Part two: in which I actually, you know, run
the race. And other stuff.
Okay,
before I start, I have to ‘fess up:
I had pretty good intentions of taking a bunch of photos this time. That didn’t happen. I'll post what I got and add some from runDisney where applicable, but if you
want a better visual trip through 10 miles of “terror”, check out runDisney’s Facebook album.
Also, this is going to get long. Very long. Because I'm going to make up for the lack of actual photos by painting a visual with words. Or something.
Still
with me? Okay, here we go…
Nancy,
Peter and I grabbed a light dinner at the Caribbean Beach Resort’s (CBR) food
court around 6:30pm and hopped a bus to the race shortly after 7pm.
(For those, like I, who stress about how the
whole race bus system works, note that the race buses were fancy Mears-type
coaches, not regular WDW buses. The race buses had signs in their front
windows denoting them as race transportation, and at CBR, those buses went
around to each of the regular resort bus stops.
This is not necessarily the case at every resort, so it’s best to
inquire about how your WDW resort will be handling race transportation.)
I tend
to become Piglet when planning my arrival to something with a firm time target:
very worried and terribly nervous. I’ll always
choose to be early rather than chance being late. So I was quite pleased when, after picking up
a few more people at other stops, we took off and quickly arrived at the
pre-race staging area, located in a parking lot at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
(DHS).
By
then, it was maybe 7pm… and I had until
9:15 before getting into my corral… to wait another hour before my start. We were so early, the DJ hadn’t even started doing his thing. But, Disney listened and
there were many more photo opportunities than last year, so we indulged.
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Help, I’m
slipping into the twilight zone…
|
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Or is
it, “Help, I’m about to be eaten by these giant clumps of sea grass, which have nothing at all to do with the Twilight Zone, the Tower of Terror, or running!”??? The mind boggles.
|
A few
people complimented our awesome shirts, and one simply didn’t get it. That would be the photographer in front of a
large, lit screen. He had a fairly short
line, so we got in and waited, not really knowing what it was all about, but
pretty sure something cool would come
of it. As we waited, an assistant came
through, telling folks who weren’t in costume, “This is for costumed racers only.
If you’re not in costume, you can’t get a picture here.” We thought that was weird, but he didn’t tell
us to leave, so he clearly got our LOST theme. The photographer, though, did not. Get it.
He took one look at us and said, in a disdainful tone, “This is for costumes only.” To which we replied, “We are in costumes! Team
DHARMA? The DHARMA Initiative? You know, LOST
– on ABC, a Disney affiliate?!”
Nope. Not a sign of recognition in
his face. Unwilling to argue, he waved
us up to the screen and we posed for our magical picture.
Guess
what?
No
picture. Not in my official race photos,
not in Nancy’s race photos. Not in Peter’s
race photos. That jerk-head photographer
probably never even clicked the shutter.
Hmmph.
Anyway,
we took some pictures, then milled around until we found a good spot to sit and
wait.
(Note: I brought with me an "ear" from the Mickey
towel art in my resort room – for sitting.
And I was glad I had it: the DHS parking lot looked to have been coated
in Brill Cream. It was shiny and, as I
discovered upon pulling up my towel an hour or so later, sticky. I was pretty glad the fresh blacktop stuck to
an easily laundered towel and not my running skirt.)
The DJ
had started spinning his very, VERY loud tunes and a ton of people were dancing
up a storm.
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“Place
your hands on your hips… and pull your knees in ti-ight!”
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And I once
again wondered how they could possibly
have the energy to run 10 miles after a two-hour dance workout in 77 degrees and 86% humidity. I’d love to know the percentage of
non-finishers and finishers who danced first.
As the
time neared to start loading corrals, we took our show on the road, hitting the
gigantic bank of porta-potties near the corrals. I’ve read complaints from others about
waiting a long, long time in potty lines that night, but I waited a grand total
of 30 seconds. Disney had the potties
laid out in a T formation, but you really wouldn’t know that unless you went around
the bottom of the T and discovered the nearly empty left side of it. Back in that corner, there was virtually NO waiting
at all. Always tour the full spectrum of potty options at a race; you never
know where there may be an overlooked bank of ‘em.
Last
year, the Tower of Terror 10-Miler divided runners into four huge corrals, each holding about
2,500 people. The result was massive
congestion and rampant frustration when faster runners couldn’t get by much
slower people ahead of them. This year,
the slightly larger field was divided into 10 corrals, A through J, with about
500 runners each in A, B and C, 1000 each in D and E, 1500 each in G and H, and
about 2000 each in I and J. I was seeded
in corral G, which was designated as the corral for expected finish times under
two hours and five minutes, a 12:30/mile pace.
