Disney Magic



Disney Magic!

Our happy Princess at Epcot

Well, our internet is back up!  It's not supposed to be - supposed to be getting our DSL disconnected so we can get AT&T UVerse, but for some mysterious reason our DSL is back on (who knows... what a comedy of errors this DSL business has been), so I'll take advantage of it and get some race re-cap and pictures up while I can!


Anyway, back to Disney and my 1/2 marathon tale. It was a whirlwind 4 days of getting up early to catch a plane, then getting up earlier to catch a bus to the starting line, meeting my local "Team", running, shuffling, eating, riding the Test Track... so many things to fit in.  So beware, this will probably be a long post with lots of pictures.  Be patient with me :) There is a cool surprise at the end for those who stick with my long-windedness.


We left Cincy airport at around 9 am on Friday (the 7th), in 20 degree weather, and landed in Orlando a little over 2 hours later with weather in the 60's.  No complaints there!  All of the Team In Training participants for Disney (over 2,000) were primarily staying at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort; we hopped the shuttle there and grabbed lunch and checked in. I had to then hop another shuttle over to the Expo to pick up my race packet, and then zoom back to the hotel for the 5:30 pm start of the traditional Team In Training "Pasta Party", a pre-race evening meal to all get together, celebrate our participation, and get some final inspiration for our run. It was a terrific meal - the emcee was Runner's World's writer, John "The Penguin" Bingham, who writes a monthly column called "The Penguin Chronicles", detailing his back-of-the-pack running. He was awesome, very funny and entertaining. The 2,000+ Team In Training participants in the Disney marathon weekend raised over $4 million for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!  Wow!  That is a lot of research money...  Once again, my most heartfelt thanks to all of my family and friends who contributed to my fundraising. 

It was great during this trip to be able to meet (some for the first time), and get to know better a lot of the runners and walkers from my local "Tri State Chapter" of Team in Training. What a great group of folks! People from all walks and stages of life, many of them doing their first 1/2 marathon or full marathon, and one brave soul (an experienced runner), a mom like myself, doing the "Goofy", which is a very special Disney term for doing both the 1/2 marathon on Saturday PLUS the full marathon on Sunday. Very Goofy indeed! Those folks get a special Goofy medal for being so crazy ;). Here's a picture of the Tri State Chapter of TnT, and above is one of Greg, Abby & I after a very great pasta meal and some inspiration from leukemia patients and survivors like Abby.

Race day Saturday: the team met up at 3:15 (yes, that's a.m.!) to catch the shuttle bus to the starting area, which was in the Epcot parking lot. We were to the staging area by around 4 am. Supposedly they wanted us in our corrals at 4 am also; however, a group of us sat around in the staging area until at least 5 am (we were all in corrals  like "G" and "H" that had a longer wait). I started making the long, slow trek to my corral around 5, and it took me at least half an hour to get there. Corral is appropriate! Walking there in that mass of people felt like what being in a cattle chute must feel like! :) Luckily, lots of time by the time I got to my corral to use the porta-potty... I stood around and enjoyed the spectacle of the wheelchair starts (kicked off at 5:35 am), the A(5:40 am), B, C, D, E, and F corrals all starting. Disney does it right! We were rocking to music, there were fireworks launched for every corral start, Minnie and Mickey were there at the starting line with the emcees. Definitely very entertaining! And very luckily for all of us the weather was perfect. It was about 44 at 4 am, but we all had cast-off (i.e., bought at Goodwill) sweats, sweatshirts, gloves and hats to discard once we got running. Blurry cell phone picture below of the fireworks at the start, and the humoungous crowd in just my corral. I think I was G, which started around 6:35 am. We were off!

 

Probably the most difficult part of this race was running in the crowd. When I ran the Flying Pig, it was very crowded at the start, but the course widenened and the chunks of people thinnned out within the first mile. Here at Disney, though, I zigzagged, tried to pass, and ran in the grass for probably the first three miles, and still only managed to get about 11-minute miles in. After those first few miles, though, I just had to kick back and accept it; I had thoughts of coming in with a 2:15 1/2 marathon, and it just didn't happen (I finished in 2:29; my three nervous potty stops along the way certainly didn't help either!). The crowds occasionally got thinner, but running through the parks (the coolest part!) meant running on pretty narrow coned-off paths, so it was still really congested.  But it was so worth it to go through Disney parks!  Below is a blurry cell phone pic of the crowd coming out of Cinderella's castle. I stopped to get my picture taken by one of the pros along the course (the sports photog people); unfortunately, I have my eyes closed. Not sure that one's going to go up on my wall! 

