I don’t work well with little sleep. I’m groggy, I’m cranky, and I have a tough time focusing on doing my job correctly. So now, picture this. I’m waking up at 3:15 am for the second day in a row. Again I barely slept… maybe it was nerves, maybe fear of oversleeping, maybe it’s because my bed was about as comfortable as a lingering wedgie that you just can’t pick because you’re afraid someone’s gonna catch you doing it. Whatever the reason I barely slept. For the third night in a row. And my inability to nap, on top of being tired from a long drive on Friday compounded with the need to change a tire on I-95, AND on top of the fact that I did after all run 13.1 miles less than 24 hours earlier just magnified my fatigue. Pure adrenaline got me out of bed. That, and the fact that I promised Ivan that I’d pick him up and take him to the race so that his wife wouldn’t have to wake up, get ready, and drive the man with his kids in tow to the park. I had everything laid out this time, making sure that I was ready and that I wouldn’t have to triple check everything like I did the morning before. Then at 3:40 am I stepped out of my room… straight into 29 degrees with a wind chill sub 20 degrees.Â
I did come EXTRA prepared knowing it was going to be even colder than the day before. I decided to wear TWO pairs of warmups while I waited for the race with the intention of shedding them both at the start. I brought two power bars: one for me and one for Ivan. I figured he wouldn’t be ready and I was right. He hadn’t eaten and wasn’t planning to before the race… a big no-no for such a long run. We had the same traffic problems as the day before but still got there easy enough and headed in to the waiting area. I noted that I wasn’t as cold as the day before. I figured it was more than anything because I had lived through the shock of the initial hit I took the day before when I got to the race site. We looked for and found Javi who again was hooking me up with the disposable lab coat. The extra layer would be key today, at least for the beginning of the race.
We went through the same ritual as the day before, walking to our corrals and waiting for the race to begin. Ivan’s corral was way behind mine and Javi’s so we hung out with him until almost race time and then we went up to my corral. Javi was actually stationed at a lower lettered corral than mine, but as it turns out mine had a better location so it worked out well when he decided to hang in my corral. Soon after we walked into our corral the festivities began, Javi and I said a small prayer that we would get through the day and we waited for the starting gun to go off. I was amped. I took off the top pair of warmup pants, and then chose to run with the other pair. The wind-chill was still in the back of my mind and I didn’t want to take a chance freezing off my legs. This was something that I would have to address later in the race. For now, I was ready!!
The gun went off at 5:50 am and we were off. Thanks to the fact that I had run this before I was in a corral with faster runners than the year before and I saw the difference immediately. I didn’t have to continually dodge runners who were barely running or who were deciding to walk half a mile into the race like I had to last year. It only took about a mile for me to warm up and I noticed that the cold weather and the wind were not affecting my breathing. I had been really worried that my nose would freeze due to the combination of wind and cold as it had on one of my training runs when I was running in Key Biscayne over the Rickenbacker Bridge in 50 degree weather. But apparently the mass of people I was running in helped to warm up my immediate area as well as kept the wind from affecting me too much as I ran. I was comfortable in a hurry. I think the adrenaline helped also. Within about a mile I had shed the lab coat. I was ready for all that was ahead…
To simplify the story I am now going to just go by mile markers and share some of my thoughts as I went through the 26.2 mile course.
Mile Marker (MM) 2: We had run around EPCOT and were ready to enter the first of the 4 parks. A lot of people were cheering us on as we headed for the entrance at around 6:10. The crowd definitely helped finish waking me up. Hearing people cheering for you definitely gets your blood pumping. We ran into the park and through Future World, past Mexico and then out a little exit gate right before Norway. Here we joined up with the people from the first three corrals (the ones Javi was supposed to start with) and arrived at mile marker three. I felt so much energy that I kept finding myself speeding up inadvertently. Javi kept asking me if I wanted to go on ahead that he was cool with it. I kept telling him that no, we were in this together, and besides, he helped keep me in check and prevented me from pushing too hard especially after the race the day before.
