WDW Marathon Day Two

4:11 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

Sooo... have you ever started out a day at 3:30 in the morning?


Well, have you ever started out a day at 3:30 in the morning when, with the local time change it really felt like 12:30 in the morning?

Well have you ever started out a day at 3:30 in the morning when, with the local time change it really felt like 12:30 in the morning on a day when you were going to run 26.2 freaking miles?

Didn't think so...

I could have kept going with that, but decided to stop there...

I've already explained how butt-numbingly cold it was that morning - literally when I stepped outside it was 17 degrees and windy - and that's not entirely what you want when you're running a marathon... in Florida...


(Sidenote: I knew it was going to be cold - I'm not a moron and checked the weather.com like the good Eagle Scout that I am - but the forecast called for temps in the low 40's... NOT THIS COLD!)

Now, there are two parts to cold running: the physical and the mental. The physical was cold - very cold - colder than I EVER REMEMBER BEING IN MY LIFE... But the mental was also cold. Allow me to explain...

See, after getting on the bus at 4:00 am, dropping off my return bag at baggage check, and then walking the mile or so to the start line, it was 45 minutes until the start of the race, which was officially 5:30 am... This was enough time to not only freeze my buns off, but also THINK about freezing my buns off - I always say the toughest part about running a marathon, other than the running part, is the anticipation of running - it can kill you...

So me and 30,000 of my closest friends whom I'd never met before huddled around each other in what would liberally be described as innapropriately-close relative proximity had we been in any other situation. As it was, no one though twice about it...

Now as I mentioned I am ready for a cold, not THIS cold, but A cold, wearing a shirt-sleeved technical shirt underneath a long-sleeved technical shirt underneath a fleece top, and running shorts underneath wind pants... Oh, and gloves... Not enough by half...

This it out of order, but here's a picture of me at around mile 15 - you can tell how cold it is from the fact that my sweat has FROZEN ON THE OUTSIDE OF MY FLEECE! Seriously? Seriously...


At any rate, the race got under way and off we went - normally in the cold, after a few miles you warm up and start to not really feel THAT cold... not so here... we started off and I felt like with each step my joints were going to break in half... kinda like near the end of Terminator 2 when the T-1000 gets frozen with liquid nitrogen and then breaks his leg off in pursuit of the Governator, Sarah and John...

And mind you, all this is happening at 5:30 am, in the pitch black...
in fact, the first two hours were practically in the pitch black - for me, that was more than half the whole race I ran in the sub-20 degree weather in the pitch freaking black... again, I was physically cold, but that darkness made it all the more mentally cold...

Anyway, after about two miles I am completely numb to the cold - I started out VERY slow (aroud 10:30 miles) in order to try to warm up before I pulled something... by mile four I started to feel like I could push it a little, and really revved up the speed... I was going really good there for a while, and when I looked at my watch I noticed I was going...

10:15? Ugh... it was going to be a long day...

From there I gradually got faster as my joints did their best French impression and gave up the fight, and I pushed on... I knew I wasn't going to hit my 3:40 mark that I wanted, but anything under 4:00 today would be just fine for me...

The sun finally came up around mile 14 or so, and it FINALLY shed some warmth on us - we went from the 17 degrees we were feeling to a toasty low 30's... At that point I ran a bit more and got nice and warm, then shed my pants at around mile 16, while I was taking my midway break, stretching, getting more fluid than normal, and eating one raspberry and one strawberry GU packet...

(Sidenote: mile 16 for me is key... that's the make-or-break- stop. Up to this point I had been hydrating like I should and eating my GU like I should, but I only carry Espresso flavored GU because of the caffeine (no, there's no coffee in it) and it tastes like it came out of the water underneath the Big Mountain Express... nasty, but effective...)

So at mile 16 I rewarded myself and spurred myself onward with fruit flavors and a little stretch break... And it worked cause I kept going, sans pants...