 

And of course, Disney being Disney, the entertainment along the way way very good too. Music, live bands, things about every mile along the way to keep you entertained. What a gorgeous day! I crossed the finish line, collected my Donald Duck medal, grabbed a Diet Coke (had a serious craving!), a blueberry muffin and a protein bar, and hopped on my shuttle bus back to a nice warm shower and a good nap!

 

Finish line behind me!  Done!

We were lucky to be visited the afternoon after the race by Greg's Dad and step-mom, who live a couple of hours away in Tampa.  After my nice, refreshing nap, we headed to Downtown Disney for supper, shopping, Giardelli ice cream sundaes, sightseeing, and general silliness.  Ahoy, mateys!

 



And the next day, Sunday, Greg and Abby and I spent the day at Epcot.  Sunday was full marathon day, so by the time we got to the park, the full was still going on, and we got to cheer the crowds who, by that time, had done 25+ miles and were on the home stretch on their way to the finish line in the Epcot parking lot. We rode all of our favorites, ate some really good food, and saw some neat new things we hadn't seen on our previous visits. I was a little footsore :), but we managed to stick it out to see the fireworks and light show at the end of the day.

Then on Monday it was sleep in, eat a leisurely breakfast, check out, and catch our shuttle back to the airport!  Goodbye Orlando, and thanks for the nice, warm break.  Back to the land of snow and ice :)  Maybe we'll see you next winter again, and maybe Greg will decide to be Goofy!

P.S.  OK, now that my 1/2 marathon is over, I can let the cat out of the bag... ;)  Remember that picture up near the top, of me and Greg and Abby at the pre-race pasta party?  Look closely at my tummy.  No, that is not a beer belly from drinking too much post-running brew.  That is my "passenger" on this run. Greg and I had a very happy surprise about one week before Thanksgiving, when we realized that I was expecting! Not to get too in-depth with the whole story, but this is something that, about 5 years ago, the doctors told us would not be happening for us. So basically, we accepted that, decided that our family of 3 was the perfect size and was what God wanted for us, and moved on. However, He had another idea in mind for us, just a little later in our lives than we had anticipated! My pregnancy is the reason I dropped from the full marathon to the half marathon. I was 15 weeks along during the race, and I imagine that fact contributed to my 3 potty breaks along the racecourse :)  The new Baby Fasnacht is due on June 30th, and so far things are going quite well; everything is very healthy for both me and... him? her? We will know soon! Thanks again to all of my family, friends, co-workers, etc., who have been so kind and supportive.

Two Weeks till Disney!

Ahhh, a blessed thing called "tapering" has hit.  Means I run less and less in these upcoming couple of weeks, leading up to the half marathon on the 8th.  Of course, honestly, since I switched from training for the full to the half, it's pretty much all felt like tapering. 

Some highlights from the past few weeks:

Did 8 miles two weekends ago - well, I think I was supposed to do 8.  I made something like 6.5.  It was about 23 degrees and snowing, and the wind was coming straight out of the west and blowing this crazy snow all over me.  Pictures!  I look pretty unhappy here, don't I? :)

On Friday night that next week, I ran from work to the tae kwon do school in a nearby town, where Abby was testing for a new belt that night.  So, I was in a hurry - got a late start from work, stopped to take pictures of these guys below, etc.  To my great chagrin, and Greg's total lack of surprise, the bike path that makes that run typically very easy was not clear.  I slogged several miles through something like 4 inches of snow.  It was totally miserable, like trying to run in ankle-deep water.  I wished for snowshoes that night.

These three guys were grazing near Wright State University, just feet from Col. Glenn Highway



Last weekend was 12 miles.  Did the whole thing!  No wussing out!  It was, no lie, 14 degrees...  but no wind, thankfully. And no pictures, either.  I stayed surprisingly warm.

