At Epcot Center

On Sunday morning I flew into Tampa, drove up to Orlando and enjoyed Epcot Center at Disney World. Ever since I did the Inaugural Goofy Challenge at WDW (1:45 & 3:53), I have gone back to the four theme parks there when I could and wandered around each one, reliving those 39 miles as best I could in each park. (Right: Top of the world, Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom at WDW.)

I had a girl friend during my visits to the first two parks and I subjected her to my "runner moments." You know, "I came through here," "I took some water there," " I rearranged my fanny pack at this spot." All the interesting stuff.

Sunday I completed my task. As the years go by it's hard to remember exactly each twist and turn of the two runs, but I think I got the last quarter mile down pat. I was in a fog of fatigue the second day but I remember a band being there at MP 26, and a body of water that I was running around or by. I certainly remember running up upon the big silver sphere both days that is Epcot Center, where both races finish. It was quite a beacon. Sorta like the Black Monolith in the movie 2001. Maybe you hadda be there, or perhaps you gotta be older, but anyway, it was my breakthrough because both days were huge PRS. (Left: How could you forget, or think, you ran by this landmark?)

The only other thing I truly remember was that I ran through the Magic Castle twice. When I went to Animal Kingdom a year after the race I thought that for sure I had run by the Mount Everest exhibit and was happily reliving that experience until I read in the park brochure that the mountain was created after January 2006. So it goes. (Right: Fourteen months later, I found a Goofy to hang out with in the Swiss Family Robinson exhibit in Animal Kingdom (mileposts 16-18) at WDW. Photo credit S.)

My Neighborhood Mile

I love my neighborhood mile. It's been very good to me.

I'm intimate with it. I know it like a lover. I know its moods.

It starts right outside my door. It's always there. I can glance out my window and know what kind of a day I'm in for.

Is it rain glistened? That's no trouble and it won't bother me unless it's pelting.

Is it hoary with frost? Then I'm in for a hard time and I have to approach it just right, both in dress and in footing.

Is it covered in snow? I'll appreciate it the more for its silent beauty but I'll have to be careful around it, unless its frigid and icy, in which case I'll stay away from it altogether for awhile.

It's always waiting for me. But sometimes I neglect it. Sometimes I don't visit with it for weeks. I wonder if it misses me, or resents my absence.

It always helps me. When I was suffering, and trying to hold on in the last mile of the WDWM and break 4 hours for the first time, it gave me succor. It reached out from 1,000 miles away and was with me that last mile at Disney. Suddenly I wasn't running towards Epcot with aching lungs and leaden feet at 3:45:45 anymore. No. I was standing at the head of my driveway at 0:00:00.

Punch the watch and go up the street a quarter mile. Hill at the top. Turn right at the stop sign.

Go down the level straightaway two blocks. Watch out for the divot in the middle of the road midway down.

Turn right just before the W&OD Trail and run downhill on Railroad Avenue. Circle the telephone pole at the end of that dead-end road and return. Not quite halfway yet. (Right: Looking up RR Avenue from the dead end. The W&OD Trail is off to the right.)

Come back up RR Avenue, always thinking about pace here. Faster turnover, work it, work it! Watch for the other divot in the roadway to the left near the turn back onto the two-block straightaway.

Pound down the straightaway towards the stop sign with lungs bursting. I'm always gasping audibly here from oxygen depletion. Make the last turn onto the street where I live.

Try to use the hill I labored up three minutes ago. Cut the slight curves in the road to fashion the straightest line down the roadway, going from curb to curb. Traffic behind me? That's not a problem because it's infrequent and slow. Besides, they all know this grey-haired old fool goes sprinting by here often enough.

There's my house. Dash past it towards the "mile marker" at the end, the dumpster in the strip mall parking lot a block beyond.

I allow myself a glance at my watch. It's already past 6:30. Come on, come on! My standard for a good one-mile run is anything under seven minutes. Push it, push it! Yesterday was 7:29! (Left: The final stretch. Heading past my house on the left towards the dumpster a block further on.)

The dumpster, the dumpster! Slap it and I'm done. I push the watch stop button. 6:51. Alright!

These are the solitary mile runs I do that helped me at the end of Disney last year, when desperate weariness forced me out of my head into some ethereal place. I transported myself back home to the top of my driveway, and in my mind I ran my neighborhood mile for the last mile. The comfort of being with an old friend that last mile helped me bring Disney home in under four hours. (Below: My number at the WDWM in 2006 was 4790. Only I wasn't in Orlando crossing the finish mats at the moment captured in the photo, I was at home finishing a comfortable old run.)

[Only someone cynical would say that by substituting the "speed work" of my neighborhood mile this morning for the LSD I told myself I'd do when I went to bed last night, I was merely being lazy.]

Deja Vu All Over

You know how we're always trying to re-live the good parts of our lives? The first time I was in Walt Disney World was in January 2006, when I ran the WDWM. I had a really enjoyable time because I broke four hours in a marathon after years of trying. This happened because Disney World, like the rest of Florida, is absolutely flat.

It was 34 degrees at the start, so weather wasn't a problem. The Floridians were all complaining about how cold it was but having trained in frigid DC all December, I thought the temperature was perfect.

The professional photographer caught me coming out of the Magic Castle in the tenth mile. This is the picture that's on my marathon plaque along with the race logo, the date and my finishing time.

I was in Orlando earlier this year on a case. During a free afternoon, my co-counsel and I went to the Magic Kingdom Park at Disney World.

She probably thought we went to enjoy the rides and shows. We rode the Thunder Mountain Railroad, climbed into the Swiss Family Robinson tree house and saw a show at the Hall of Presidents. But I really went so I could run through the Castle again.

Poor woman. I took her around and pointed out all the little Disney streets I ran down. I even showed her the place where I slowed to a walk while I rearranged my waistpack which had started bouncing. That stuff is really interesting to non-runners.

She was nice about it though. She even snapped this picture of me. Do you think I'm showing the same elan coming out of the Castle that I had in 2006?

Did You See That?

It's amazing what you don't see late in a marathon. When I ran the WDWM in 2006 I ran right by a giant dinosaur in Animal Kingdom and I never saw it. When I looked at the professional pictures later, I said, Huh? When did I run by that? (Right: That's me in the white shirt running away from a dinosaur in the 2006 Walt Disney World Marathon that I never saw.)

Since we ran through the four theme parks on Disney property during the marathon, I later surmised through a process of elimination that I probably ran by it in Animal Kingdom, apparently around MP 17. But I never saw that towering leviathan.

Here's another thing I ran by without a clue in a marathon. In National Marathon in March, apparently a gentleman took a nasty tumble near the finish line right in front of me. He lay prostate for several moments, facedown on the ground while a steady stream of runners, myself included, ran right by, ignoring him. (Left: At National Marathon in front of RFK, two hundred yards from the finish, a runner is lying facedown in the middle of the picture. I am approaching in the distance in black shirt and black trunks.)

I never saw him. When I looked at the professional pictures later, I said, Huh? Did I run by that? (Right: The man is still inert facedown on the pavement. I'm running up on him, unknowing.)

Although bloodied, he was all right I suppose. At least he had a finishing time (I looked it up). I don't know whether he tripped or collapsed. (Left: Finally the downed runner received some assistance as medical workers roll him over. Runners continue on by, oblivious.).

Some help he got from me, a former EMT. (Right: Bloodied Finisher. A Fifty-Stater at that. Now he has DC in there too, the hard way.) It's a jungle out there in the last miles of a marathon.




(Left: Downed runner? Huh?)