It was at this point that I noticed my right heel had become something of a problem... In the cold, I had not felt it open up and spew blood like Old Faithful, but this pic that I snapped after the whole thing speak to two things:

1. I was more numb than I thought, cause I didn't feel a thing
2. Nikes wick great

Now would probably be a good time to explain the marathon route - see, they tout is a run through the parks, and indeed you run through all four Disney parks, including the golf course, some cool hotels, around the lake, etc - but the majority of the run, just like any other marathon, happens on lonely highways, where no one can cheer you on... Maybe a mile in each park, and that's about it...

At any rate, we enter the final park, Epcot, with a little more than a mile to go... by this time, the parks have opened for the day and we are running through roped-off sections of the international part of the park - which is actually pretty cool because there were all kinds of people there to cheer us on - who had probably never seen a marathon before...

We get to mile 26, only 0.2 to go and what happens?? The course takes a right onto a backlot, where there is no one there, and then empties to the finish line for the last .05 miles...

Now, running in quiet for .15 miles may not seem like a lot, and comparatively I suppose it isn't, but after 20 miles, every tenth of a mile feels like you're running across the Grand Canyon, in quicksand, in Ugg boots, against the current... so to have the last .15 miles where no one can see you is disheartening - a lot of people started walking at this point because they just didn't have anything left, and since there was no crowd to feed off of or to make you swallow your pride, it's easy to give in... I didn't, but I can see how someone would...

At any rate, much to my surprise I crossed the finish line just
over 3:50, which I was more than happy with after that day... I got my medal, got my bag, went straight to the bus, hobbled to my hotel room, hobbled into a cold bath, hobbled up for a cold shower, hobbled down to the cafeteria and MUNCHED on my post-run reward...

MMMMMMMMM... Calories!

And the only thought going through my head was: man, there's only one problem with running the country's top ten marathons: you ACTUALLY HAVE TO RUN TEN MARATHONS...

Ugh, but now I have the Marine Corps, San Diego and WDW out of the way... just seven more!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

1 comments

WDW Marathon Day One

12:29 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

It's been five weeks since my last posting? Really? REALLY?

Sheesh... I'm surprised I haven't been stormed and forced to blog at gunpoint... Oh wait, that's right - no one really reads this thing anyway... Except for you Andy junkies... You know who you are...

So let's see - I ran my marathon, which was awesome... So let's say I give you a rundown about that, for all you crazies out there...

WDW Marathon Weekend: Day One, Saturday Jan. 9, 2010

First off, when you book a race for January, you make sure to do it in a warm weather spot - the Carribean, Southern California, Death Valley maybe - and certainly central Florida, while not South Beach, should be a nice spot to run when the rest of the country is dealing with snow and ice...

Unless of course I AM THE ONE booking the race... Then it's guaranteed to be the coldest winter in Florida in decades, and guess what?! IT WAS! Lucky me! Just to give you a feel for what it SHOULD be like this time of year:


Ignore the rain forecast and you can see lows in the mid-50's and highs in the mid-70's, on average...That was not the forecast on Marathon weekend - instead, this is what I got:

Yeah, you read that right - RECORD LOWS IN THE TEENS!

Ugh...But I digress... Let me take you into a magical world of freezing rain, cloudy skies, and empty parks...

I got to my hotel, the Disney All-Star Sports Resort late late late Friday night after flying much of the evening, but at least I got this little surprise on my 4-hour flight from Dallas:

Yup... empty middle seat baby! The weekend is starting off RIGHT!

Then I got to the hotel where this little surprise was waiting for me...


Cute right? Well, that was about the only cute thing about the hotel... don't get me wrong, it was fine for what it was, but lacking in what you would expect a Disney hotel to be... Which leads me to this:


That's a picture of how I had to cook my food that first night. You see, carbo-loading for a marathon isn't a night-before situation - it takes many days of building cards, and so to save money I bought the little do-it-in-the-microwave pasta dishes and decided I would eat those instead of spending boucous Disney bucks on whatever they had there... Well, there was no microwave in the room... There was no microwave in the lobby... There. Was. No. Microwave.