Today was easy - yay!  Only 6 miles.  It was 30 degrees, supposedly, but man was that wind wicked!  I will be SOOOOO glad to get to Florida.  Just hoping it's not 80 degrees and humid down there - ha!  That'll be a rather big change after all this cold running, won't it? 

Actually, this winter running has been pretty beautiful, for the most part.  I'm doing a fair amount of treadmill, too, on nights where I just don't want to get out in the cold, but the weekend and daylight runs are really pretty.  Once I get past the big roads and mall traffic on one of my routes, there is a very nice, peaceful and quiet stretch on my way home:

Merry Christmas, everyone!  And a wonderful New Year to you!  God Bless,

Joy

Um.... Still Running :)

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?  No excuses, just life...  Of course, considering it's probably mostly my Mom and Dad that read my blog and they know where I've been, I'm pretty sure that nobody's thinking I've dropped off the face of the running planet or anything ;).


But seriously...  how's the running going, you might ask?  Actually, there have been some setbacks and disappointments lately, but I am STILL definitely doing Disney.  The setback part is, for some physical reasons, I had to drop down to the 1/2 marathon.  I've known this for several weeks, and I think that's probably part of the reason why I haven't posted in a while.  While I realize that it's still an accomplishment, and I am still raising the funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I felt like I was almost letting down my friends and family who have donated for my fundraising.  Crazy...  but that's me :)


The running was going great through October and into early November.  I ran very consistently in early October on our trip down to Florida.  Some beautiful runs down there - I did 5 miles one days along St. Augustine Beach; another day, I got lost on a Sunday morning on my long run near my in-law's house, and luckily found my way back home just around the proper 8-mile mark in plenty of time to go to church!  Ha!  I got back to chilly weather in Dayton, did 10, did 12, did 14...  Then, though, some things came up and I realized, as my darling husband says, that "wisdom is the better part of valor".  I realized I would be wise to drop down to the half marathon and be satisfied with that.  So, I'm basically just maintaining my miles now.  I'm doing several medium-length runs during the week, and then longer ones on the weekend - 8 last weekend, 10 this weekend, 12 coming up.  Thankfully, my back is holding up very well, and the long runs are all feeling very good.  I've slowed down somewhat (I think I did my 14-miler in early November averaging about 9:20's, but now I'm more in the 9:45-10:00 range on my runs), but I was never in this for the speed.  I am a waddler, not a sprinter :)

Abby and Greg and I are really looking forward to going down to Disney in January.  It'll be a nice 4-day weekend, a cool break from the Ohio scene right after Christmas.


As I was running up a hill near work the other day, I was trying to focus again on the reasons for my running this race, the biggie of which is the fund raising for the L&L society.  I suddenly started having a flood of memories come back to me of that time six and seven years ago, when Abby was in the midst of her chemo. I would spend every night after she went to bed on the internet message boards, "chatting" with long distance friends, none of whom I have ever met, who were mostly moms and dads of kids with leukemia.  We'd compare notes every night, talk about treatments and symptoms, commiserate.  Their kids' names started running through my mind like a roster - Kendrie, Maddie, Austin...  I remember the heartbreak every parent on those message boards would experience when we would get bad news of a relapse or worse.  And once again, I realized that even the $2500 I am raising can help.  You just never know which dollar will make the difference for somebody's life.


I am mostly thankful in this season.  You'd think of all people, I'd remember the most to be thankful.  But I get crazy and busy and distracted like everybody else, and I forget how much I have to be grateful for.  I am so thankful that my sister is well, and that Abby has survived, and survived with such great gusto.  I can't wait to see what she is like at 12, and 22, and 37, and thank goodness, I get to do just that :).  I want other Moms and Dads to have that same ability, so chalk that up to another reason I run.

Eye of the Tiger, Baby!

