The New Iditarod

This year the Disney Marathon weekend could be called the Florida Iditarod !! I'm not complaining just stating the facts. For a first marathon in which you just want to have fun, get a tee-shirt, see what a marathon is like, enjoy the Disney excellence of doing things and finish, I think the Disney Marathon Weekend is a great choice. This year if you wanted to sit in shivering huddled groups, cover yourself in layers of clothing, wear gloves, long underwear, and use hand warmers, slip into an exotically attractive garbage bag, drink frozen water to hydrate and spend hours wondering how so much fluid can come out of your nose, then Disney was good choice!! It was windy and below 30 degrees at the 5:55 start time. Weather.com says it was 29, felt like 26 and that the wind was blowing at 10 mph when the fire works went off and we started to run. Funny thing is I met a woman from Canada after the race while enjoying some coffee at Starbucks the next day and she said she likes to run in -4 degree weather back home but that it was TOO "cold and miserable to enjoy running in this Florida weather"! Go figure!!

So the cold added a type of brutality that only nature can provide and all you can do is live with it. Now in my last post I gave my goals: 1. finished the marathon 2. finish healthy 3. have fun 4. come home with my Mickey Mouse Medallion!! I want to talk about those in the remainder of this post.

First I just wanted to finish the marathon right? Actually after reading and talking to people and wondering how ready I was my EGO wanted to finish in about 5 hours. I thought if I could do that then goal number one would be greatly enhanced. Let me tell you that after weeks of being forced to slow down and rehab my knee that 5 hours was a goal so lofty that I hand to give that up by the 1/2 mark. I crossed the 1/2 timing mark in 2:55. Not because I was freezing and could not get warm, but because I had not finished training. But it is of note that each time I went by a water stop the cups had ice in them and the water was too cold to gulp so I had to walk to sip it and then it seemed to chill me down even more. But the powerade wasn't frozen! Thank God I was used to drinking it during my long runs, but it was still ice cold and kept my core from staying warm. Nature wins in the battle for warmth! I will try to remember that this August when I am forced to run late at night just to stay cool! :-)

Secondly I wanted to finish healthy. I just did not want to push so hard I got injured again. Actually my knee felt pretty darn good throughout most of the race. I never got into a good timing groove of running a certain amount of minutes and walking for a minute. I was concentrating on keeping my hat on, my collar around my neck, my hand warmers in place, my ear muffs pulled down over my ears, taking on and off my full faced wool cap, and the like. It was non-stop trying to keep warm. Who knows maybe the cold weather acted sorta like an ice pack and kept the inflammation at bay and so my knee just never got aggravated and started hurting. So maybe the cold was good thing? I don't know but I do know that at mile 20 things changed. My legs began complaining. Those little subtle twinges you get in your calves when they are starting to feel "crampy" and my quads started aching. I first noticed it when I tried to run up one of the many hills on this flat course. It just plain hurt too badly to run up the hill. I HAD to walk the hills to keep going. Then it just began to progress. I went by a food stop and got a frozen banana and was chipping away at it when I realized that I was being passed by people on crutches and with with walkers!! Even my walking had become labored and painful and it was then that I began to "force" myself to keep going. I had encountered the wall!! I was only 6 miles from finishing. I had to finish. So even if I was at risk of injuring myself I had to keep going. So goal number 2 was sorta out the door at this point because during these last miles pain was the only feedback I was getting that I was still moving forward.

The third goal was to have fun. Now did I have fun? That is a good question. I had great fun telling people I was going to run the Disney Marathon and seeing the look of wonderment on their faces. I had fun planning the trip to Disney and thinking bout having a little vacation. I had fun going out to some different restaurants and eating some new kinds of food. I had fun playing with the GPS to get around Orlando. I had fun at the Marathon Expo when I picked up my number, timing chip and goodie bag, I had fun buying some new insoles and shopping for warmer clothes to run in. I had fun joking about the cold with my fellow participants before the start of the race. I had fun celebrating my wife's birthday while we were there. I had lots of fun!

Oh did I have fun during the Marathon. I think a better word would be "experienced". I experienced running in sub-zero weather for the first time. I experienced running with nearly 20,000 people. I experienced running through all 4 Disney parks and by the Disney sewage treatment plant(yummy smell!) and of course the Animal Kingdom(yummy smells)! I experienced great joy watching the sun come up because that meant warmer! I experienced running up the on ramps and overpasses at Disney. I experienced the short conversations and the "how you doing" among the runners. I experienced such great encouragement from the strangers that lined the route that it brought tears to my eyes and thank you's from my lips. I experienced giving hi 5's to children and grown ups along the route that stood in the freezing cold to cheer us on. I experienced the smiles and help of the many volunteers that were there to give me water, food, first aid, and support. I experienced tears of satisfaction and joy when I realized at mile 24 that I was still moving and sure I was going to make it. I experienced great thankfulness that God would allow me this incredible experience. I experienced the absolute elation of seeing the finish line as I rounded the last corner at mile 26. I experienced one of the volunteers saying, "You made it Mitch!!(our names were on our number pinned to my pant leg) Your a marathoner"!! I experienced running that last 385 yards and crossing the finish line still on my feet. I experienced hearing my name called out as I crossed the finish line. I experienced tears coming to my eyes again as a young man placed my Mickey medallion(goal 4) over my head and saying "Congratulations, you did it!" I experienced my lovely wife saying to me "I am proud of you baby, I knew you would do it!!" I also experienced wearing that medallion around and hearing "good job!" or "congratulations!" or "what is that about?" for the rest of the day and the next in Orlando. And for hours afterward I experienced my knee(this blogs namesake) complain and moan about what I had done to it by running 26.2 miles in sub freezing weather but I could tell he was smiling because he had not let us down and he was proud of himself for seeing it through!

So I conclude this post with this:

"26.2 BABY WOOHOO!!!!"

My Mickey!

Click my name for my results:

MITCH BURKS #11471

Click here for some pictures from the marathon!