MM 4: I start to regret wearing my warm ups. I had run so well the day before without them and now the temperature and wind chill didn’t feel so different from the day before. Should I just dump these warm ups too? I never wore them in Miami so they wouldn’t be a big loss. There was a problem though. I had put all my stuff in the pockets of the warmups. In order to shed the pants I would have to not only strip off the pants but remove my keys, phone, shot blocks, chap stick, porcelain Jesus, and the more valuable lint I could find BEFORE removing the warmups and then make sure that I don’t leave any of THAT stuff behind when I began running again. It wasn’t worth aggravating myself over all this so I chose to finish the race with the pants. Just then I felt the sweat start to accumulate on my legs.
MM 5: Javi and I officially start praying the rosary. We both asked others for intentions to pray for and were going to pray the entire rosary during our run. Javi suggested we do one mystery (five decades) starting at every 5 miles. It sounded like a plan to me. Last year I started praying right away and when I finished I had a hard time finding something new to focus on. We started praying. I soon realized that Javi prayed faster than I did and that he was able to ignore the surroundings much better than I could. I realized this when he got to his first Glory Be. I knew he was there because whenever he reached the Glory he would slightly raise his hands in praise to God. It kinda looked like a dance move actually and one of the other runners made a comment about it. Javi explained why he was doing it and got another prayer request. Pretty neat actually. Half way between miles 6 and 7 Javi finished his 5 decades, while I still had a bit to go. That’s when he turned his iPod back on, and the music got him going. He took off. I had to catch up if we were gonna run together. I finished my decades and we were good. But this pattern would continue for the rest of the race…
MM 7: We’re running down the main road that takes us to the transportation and ticket center and we are approaching a water and Powerade stop. I brought water with me so I wasn’t planning on stopping. Javi would usually slow down enough to grab some Powerade and then he’d speed up again to catch up to me. He had just started to speed up when I hear him yelling, “ICE! ICE!” I looked down and realized that the floor was completely covered with ice that had formed from water that had been dropped by runners. The floor was extremely slippery and devoid of puddles. It must be really cold for the floor to be icing up so quickly! Good thing that the run was keeping us warm.
MM 10: We had just finished passing the contemporary and could see Space Mountain from just outside the park and we are now running along the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom towards the same small entrance yesterday that took us into Main Street. Over the last couple of miles we had passed by some areas with music playing, most of which was meant to keep us fired up. One such song was “Flying High Now”, aka the Theme from Rocky… picture Sylvester Stallone now running through Philly if you must. Music definitely kept my pace up especially since I didn’t have an iPod. Javi didn’t need this extra little perk because he had brought his own music. Good thing the Disney people had me in mind!
Here we started our second round of prayers. Of course we were also running into Main Street. This is where the most dense crowd of people would be. After praying for a little bit, I found myself entering the area and I couldn’t help myself. I would take a small break and indulge in the moment. I started high fiving everybody cheering us along Main Street. The crowd was more than happy to oblige. But I also found myself jumping up and down and waving my arms yelling for more crowd noise like a cheerleader. This was great, but it took a bit of energy to do so. Once out of Main Street, I found myself a bit drained. I figure that I would recover, and though my pace wouldn’t slow too much for a long time I never quite got all my energy back. I got another quick rush as I looked for the cameraman when I ran through Cinderella’s Castle, but that was it for a long time. I went back to my prayer, only to find that Javi was almost finished. Pretty soon I would be playing catch up again when he turned on his iPod.
MM 13: Half way there. Javi notices that we are not far off from our pace from the day before. That made me feel good. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the energy I had the day before. Saturday I was sprinting the last half mile without a problem. Right now, I couldn’t have sprinted if I wanted to. I started wondering how fast I could have run the marathon a day earlier if I would have tried. I had to remove those thoughts quickly if I was going to focus on the task at hand, so I did.
Right around now was when the volunteers started handing out bananas. I was looking forward to getting a little food in my system. Shot blocks were fine, but in the cold they were more like really chewy candy. Apparently the cold was slowly freezing them. I found a volunteer with a banana in hand and I grabbed it. I opened it up and took a bite. It was like biting into a banana popsicle. It was hard and icy. Not what I was hoping for… I finished it off so that I could get my potassium in, but I remember thinking that I was not enjoying eating it at all.