Training has been slogging along.  Nothing great, but nothing horrible, either.  Until today, I guess.  It wasn't completely wretched, but I had to do 6 miles today (the longest so far), and it was a real battle.  The little voice inside my head was very whiny - "it's too hot...  why is it so hilly here?...  my feet hurt...  boy, that wind is bad!"  But, one good thing about an out-and-back run is, once you run 3 miles out, you are kind of forced to turn around and come back!  Actually, today, it was a good thing I didn't have my cell phone with me when I was running.  Because by the time I got to about 4.5, I probably would have called for a rescue ride if I had the phone :)


Now, on to my funny story.  A little background first: Abby swims with the Dayton Raiders swim team, and almost all of her training swims are out of the Wright State University swimming pool.  Since all of her practices are either 60 or 90 minutes long, this is a very good chance for me to get a run in.  So, Friday night I had to do 3 miles.  This weekend was also Air Force Marathon weekend here around Wright Patt Air Force Base, so there were tons of people at the University's Nutter Center on Friday night for a 5K to kick the weekend off.  My running course usually takes me around the campus, down by the Nutter Center, up a big hill on the back side of campus (where the president of the University lives), and back to the swimming pool.  On Friday night, though, I noticed they had a bunch of the campus set up with cones and signs, because the 5K was going to come right through there, so I ran down the other way to avoid all of the thousands of people and cars by the Nutter Center.


As I was running out, I asked volunteers at several of the intersections, if the 5K had come through yet, because I didn't want to get caught in the middle of the race, going the wrong way!  They assured me that the race hadn't started yet, so I ran out toward Fairborn, and then back.  Again, back the other direction toward the pool, I asked volunteers if the race had come through while I was out in Fairborn, and the answer was still "no". 


So, here I am, struggling all by myself on the same course that the race will take, up the hill on the back side of campus, when I come upon the driveway to the president's house, and there is the WSU pep band!  They thought that I was leading the race, because they all started cheering for me!!  I immediately ripped my head phones off and told them, "Thanks, but I'm not in the race!"  They all laughed (and I was dying laughing inside, because if you have ever seen me run, you would definitely know that there is no way I would be leading a 5K!)  Then, the pep band leader turned around to his music stand, raised his baton, and yelled to his band:  "Eye of the Tiger!  Hit it!"  At which point, the WSU Pep Band "Eye of the Tiger'd" me up the hill...  I smiled as I passed them and thanked them graciously, I ran like a rock star all the way up the hill, walked after I got out of their sight, and I giggled all the way back to the pool.

Why Disney?

Why am I doing a marathon at Disney, you might ask?  Or I might ask myself, actually...  I have not heard great things about Disney, honestly.  You have to get up at 2 am; they truck you out to the middle of nowhere, where they drop you off and you stand around for hours waiting for the race to start; the start is very slow and crowded (not that that matters to a plodder like me); last year, it was about 20 degrees at the start, I heard; in 2007, I heard they were actually running out of water at the water stops around mile 19 and 20 (um, hello... it's Florida.  Please give us something to drink!). 


But, even with all of that, I just want to run Disney.  I want to run through Cinderella's castle.  I want to experience the crowds, running around the parks.  Plus, Disney holds a very special place in my family's hearts, and here is why:

See, we visited Disney with Abby almost five years ago exactly.  When Abby was diagnosed with ALL, she was granted a "Wish" through the very wonderful Special Wish Foundation.  Since Abby was only 2 when she went through the worst parts of her chemo, she was not really old enough to make a "wish", and we definitely wanted to wait until she was older and either done with treatment, or mostly done, to do something.  However, we had to pick what her wish would be early, so we wished for her to take a trip to Disney World.


When she was 4 1/2, she was done with all of her chemo, and she had surgery to have her port removed from her chest.  Perfect time for a trip to celebrate!  We were treated to the trip to Disney World, including a limo ride to and from the airport and tons of special treatment all along the way.  We got to stay, completely at no charge, at another very special place, Give Kids the World Village.  My parents paid for themselves to come with us, and visit all of the parks with us.  We had an awesome week in October of 2005, with Abby healthy and surrounded by those she loves, having fun and eating as much free ice cream as she wanted every day, and meeting those beautiful Disney princesses! 

And that pink badge she is wearing in the pictures above?  It was a badge that identified her to the Disney cast members as a kid on her "wish trip".  It was a little disconcerting to be given so much special treatment, knowing that Abby was doing well and her prognosis was excellent; but this button meant Abby was bumped to the front of every line, and treated like a princess herself, and for a week I allowed us all to be pampered a little bit, figuring in the grand scheme of things, we deserved a bit of a break as a family after going through treatment.  Watching the final fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom on our last night there, with Tinkerbell flying over our heads while "When You Wish Upon A Star" played, seeing Abby up on her Daddy's shoulder's gazing at the fireworks and light... well, Disney truly is a magical place for kids and parents alike, even cynical old Moms like me :). 

