One of my favorite jokes from my college Rockymentary short has a fake description of Rocky IV being shot in Alaska juxtaposed with a quick insert of Matt Buehrle as Sylvester Stallone intoning, “Oh, man… it was cold.”
I kept thinking of that this morning as I waited for the start of the 2017 WDW Marathon. Last night runDisney issued a weather advisory about the arctic wind chill effect that was forecast for the City Beautiful and Central Florida in general. And I gotta say — that wind cut through every layer I had on this AM. The thermometer on my car said 41 degrees but that isn’t remotely what it felt like.
I tossed my TravellingFit beanie into my bag as a last minute “add” and boy am I glad I did. It was, in case the point has been made clear, more than brisk — I was downright cold to my core. I was mighty tempted to take the “shortcut” from the start to the finish — it would’ve been A LOT shorter than 26.2 miles!
But I’m no Rosie Ruiz! I marched the mile or so from the staging area to the start line like a good runner should and waited the 55 minutes for the start to happen.
I have to admit, I grew… impatient… for the fireworks, like Milhouse on The Simpsons in that Poochy episode revolving around Itchy and Scratchy’s late season cast member addition.
But the fireworks ultimately went off… and we were off and running.
Rather than go mile by mile, here’s just a smattering of the character photos on my camera. I’ll post some of the Official Photos later on but it’s been a long day and I’m looking forward to curling up around a down comforter and warming up. So the short, short version wherein each picture is worth at least a couple of words, though probably not 1000.
And so having clocked a 3:27:42 for the marathon, I grabbed a couple of medal shots with the “gang.”
Before leaving, I also wandered past the TravellingFit tent to say “G’Day!” to Michale. Marimar and their clients were out on the course but it was nice to see Skippy… the last time I’d seen him in Iceland he was looking a little deflated. And sure enough, Michale asked where Mom was… I told him I expressly forbid Mom and Steve from coming out in this weather and waiting for me for several hours. He not only completely understood he said they were the smart ones! And he’s not wrong! Did I mention it was cold?
I’ll post a few more things tomorrow but in the meantime I’ll leave you with this shot of my brother and me outside Gaston’s in the Magic Kingdom. One of us is especially good at expectorating…