MM 15: Just as I was about to start praying I am engaged in conversation by another runner who seems to be struggling. He was telling me how he was cramping up, and how his hamstrings were aching. He had run the first half of the marathon in 1:45. Awesome time! But now he was back with the pack where I was. I pressed a little and found out it was his first marathon. Apparently nobody had spoken to him about pacing himself. I encouraged him as much as I could then just pulled away to catch up with my sidekick.
The prayers now begin for the third set of mysteries. Now I’m having a real hard time focusing. Music was being played on speakers throughout this part of the route as we approached Animal Kingdom. It also happened to coincide with the area where apparently all the garbage is dumped. Breathing was not easy. Praying while focusing on breathing less so. Praying while trying to breathe stanky air while trying to block out the music… close to impossible. As I ran, I tried real hard to focus on all I was doing at the same time. I wanted to close my eyes so I could block everything out, but then had to worry about bumping into people. Apparently my attempt to focus made me wince a bit because it caught Javi’s attention. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was but I’m not sure he believed me. As usual he would finish first and this time the burst pushes him way ahead. We head towards Animal Kingdom with me struggling to keep up with my pace man.
MM 16: Ten miles to go, Hail Mary’s on my lips, and Animal Kingdom looming ahead. Off to the side a man plays on a piano. He plays… CHARIOTS OF FIRE. Now I know that this song is meant to be inspirational but it’s placement in the race is questionable. Here there are all these tired people running, and this piano player chooses to play a song that only invokes images of people running in SLOW MOTION! Then while playing it he starts telling us, “Oh please don’t slow down!” Well, what did he want us to do?!?!
Right after Piano Man, there is a section where they are handing out Clif gels to help people recover some of the electrolytes they’ve lost. Normally I’m all about these, but I balk after the banana experience 3 miles back. Good choice… I noticed as I ran through people trying to squeeze the gels out of the ouches and into their mouths quite unsuccessfully and discarding them off to the side without eating them. I heard one person exclaim, “My God, there frozen solid!”
One cool note as we entered our third park: everyone who signed up by a certain day had their name on the running bib. When I signed up, for some reason or another I didn’t write WENCY, but instead wrote my full name WENCESLAO. Throughout the race spectators could be heard cheering on strangers by yelling out the names on their bibs… “Way to go, Charles! You can do it, Mary! You’re doing great, Javier!” Me? I’d just get stares… They’d start cheering me on and then maybe out of fear of mispronouncing my name would pause and then yell out the next runner’s name. A lot of people yelled for Javi (he didn’t hear most b/c of said iPod). Nobody yelled out my name. Not until I reached the entry into Animal Kingdom through Asia. A cast member ventured to yell out my name, fairly successfully I might add. I through my arms in the air, “SOMEBODY KNOWS I’M RUNNING!” It felt good!
MM 18: We are out of Animal Kingdom and we get to the most “boring” part of the run. Nothing to look forward to for a few miles. The highlight? To overpasses that I remember not enjoying too much the year before. I decide that I am going to be relatively aggressive in running at them knowing that there won’t be many more of these later on. I do pretty well considering the work I had to do to catch up to Javi after the last set of Hail Mary’s. Javi slowed down just a tad to help me get there, but regardless I was feeling the 30 plus miles I had run during the weekend at this point.
MM 20: The overpasses are behind me. Now as I reach the 20th mile marker, I can hear Van Halen’s Jump wailing from some speakers. That gets my blood flowing again, and I get a small burst of energy. The next mile and a half are going to be dull as we run 3/4 of a mile up and 3/4 of a mile back the same stretch. As you run in you get to see everybody who is just ahead of you running… on the way back you’ll see who’s just behind you. My pace is still good at this point as we start praying our last set of prayers. I work to block out the music, but I can’t help but notice that they have a bunch of songs mixed together blaring through the speakers. I notice this because I’m one of these people who likes hearing songs clear through. When a song starts i want to hear it all… I don’t want to hear it mix into another midway especially if my favorite part is about to play. So, I’m having trouble focusing, AND I’m annoyed now. My prayers are going a little faster now, but Javi still seems to be going through them faster than me… and then we reach
MM 21: Just past this mark Javi finishes his prayers, and you guessed it… his iPod goes on and he takes off. This time I’m still not quite done with my prayers and focus to finish. By the time I finish though, Javi has created a bit of distance between us. I decide to push the pace to catch up only to realize that I would have to do this on an on ramp that takes me to a different road. It is not long, but is steep and curving at an angle. I find myself closing the distance but I also find my legs telling me that I’m an idiot for pushing THERE of all places. I would see Javi up ahead looking back for me and I would wave that I was working on getting to him. I was happy that he wasn’t slowing down especially after he stretched his groin the day before, but I just couldn’t make up necessary ground. After a little while I decided to hide behind a rather large runner, so that he couldn’t see me when he looked back. Javi moved on, and I started to really struggle.