With all of my hip issues going into the race, I knew I wouldn’t be
moving that fast, so I placed myself toward the back of the corral. But when I heard a girl behind me say that
she’d never – NEVER! – run before that night, I thought twice about my plan and
started moving toward the front of the corral as we all, A through J, began the
move from the staging area to the start line.
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| Photo courtesy of Larry Wiezycki |
(This is
different from other WDW races and it gets mixed reviews. For this race, we entered the fenced-in
corrals and hung out for a while. Then,
about 30 minutes before the first wave started, the far ends of the corrals opened
and we all moved onto a road, still in our corral groupings. As a whole, we all walked about a
quarter-mile down the road, to the DHS parking lot tollbooths. As each wave started, the other corrals moved
up for their own starts. I liked that walk to the start. It gave my legs a chance to loosen up and
felt more productive than sitting around any longer. Yes, it did add to the overall distance, but
in a relaxed, untimed way, just like I warm up before each training run. I’d love for every race to start that way.)
Unfortunately,
somewhere during that long walk to the start, I lost my place in the middle of
the corral and wound up in the very back.
I still can’t figure out how that happened! I kept up with the people ahead of me, and I thought
we kept pace with everyone else, but when the fireworks went off (fireworks for
every corral’s start – yay Disney!) and the announcers called out for corral G
to “GO!”, I found myself in the very back of the group. “Oh well,” I thought, “less pressure to go
out too fast.”
As you
can see on the course map…
… we
quickly came to the first of two trips up and around a cloverleaf ramp. My plan for the cloverleaf had been to hang
toward the outer edge and leave room for the fast folks to run the inside
tangent. My plan got tossed faster than
a liberal bill on Capitol Hill. There
really weren’t any faster folks running
the inside tangent at that time, and the outer edge’s extreme angle was killing
my right hip (the bad one) and my left ankle.
So I angled my run down toward the inside curve as I kept moving
forward, passing a good many folks in the process.
(About that cloverleaf… in the center of it
is a retention pond, used in Florida to capture stormwater runoff. In the center of that pond, a large fireball was
being sent up into the sky at regular intervals. I have to question the thought process behind
that “entertainment” – who thought it was a great idea to send more ambient heat into an already very warm
race?!)
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Okay, it wasn't that big – but maybe that hot.
|
My intention
for this race was to take my time, enjoy the sights, and use it as a training run
heading up to a half-marathon later in the month. But at the end of the first mile, I felt
really good. After two miles, I felt
great. Bye-bye slow and scenic – hello redemption! I knew at that point that I had a really good
shot at beating my base goal (to finish under 2:30:00), and to maybe meet my wish
goal (to finish in under 2:15:00.)
So,
yeah – no pictures. From start to
finish, I never stopped. Not to take
pictures, not to use a porta-potty, not even to smear some Biofreeze on my
hip. (Yes, I was that chick walk-running
past the med tent with her hand down her
shorts, trying to get Biofreeze on her hip.)
I recall seeing MANY more photo opps and props along the way. The Queen of Hearts was out, as were the
Haunted Mansion butlers and dancing ghosts, a ghostly football team, the Hag
from Snow White, Jack Skellington and
Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas,
Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog,
and the hyenas from The Lion King. I also saw a giant, inflatable spider hanging
above us and the Evil Queen sending curses our way from overpasses. There were laser lights and strobe lights and
twinkling lights and spider web lights and balloon-y lights.
Even
without stopping for pictures, I found my head turning and my eyes darting
here, there and everywhere, just trying to take it all in. Disney clearly listened to last year’s
complaints of less-than-expected course entertainment and stepped things way,
WAY up.
As for
me, up to mile eight, I kept feeling better with every passing mile. I kept skipping walk breaks and my speed kept
increasing. Every ten minutes or so, I’d
feel my heart beating a little too hard, and that cool, clammy sensation that
screams impending heat exhaustion, so I’d slow down and drink my Nuun until it
passed. I picked up water at almost
every stop: one cup went over my head and down my back, and two more went into
my bottle.
I really
enjoyed the out and back on Osceola Parkway, and especially loved shouting out
to Nancy and Peter (who had started ahead of me in corral D) as I saw them pass
on the opposite side of the road. The
dirt road leading into the Wide World of Sports (WWOS) complex was my favorite
portion of the race this year. I had
room to run, the dirt gave my joints a break from the asphalt, and it was way,
way cool and eerie in there.
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| Photo courtesy of runDisney |
Running
through WWOS was a lot more fun this
year, not being in gawdawful pain, and I appreciated the spectators in the
baseball stadium with funny signs that gave me a few good laughs. Apparently the big thingy in the middle of
the baseball field was a tesla coil. I
didn’t know that at the time, though – it wasn’t working and I just saw a
couple official-looking guys standing near it.