So I had to improvise. In what can only be described as a genius mashup (GLEE word) of Man vs. Wild with McGuyver, I fashioned a way to make my pasta... I filled the little container with the pasta and as hot water as I could get from the tap, then covered the container with a towel and then placed the iron on top, on the hottest steam setting, allowing the water to hear even more... All the while I had the sauce, in it's little packet, sitting under the tap as the hottest water ran over it, heating the sauce...I did this twice, to two containers of pasta, and let me tell you one thing that I learned: When booking a hotel, make sure there's a microwave accessible, otherwise your pasta is going to be pretty gross and raw...

Anyway, by the time I got to bed that night, I only had a few hours to sleep before I had to get up to do as many of the parks as I could -

When I got out of my room I could finally see what the hotel looked like - pretty cool, I must say... And then it was ON TO THE PARKS!

I started at MGM Studios because it's got awesome rides, and Disney actually does this really cool thing where if you are staying at one of their resort hotels, they open at least one park an hour early for you to enjoy before all the others - on Saturdays it's MGM, so I made sure that was first -

My strategy was to rush into the park (The gates opened for us guests at 8:00, I was there at 7:58) get to the rides I had previously-mapped out as quickly as I could, then move on to the next park...

Well, little did I know that because of the RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES and freezing rain, that I would practically have the park to myself! HECK YEAH BOOSH!

I power-walked from the gate to Aerosmith, a completely indoors roller coaster, was the first one on (along with ten of my closest friends) and then WALKED ON AGAIN RIGHT AFTER! No line whatsoever - it was amazing!

From there it was a close walk to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and again walked right on without a line! This was great! Especially since in all my many times visiting DW I've never been able to ride the Tower because of this or that reason - but not only did I ride it, I RODE IT TWICE, and it's a LOT of fun!

I was making great time, and was happy as I hot-footed it straight to Toy Story Mania, where you sit in a car and shoot virtual 3-D objects at fair-type attractions - it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I did it, so now I can skip it the next time...

Then I made the long trek all the way across the park to a boyhood favorite - STAR TOURS! It wasn't as great as I remembered, but a goodie nonetheless, and with no line, how can you complain?? That completed my Hollywood Studios adventure, and I was off to the Magic Kingdom!

The second longest wait I had all day was for the transport to the MK from Hollywood - the half marathon was just ending at this point and Disney was using a lot of the busses, quite rightly, as courtesy transport to and from the hotels from the half marathon finish, which was at Epcot (which is why I decided to stay away from there and do that park last)... Anyway, I had to wait for about 20 minutes for a bus, but that's okay...

I got to the MK and I was expecting a much larger crowd because by this time all the parks had opened to everyone in the general public - I was wrong...

The Magic Kingdom was just as deserted as Hollywood was! I was SO STOKED! I headed straight for Tomorrowland to get in line for the greatest Disney ride of them all - the Grandaddy known as SPACE MOUNTAIN! But wait... no line? Go through twice without waiting? For a rollercoaster that's completely inside and totally in the dark? DON'T MIND IF I DO!

It was amazing - I'm really not sure there's a greater feeling in the WORLD than walking into a rollercoaster, and then doing it again!

After Space Mountain I was incredibly giddy, and I headed straight for the Buzz Lightyear ride, where you shoot lazers at stuff and rack up points... it's all under black lights with really cool colors, and it was another one that I can cross off the list and not go back to again...

From Tomorrowland I took the Northern route through Toon Town, Ariel's Gratto and It's a Small World, Dumbo's Elephant Ride and Peter Pan's Magic Flight, and no I didn't feel the need to do anything other than walk past these things at a pretty brisk pace...

I got to my destination: Liberty Square, where I poked my head into the Hall of Presidents, and then walked onto the Haunted Mansion - which was a nice respite after walking clear across the park in the freezing rain... it's a really great resting ride, with some old-school "scary" surprises that'll make you smile and remember the haunted fun house at the State Fair... or maybe that's just me...

From there, it was on to Frontierland, where after riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (literally the only outdoor ride I did all day) I hoped over to Splash Mountain:

Really? 30 degrees, freezing rain, AND Splash Mountain is closed... Sheesh...

Well there was really only one thing left to do before I made my way to Epcot:

That's right, Yo Ho Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me...

