food, so we went to the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings and celebrated with some fru-fru drinks for me and a pitcher of beer for Berto.
The next morning, we ate at the hotel restaurant. Still unable to walk normally up the 3 stairs from the restaurant floor to the host stand, I struggled up holding onto the railing, unable to bend at the knees. I was so embarrassed when the restaurant manager said to Berto, "wow, she looks really full, huh?"
I wasn't able to walk normally until Wednesday. I did my first run on Thursday. I guess you're supposed to take a full week off of running after doing a marathon, but I just couldn't NOT run.
Overall, the marathon is the hardest, most awful, yet most satisfying and happiest experience of my life. At mile 24, I remember thinking that I never wanted to run another one again. I imagine the feeling is like giving birth, on a smaller scale of course. Agony during the moment, but looking back, you don't remember the pain, only the complete joy and satisfaction afterwards. I definitely want to stay in running shape and train for the Chicago Marathon in October. Berto says he will even run this one with me.