My First (half) Marathon

To be quite honest, I do not remember when the brilliant idea of running a marathon got in my head. I started distance running when we moved into a new place with a great gym and I kept on hurting myself with strength-training machines. Eventually I was capable to do 4-6 miles in an hour, depending on what was on TV. In the all-too-frequent lack of judgment, I figured that if I could run 6 miles I could probably do 13. Whats the worst thing that could happen?

Marathon History: Despite being outnumbered 4-1, Greeks defeated Persian Empire in a battle at Marathon (circa 490 BC). Phidippides, Greek runner, ran 26 miles back to Athens to announce the victory and warn the city that Persians will try to attack Athens by sea. He got to Athens in roughly 3 hours, delivered the message and dropped dead from exhaustion. Today, thousands of runners try to do the very same thing as a hobby. Brilliant!

Walt Disney World has a half marathon that starts, literally, less than a mile from my place. I figured that if I was about to commit a virtual suicide, it might as well be at the “happiest place on earth”

The Start

Rules of the half-marathon are quite simple: Run 13.1 miles and run every mile in under 16 minutes. If you run slower than 16 minute/mile pace, you get picked up and transported to the finish line. My initial strategy was simple: outrun the ambulance. (My friend Judy calls me fickle, try to figure out why)

Strategy 1: Outrun the ambulance.

I got to Epcot around 4:50 AM and started walking towards the start line. I was quite bored so I started playing a little game in my head: I counted the number of people that are fatter than me. I walked through a crowd of several thousand people before I got into double digits. Ouch.

About half a mile later, the crowd for marathon and half-marathon was starting to separate and my group was probably 90% female. Excellent! This is when I formulated my second strategy:

Strategy 2: Find a hot chick and run behind her.

I continued to walk towards my corral which is how the runners are sorted. Placing in the start crowd depended on the anticipated finish time – Since I anticipated to barely outrun the ambulance, I was placed way back in the back of the bus. Way, way back. I was so far back I didn’t even have a dream. By the time I finally reached my coral I was closer to home than to the start line!

Disney started playing their usual mind-numbing music and eventually got to the national anthem. They blew out the fireworks, announced the start and nothing happened. I stood with the crowd for a few minutes and after nothing happened I just sat back down on the asphalt and figured that I’ll run as soon as the troop of hot chicks behind me started running. It took a while.

The Race

I eventually got up and started walking and jogging. I was runner 23,984 of 25,000 which meant that I had to go through a lot of people. I went back to my primary strategy but modified it slightly:

Strategy 3: Run around the fat, old and unmotivated.

I figured that if I ran through a few thousand people at the finish, the odds of me getting picked up by the cripple-bus would dramatically decrease. Nobody in my crowd seemed to want to run, so I got on the road shoulder and started to jog bouncing in and out of the crowd as I saw an opening that I could run through. It was impossible to go over 6 mph and every time I got a little opening I would have to stop and walk around someone.

The crowd started to thin out in Epcot and I decided to go to the bathroom. I figured I had plenty of time with the # of folks I passed, why not make myself comfortable. Epcot was just beautiful, they turned all the pyro on and the horizon just started to turn pink. It was spectacular. There were a LOT of people cheering us along the way with horns, signs and most appropriately – cow bells. That helped quite a bit because it is very hard to stop and take a breather when people are cheering you along.

Now I’m not really fat (just over 26 BMI) but I was definitely one of the biggest people there. Strangely enough, I was also among the “younger” crowd. As I passed the 4 mile mark, I wanted to implement my 2nd strategy and I tried to find someone really hot to run behind. Interesting thing about skinny people – they don’t share some of my other hobbies such as laziness and competitive eating. I pushed myself quite a bit till I found a group of FSU girls that obviously trained together. I’ll spare you the imagery that I had once I caught up with them, I’ll just say that I figured I could kill the next few hours behind them. Unfortunately, around mile 6 they decided to stand in the line for the potter potties and I lost my inspiration. However, something else got into me (I think it was a combo of PowerAde, snot, sweat, blood, semen, etc) and I just started running a little faster for no apparent reason. This was beyond my normal range and I figured that I might as well push myself for as long as I possibly can and then limp or crawl the rest of the course when I can no longer run.

Strategy 4: Run for as long as I can.

This actually went pretty well. I made it around the Nascar track, I ran through the parking lot, by the dog kennel and ticketing center and I saw the Contemporary hotel. It looked pretty good.

And that’s where you lost DA BALL GAME!

As I crossed the 10th mile I was pretty much on top of the world. I made it by another watering hole and I decided to refill my Gatorade. I got a bananna, more water, and some mysterious PowerGel energy syrup. As I was eating, crowd joined in with the volunteers and started yelling out the flavors of the gel that they were giving away.

Crowd: Strawberry!
Crowd: Bannana!
Crowd: Vanilla
Crowd: Chocolate

Now you wouldn't think a crowd would get into announcing of PowerGel flavors, but never underestimate the boredom of people watching sports without alcohol. Someone made up a flavor and yelled out "EGGS AND BACON" right as I was chewing through my PowerGel pack, eating a bannana and looking at the 2nd floor of Contemporary where I went to an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at Chef Mickeys... eggs, bacon, doughnuts, potatos... yumm.. The fat Vlad came back out and then it hit me -- I just ran over 10 miles in less than 1:45 for no apparent reason. In words of my buddy Los, That’s where I lost da ball game.

The Finish

I slowed down and jogged the rest of the way, taking time to hang out with the characters, look at roses, go to the bathroom, talk to people and even sit down and watch the people run. I figured this was the best time to implement my first strategy and just enjoy the course.

Eventually I left the Magic Kingdom and the road became really boring. We were running along the service road behind MK where Diseny’s landfill is and that’s about the same time the FSU girls caught up with me. I ran with them for another mile or the fat Vlad got back in charge. I jogged the rest of the way finishing the run at around 2:50 personal time and just over three hours official time which included my 17 minute walk to the start line. They use the little ChampionChip device (RFID) which gets scanned when you cross the start and scanned when you cross the finish line and that way they get your actual run time.

The Aftermath

To be honest, this was one of the best experiences ever. Its hard to find a sport that you can train and execute by yourself, much less one in which its almost impossible to fail. Marathon (well, half marathon) stuff is quite exciting because you’re running with others and there are so many people cheering you on. In training, the only thing keeping me from stopping is my hard head. In actual running, there’s free Gatorade, food and plenty of hot chicks.

As a matter of fact, this was such a cool experience I’m doing the full 26.3 mile marathon at Walt Disney World next year. Considering that in two years I went from 240lb to 190lb and was able to comfortably run 13 miles, I like my chances for the full marathon. All I have to do is kill the jerk that yelled out “Eggs and Bacon” and I’ll be fine.