Princess 1/2 Marathon

Friday the whole family left for Orlando so I could do the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon.  I was going to get in one last post before we left, but Charlie was working late and I was trying to pack when the kids were being crazy and unhelpful and before you knew it I ran out of time.  The story of my life.  Oh well, all I would have told you is that we were all going to Orlando for the Princess 1/2 Marathon, so you're hearing it now.

Originally I thought I would come by myself, but the race was on Sunday and Andy's birthday was on Monday and that was a great excuse for bringing the kids along.  I was starting to question that judgement as I was begrudgingly packing, but in the end it worked out great.  We arrived late on Friday and didn't get to our rental house until around 1 a.m. on Saturday morning.  Saturday we didn't have much planned so we took the kids mini golfing and then grabbed some lunch while we waited for Charlie's mom and my race partner, April, to arrive.  Not together, they were just both arriving around the same time.  Charlie invited his mom to come because he thought it would be a nice chance for us to see her and for her to see the kids' excitement at Disney.  I hope she had as much fun with them as they had with her.

Saturday afternoon April and I went to register and get our race packs and check out the expo and Charlie and the kids swam and then went to the park.  We didn't stay up too late because everybody was tired and we had to get up at 3 a.m. for the race.  Ugh!

We got up at 3 a.m. and left by 3:30 a.m. and the only hitch was that in my rush to get to the alarm clock I ran into the bed post and got a huge instant bruise on my thigh - and I didn't get there before the alarm.  It didn't really bug me too much, except I have found that the kids lean on my leg a lot when sitting next to me, but I do now have a bruise that is bigger than the palm of my hand and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon.

We got to the race with plenty of time and then we waited for our start time.  we were there by about 4:00-4:15 a.m. and we didn't even cross the start line until around 6:20 a.m.  About 1.5 miles into the race we saw the leader on the other side of the road getting ready to finish.  She was flying by and we had just started.  We joked later that by the time we finished the race she was probably already on an airplane home.

The race itself was great and a lot of fun but a little warm, in the low seventies, and very humid.  On top of that the course was very narrow in a few spots so that we actually had to slow down and didn't get to pass anybody or go as fast as we wanted.  In the end we beat our time from the last race by 24 seconds, so we were happy that our time improved, even though it was not by very much.  We have strong hopes for next time.

Will there be a next time?  Of course.  We are already planning out the next few races, I just hope Charlie doesn't have any objections to me leaving for a few more long distance race weekends.  Someday I hope the kids can race with me, but for now I'll just try to enjoy the training and the fact that I've completed a few 1/2 marathons.