I tried tried tried to get pictures inside the ride, but it was so dark that none of them came out... Oh well... it was great - This isn't a thrill ride, and it's not really that exciting, but floating down that indoor river watching animatronic pirates hoist rum, single-shot black powder pistols, and wenches... well, it just makes me happy...

From there I took a quick trip down Main Street USA and out the front door, on my way to the final park of the day, Epcot!

When I walked into the gates, I immediately noticed that there were far more people here than at the other parks - no biggie - this was my last park of the day and I could stand to wait in a line or two at this point...

After a quick stop to say hi to my good friend Figment (of your imagination...) I stopped into what I knew was going to be the longest line of the day, and for good reason:

Soarin' is an AMAZING ride that takes you IMAX-style through the whole country and back again - I cannot describe to anyone still reading this (why, btw, are you still reading this??) how cool this ride was, and how worth it the 30-minute wait was. If on a day like this I had to wait 30 minutes for a shot at this ride, I cannot imagine how long the line must be on regular days...

After that I knew it was going to be downhill, so I'm glad I saved it for next-to-last - by this time I had been in the parks for about five hours, basically speed-walking non-stop in the rain and riding transport between parks - my dogs were barkin' and I thought I'd better put them to sleep because, let's face it, I had 26.2 miles to run the next day...

So I speeded on to my last two rides of the day: Mission Space and Test Track (where I saw a glimpse of what my future kids might look like:

Neither was really that great (probably because they were at the end of a long day that had
experienced amazing highs) but there were no lines for either of them, so what can you do??

As I had no interest in taking in the villages of Epcot, I exited and headed to the Sports Complex where I was going to pick up my race packet for the following day, and seriously, a race expo is SO FUN... if you're into running and gear and being a nerd about it, which I am...

After I picked up my race number, it was back to the hotel where I splurged on two plates of restaurant pasta, breadsticks and powerade and then headed back up to my room.

One-half of the Dallas Cowboys football game later and my light was out and I was asleep...

Friday, January 29, 2009

3 comments

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed...

9:44 AM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

A photo essay of Christmas Eve and Day - hope yours was as great as
mine!

1. My geographically representative cookies...

2. My nephew Colin slamdancing to Silent Night during our family
Christmas Eve reading of the Christmas story...

3. My niece Drew giving Chinchilla eyes snuggled in her new turtle
pillow and matching blanket...

4. My sister Brett and her family being videoconferenced in after
being too lazy to make the trip...

5. Can you guess what Andy got for Christmas?!

5 comments

12 Days of Christmas - Face Edition! (8)

1:31 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

Lately I've been fascinated by slow-motion things, and I've determined to make a really cool slow motion video sometime in the near future (any ideas people??)

Aside from that, I really have nothing clever to say, but here's a cool video of Christmas-type things getting thrown at people's faces...

Enjoy!


Boxer Christmas Card '08 from Boxer Design on Vimeo.

Friday, December 18, 2009

0 comments

12 Days of Christmas - Nerd Edition! (9)

1:29 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

I guess this 9th Day of Christmas video is for all the nerds out there...

(sidenote: did you know that Dr. Seuess was the first person to ever use the word 'nerd?' Yup, he used it in a 1951 book called "If I Ran The Zoo" as a type of made-up animal... it then became synonymous with "drip" and "square." Also, in the 1980 space opera commonly referred to as "The Empire Striked Back," Leia was supposed to call Han a 'Nerd herder' as an homage to Geisel - who George Lucas credits as creating an accepted atmosphere of make-believe that allowed him and people like him (read: nerds) to develop into the sci-fi geeks we all know and love - but she flubbed the line, called him a 'Nerf herder' instead, and because the production was so far behind schedule at that point (this was one of the last scenes to be shot) GL decided to not re-do the scene with the intended dialogue, and the rest is movie history...)



Enjoy, for in the not-too-distant future we'll be slaves to these dudes' progeny, and be forced to do manual labor and provide them with energy as we lay in vast fields of human batteries...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

0 comments

12 Days of Christmas - Glee Edition! (10)

12:40 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

So I've decided that since I've already kind of started, for the next ten days (for all you math and holiday majors out there, that's until Christmas...) I'm going to post a cool, funny or weird Christmas video...