Apparently, it looked like this when it was working:
Leaving
WWOS, I’d been rolling along, feeling terrific for eight miles, and then…
WHAM.
I hit a
wall. Not a typical, glucose crash wall,
but an oh-my-god-I’m-freaking-EXHUASTED-from-too-many-days-of-anxiety
wall. I was properly fueled and hydrated,
and no muscle groups or joints were protesting loudly, but I could have pulled over
and been asleep on the pavement in seconds.
I could actually feel days of
built-up adrenaline flow on out of my system, as if someone had pulled the
stopper in a sink full of water, leaving me feeling drained of all remaining
energy. I swear, I think my brain concluded
that I was totally going to finish and there was really no reason to continue
its work keeping me awake. It took monumental
effort to get through those last two miles, more than I’ve ever put into a run.
In a
daze, I powered through the cloverleaf again and through DHS, trying hard to
find a little extra juice to run all of the final half-mile; I was within
minutes of beating my wish goal. There just
wasn’t anything left to give, though. I
allowed myself to walk ten steps, then pick up the run again, only to find my
legs walking again a minute later. As I
heard a volunteer shout “You’ve got this – the finish line is just around the corner!”
I walked a few more steps, took a deep breath and willed my body to run just
once more, around the corner, past the Tower of Terror, and to the finish,
giving Goofy and his filthy white glove a big ‘ol high-five just before I
crossed.
At that
moment, I didn’t even care about my time goal.
All I wanted was to get my medal and sit. Anywhere. My hip began to hurt immediately after finishing, I'd been battling a headache since before the race started, and that tremendous exhaustion was being supplemented with a fine shaking of every muscle in my body.
Disney,
wisely predicting a good many people would feel the same way, did not let me,
or anyone else, flop down after the finish line. We needed to keep moving and Disney made sure we did... A medal was placed around my neck, a bottle
of water pushed into my hand, and I grabbed a banana and tore into it like I
hadn’t eaten in a week.
I
honestly had no idea where I was or where I was going at that point, but I just
kept shuffling along in the direction pointed to me by the volunteers. I saw a man to my left, leaning against a
metal barricade, head down as his companion rubbed his back and looked intently
into his face. And then he went down,
head slamming into the barricade as the woman with him began screaming for
help. My brain woke completely with that
and sent a message to run to the couple, but my legs just stopped in
place. That was really, really weird –
they just didn’t respond. I saw that a
man in much better shape and size to handle things had gotten there, anyway,
and we were all screaming for a medic, so I kept shuffling, knowing I’d only be
in the way.
It was
scary, seeing that go down, and was a reminder that running in our special
brand of heat here in Florida can be dangerous.
At the
end of my long walk from the finish, I found, was the bag check retrieval point. Disney listened again: no stairs to climb
this year! Bag check was still in the
Indiana Jones Theater, but we’d been funneled to its floor from backstage,
avoiding the gazillion stairs in the theater itself. Well done, Disney; well done. My bag retrieved, I grabbed a seat on the
pavement, a little way past the theater, still backstage, to swap my running
shoes for flip flops before finding somewhere to change into dry clothes. Between shoes, I took a moment to slug down
more Nuun and looked around… bodies, everywhere. Some sitting, some prone, some looking as if
they’d been cast there by tornado. A few
looked like me, industriously, if slowly, getting things together before moving
on. Most looked catatonic, like they
might not move until sunrise. Again, scary.
My feet
freed from their confines of socks and laces, I hobbled off to the changing tent,
where I sweated more in five minutes than I had all race. Epic fail, there. Really, no one thought to put a FAN in
there?!
Shortly
after, I met up with Nancy and Peter and we went to grab some food before
meeting up with our running group. It
kind of all went south for me at that point. I
was standing in line with Peter, chatting, when I felt myself go cold from head
to toe and my hearing suddenly felt muffled.
I was going to faint, I could tell.
So I went to sit at our table, head down until the world stopped spinning
around me and the light-headedness passed.
Food no longer sounded good, but I managed to drink some chocolate milk
and perked up enough to go to the Tower of Terror for group pics and a ride.
I made it
through some pictures and conversations, but it hit again – the overwhelming
sense that I was going to faint. I sat
down until it passed again and then pulled the plug; I was DONE. I took an unofficial finisher’s photo in
front of the tower, hopped a bus to CBR, drove back to my resort, Coronado
Springs, took a shower and fell into bed around 4am, 24 hours after I'd started the day.
Still to come: final thoughts, my official time and will I race the Tower 10-Miler again? Stay tuned! (Part Three here...)