MM 22-24: Anyone who has run a long distance has heard about “THE WALL”. Everybody hits… it’s just a matter of how you react to it. Some bust right through it without missing a beat. They recognize what is happening to their bodies but have conditioned themselves to work through it. Others stop completely with the hopes of recovering and catching a second wind. I’m stuck somewhere in between. I knew what was happening… the glycogen in my body had run out and the fuel necessary to continue was going to have to come from somewhere other than the carbs I had loaded on during the last couple of days. I’m not used to running like this so my body wanted to quit. My mind, on the other hand, ignored my body and told me to press on. I was looking at the times on the clocks at each mile marker and realized that if I could maintain a certain pace I could better my time from the previous year, even though I had already run 13 the day before. I wasn’t about to stop now… but my body definitely was slowing down. For these two miles I slowed down to 13 minute miles, just barely faster than a power walk. But I persisted as I closed in on Hollywood Studios. At around MM23 I entered through the back side of the park to find a station offering chocolate and/or raisins. CHOCOLATE!! Just what I needed! A bit of sugar and caffeine to give me a burst. I grabbed the chocolate unwrapped it and stuffed it into my mouth. It was hard as a rock, and so frozen that it wouldn’t easily melt. I took a bite and tried to chew and swallow it, but then realized something I hadn’t noticed before… I must be dehydrating a bit because I had no saliva to help me get the chocolate down. I’d been hydrating throughout, but when one is that cold, one doesn’t realize the amount of sweat being lost. Three layers of shirts on top and the warm up pants were apparently finally taking it’s toll. I made sure to grab something to drink as soon as I could to help me wash down my snack.
One thing I failed to mention which I might as well mention here. After the first 10 miles, and interesting thing was happening at the fluid stations. The tops of all the drinks were freezing. At first it was just a crinkle of ice, but towards the end of the race, some of the drinks had a layer of ice on top of the drink itself… pretty interesting considering they were served at room temperature! That last cup I grabbed right before MM24, the ice bounced off my nose as I tipped the cup back to take my drink. It was actually quite amusing.
MM 25: After having run through Hollywood Studios and then running through and past the Swan, Dolphin, and Boardwalk Resorts I was arriving at EPCOT center and entering through the International Gateway just behind United Kingdom. I had picked up the pace a bit without realizing it (had the chocolate actually helped) and was now turning towards France in EPCOT and MM25. But before getting there there was one last bridge (albeit tiny) to go over. I never suffered through such a small obstacle so much in my life. But when I saw my time at MM25 the pain started to dissipate. I had run an 11 minute mile and needed to run the last 1.2 miles in 19 minutes to better my time from the year before. That was enough to keep me going!! I ran through the countries at a moderate pace (I didn’t speed up for fear that I would use up the little energy I felt had just showed up), pushing out of my mind that they had decided to play Chariots a SECOND time right before entering EPCOT, and got to the Future portion of the park. I ran towards Spaceship Earth just as I had the day before but not sprinting as I had 26 hours earlier. I turned right right before the gift shop adjacent to Spaceship Earth knowing exactly what was right around the corner…
MM 26: The Gospel Choir was there again to cheer everyone on as we reached the conclusion of the race. This time they ignored the hand warmers behind them and actually sang. What they sang? I have NO idea, but it definitely gave me a lift. I gave their director a high five as I passed and then chugged towards the finish line 385 yards away. What a welcome sight, and just like last year, the pain all seemed to have gone away. I did my best impersonation of a sprint and as I crossed the finish line I stopped and pumped my hands in the air. GOOFY HAD BEEN CONQUERED!! I ran a bit forward and easily found Javi. He had finished 4 minutes earlier. We both embraced knowing that we had both finished what we had signed up to do together… Finish Goofy’s Marathon and a Half Challenge.
