There's A Thin Line Between Dopey and Just Plain Dumb

And today I think I crossed over the line.  Let me explain ...

Last year Run Disney came out with a great moneymaking race idea. They already had "The Goofy Challenge" in place, where you do the half-marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday.  But somebody thought, "Let's make it even better!!  Let's create "The Dopey Challenge" where you do a 5K on Thursday (3.1 miles), a 10K on Friday (6.2 miles), a half-marathon on Saturday (13.1 miles), and a full marathon on Sunday (26.2 miles).  And when Molly and I found out about it, we got a second mortgage on the house and entered it.  Because you would get six medals - one for each race and one for doing the Goofy Challenge and one for doing the Dopey Challenge.  And besides, we were REALLY going to train for it.

Well, of course we didn't train for the marathon (like we've really trained for anything) and lo and behold Disney's Marathon Weekend was suddenly upon us.  We did the first three races and then headed out this morning at 3:30am for the full marathon start at 5:30am. 

We knew we needed to get in an earlier corral for an earlier start in order to avoid getting caught by the balloon ladies (two mean ladies who are the last to cross the start line and walk the required pace and then when/if they pass you, you are in danger of being swept off the course in a big bus and taken to the finish).  We did not want to get swept - we wanted all the medals.  We tried to figure out a way to corral hop, but Disney volunteers were manning the entrances to all the corrals.  At least until the corrals started heading towards the start line.  We saw our chance and hopped over (well as well as an overweight 56-year-old woman can hop over) the mesh fence to our Corral N and beelined across the median to Corral J and slipped into the crowd.  This little bit of cheating served us well, as the mean balloon ladies did not pass us until Mile 25.8, leaving no chance of us getting swept.  We finished and received all our medals!!  We needn't discuss the physical ramifications of lack of training, or our finish times - we just need to revel in the bling-ness of the medals.

This race is for Sam.  Back in the day when I did my first marathon (yes, I decided to start with marathons - I have never been too good with the smarts), he drove with me to Ohio (I wanted to do my first one which was The Air Force Marathon because it was far away from Nashville and had a looong finish time allowance) and took pictures during the race and had dinner with family when I had an early bedtime.  He was my supporter for that first marathon, and later we did a Disney Marathon (the one I talked about yesterday) and the Country Music Marathon in Nashville together.  Yes, he finished days before I did, but technically we did the same race.  Anyhow, since this is my 13th marathon (AND MY LAST!!!), this one is for Sam.  And if he ever decided to do another one himself, I will be there - cheering on the sidelines!!

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Today was a great day because:  we jumped corrals and finished the marathon; Steve doing all kinds of errands to make us comfortable after the race; doing the last five miles with Molly