I probably should have started this on Monday, being the 12th day before Christmas and all, but you're going to have to do with yesterday being the unofficial start and today being the official start...

(Sidenote: how many of you actually know that the 12 Days of Christmas - or Christmastide - actually refers to the 12 days starting with Christmas and ending with the Eve of Epiphany, the night before the Feast of Epiphany on January 6 that celebrates the Magi reaching the 8 lbs, 6 oz newborn baby Jesus... interesting, no? No? Just me huh...)

So what better way to officially start then with this number in honor of Glee, the void that it's left, and the adequate job that Sing-Off is doing to try to fill said void:

Make sure you listen all the way through...


But seriously... doesn't Toto totally take you back?

(Bonus sidenote: this song also reminds me to give a HUGE shout-out to my really good friends Kim and Jeremy, who are doing the Lord's work in developing and building school programs in Addis Ababa, Egypt and who'll be spending their Christmas there this year... Every year when I go home for Christmas - for the past five years now that I've lived away from South Carolina - and if the level of excitement to see my family is a 100 (it's not, but let's say it is) then my excitement to see my friends Kim and Genevieve is about a 98 - we only see each other during Christmas, and it's a great little tradition that we have going... and then when Kim and Jeremy got married it was awesome seeing him too because he's awesome... they'll be missed this year...)

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

1 comments

Scary Ghost Stories - Now for Christmas!

12:52 PM Posted by Andy (Fields, to avoid confusion)

So, I have nothing against Christmas music, just because they play it EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME - it actually puts me in a festive mood and I'm thankful for that...

But there are a few things I don't get... there's a song - "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - that song is atrocious, obnoxious and every other "...ous" that you can come up with (except the good ones, like precious... or goodous or whatever...) And I'm not just talking everything that came after Andy Williams version - any version, even the original. It's not the version, it's just a badly written song... It's just a list of stuff randomly put together - of Christmas-y type things - and then there's this gem of a line... (fast forward to 0:55 second mark):


I also don't get "tales of past glories..." Like, "Hey, remember that time we had to defend the North Pole from the Mongols?" or "Remember when we won WWII? My unit was all but wiped out when we took Iwo Jima... Yeah, I thought Christmas would be a good time to talk about it..."

But seriously, what kind of twisted Christmas tradition is scary ghost stories? Unless you're referring specifically to "A Christmas Carol" - and I feel like the songwriters were like "Oh, we don't want any trouble with the Dickens people, so maybe it's best that we don't name the book outright, we'll just refer to it tangent-ically..."

And not only that, but how many other scary ghost stories Christmas stories are out there? Maybe they're just talking about the Muppets version... The Donald Duck version... The Jim Carey version?? - The problem is I'm pretty sure the song predates all of those... I could be wrong...

(Sidenote: I saw the Jim Carey version of A Christmas Carol and I only have one question: why did they feel the need to rip off Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with a slight gender bend?)

This is something else that really baffles me about Christmas music: Barbara Streisand has a Christmas album - now, I'm not mad at Babs, but is it just me or are more than half of her movies, and where she derived a good bit of her international fame, based on her being Jewish? Check out the track listing for her Christmas album (titled, BTW, rather cryptically, "A Christmas Album")



Jingle Bells
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
The Christmas Song
White Christmas
My Favorite Things
The Best Gift
Silent Night
Ave Maria
O Little Town of Bethlehem
I Wonder As I Wander
The Lord's Prayer

Now, again, I recognize that you don't have to believe in Christmas to want to make money, or, even on a more Polyannish plane, to appreciate and want to recreate and spin the music, but come on - couldn't Babs have thrown in a "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" or a "I Have a Little Candle" or a "Oh Hanukkah" or even "The Hanukkah Song" (or, more recently, this little number by one Orrin Hatch, that caused this little number by Max Weinberg and the Tonight Show crew...)

Anyway, just something to think about...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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