It was hard for me to remember that it's been 5 years since we got to accompany Abby on her Wish Trip.  I was looking for Disney pictures in Picasa today, and kept wondering why I couldn't find the pictures in the 2007 folder!  Wow, 2005...  5 years ago.  In May we celebrated Abby having her five-year-off-chemo anniversary!  To leukemia survivors, this 5 year mark is a certifiable Big Deal.  Although the docs will not usually say the words, you are CURED.  Hallelujah...

So, if you are Mr. Money Bags just happening to stumble across this lowly little blog, or Bill & Melinda Gates looking to unload a cool few million or so, once you make a weetle donation to my fund-raising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ;-) here:  http://pages.teamintraining.org/soh/wdw11/jfasnacht, don't forget our good friends at A Special Wish and Give Kids The World Village.  God Bless...

Blowin' the Stank Off

So I skipped my run on Monday and my supposed cross-training yesterday; just too much going on, and too tired.  It's interesting to me that, after only being back in the habit of running for a few weeks, I already am starting to look forward to it.  It was late tonight after I got home from a long day at work, Abby's tae kwon do, dinner out with friends, getting the house semi-straightened up for tomorrow (our home-school coordinators are dropping in!  Don't want dirty socks on the couch...), and the 45-minute long process that is "tucking Abby in".  But I headed out for a few miles anyway; as I was leaving, I told Greg I was going out to run so I could "blow the stink off of me".  He smirked and said "good luck with that."  LOL

Speaking of smells...  it's funny to run through our neighborhood and the one next to ours and smell the various things.  Most houses have no smell at all.  But I ran past one that smelled very distinctly of garlic.  Must have been spaghetti night at their house! Another one smelled of dryer sheets.  Another one smelled like the cigarette smoke of the guy sitting on his front porch, smoking (and coughing.  And scaring me half to death :))  According to a friend of ours in the neighboorhood, if you sit on your back porch frequently enough in the summer, you will definitely smell the scent of some random neighbors smoking something else, if you know what I mean!

Luckily, one thing that I did NOT smell tonight was skunk.  I saw one about 1/4 mile from home again, in another front yard, sniffing around in the grass.  What do skunks eat, anyway?  And why do I keep seeing them in people's front yards, grazing around like little cows?

My Top 5 Running in the Dark Fears

1. Attacked by dogs
2. Sprayed by skunks
3. Lost
4. Running by dark spooky woods
5. Assailed by crazy odd-balls

I have phobias about running in the dark (see list above).  I run with cell phone in hand, fingers poised to hit 9-1-1.  I run as quickly as I can out of my nice, safe (dark) neighborhood, into more populated, well-lit areas (like N. Fairfield at 6 am... who knew there was so much traffic so early?)

By the time I got home this morning at 5:58, I had been barked at by a pair of yappies down the street, luckily who seemed contained by an invisible fence, but who I'm sure if the power was out would have chased me halfway to N. Germany-Trebein.  I had gotten turned around by the Hindu temple, unable to find the pedestrian cross-over from the "nice" new neighborhood bordering ours.  I had come across a skunk ambling through a neighbor's front yard, about 10 feet from the spot I was running on the road.  I had been startled by at least 4 other people walking and puffing through the neighborhood (really?  5:30?  You too?  OK, maybe they had the same thoughts about me...  I'm sure I look pretty skeevy without my makeup, my hair in shreds.)  And the streets where I live are just filled with dark, spooky patches of woods I have to run by to get to those nice, lighted areas.

It's OK, though.  I made it just fine, singing nice songs from church to myself the whole way to pep myself up.   Maybe next week I'll take a MagLite with me, though.  I think I could swing it pretty well at numbers 1 & 5 above :). 

FUNDRAISING UPDATE:  Wow, now that is a cool number.  I am up to 27% of my fundraising goal!!  Thank you, thank you, donors!  As I run this week, I'm going to be keeping my cousin's son, Alex, close to my heart.  He is around Abby's age; earlier this year he was diagnosed with medullablastoma, brain cancer.  He has had surgery and radiation, and starts his chemo this week.  Saturday's run is for you, Alex!!  We are praying for you!