My legs felt remarkably good after the race. I felt no pain or tightness. We went to the medical tent because in the last couple of miles Javi’s toenail apparently started ripping off (OUCH!) but after some quick first aid, we were off to pick up our Goofy Medals. We picked them up, took our pics and we were on our way to finding Javi’s family. We found them easily enough and Javi got celebratory hugs from his wife and three kids. They turned to congratulate me next. When the little one touched my sleeve, he freaked out. It was soaking wet! I had sweated through three layers of clothes. Now, at the end of a marathon one of the things that is given to you is a mylar blanket to help keep your body warm post race. They work really well… unless of course the wind is so strong that it doesn’t stay on your body. And that was the case today. It was 10:20 am and was 33 degrees at this point and finally the wind was a factor… AND I was soaking wet. I was FREEEEEEEEZING. While Javi and family gathered for pictures I made sure to mention how cold I was and that I would really appreciate it if we ALL went to the car. We headed to the car where Javi had a bottle of champagne waiting. It’s been his tradition to celebrate all his races with some bubbly. I’m not big on champagne but in my experience alcohol goes well with cold weather. We downed that sucker in no time. We warmed ourselves for a bit, and waited until I got the call… Ivan was coming in. He had finished his race a bit faster than the year before. All three of us had run Personal Records for our Marathons. SWEET!
Javi set off for his hotel to check out and I found my car to change out of my wet clothes. I went to go find Ivan at the waiting area at the finish line. When I got there I couldn’t find him. Apparently the cold had gotten to him quickly too. I called and we made plan for lunch. Ivan asked if he could come shower at my place because they had already checked out. I told him I’d meet him at my car. Well, I was feeling so good I decided to run to my car in the EPCOT parking lot. That lasted for about 20 yards. We all met at my car went back to the room and Ivan and family and I got ready for lunch. We met Javi at Chili’s and we all wore our medals to show them off. We’d earned them DAMMIT!! After all the carbs I’d eaten over the last 2 days,I decided to have a big greasy Bacon Burger. My body craved FOOD. But when it got there it just wanted nothing to do with it. I ate it anyway because I needed to replenish the calories and I drank a lot of water to rehydrate. We all recounted our experience and relived the feeling of finishing, but I wasn’t enjoying the moment too much at this time. There was two things missing… 1. I needed SLEEP after having slept little since Thursday. 2. I needed my family… it sucked that Javi and Ivan both had their families there to share this success and I was only able to share it with, well, the same two families. I was happy to be with them, but I needed my own family there.
After lunch, Javi and family set off for Tampa. Ivan got in the passenger seat while Yoly drove him home to Miami. I went back to the hotel to try to get some sleep. It’s amazing… as tired as I was I just couldn’t sleep. Maybe I was still excited. Maybe it was the crappy bed. Maybe it’s because I was there alone. I forced myself to lie there for 4 hours and rest. Then around 7 after being up for a bit I made my decision… I was going to drive home. My legs felt great, so that wouldn’t be the issue. The question was whether I could stay awake or not. All I knew is that I didn’t want to be in that depressing hotel for another night in a bed I had yet to actually sleep in. And where the hell was I going to go out alone to that night? The movies? A restaurant? Not interested. I was going to take my chances.
I got in my car around 8pm, passed by an Arby’s drive thru for dinner and took off for home. I had a plan. I would call people and bore them to death with my story until they couldn’t stand my voice any more! It was a great plan. Let’s hope it would work. First I called Mandy. Mandy’s a good man… he kept me alert for over an hour! The next culprit was Javi Mariscal (another Javi). He obliged for a nice long period also. Finally I called Dania once I figured the kids were asleep. She stayed on with me until I was sure I was home free. I got home right around midnight.
Let’s look back at the day… 4 hour 25 minute run to start the day… 4 hour drive to end the day. And I was going to be able to sleep at home and kiss my family good night before plopping down on a comfortable bed.
It was a pretty darned great day… and to think I did it all on little sleep.