Women Run the World Race Report

This weekend took a great deal of coordination. Darrell's best friend celebrated his birthday on Thursday and Darrell asked me if he could go to North Port for the weekend to see his friend. I reminded him that I had already registered for the 15k. Darrell dropped our son off to spend the weekend with his sister in New Port Richey on Friday afternoon. I dropped our daughter off at my dad's last night.

I don't know why, I was surprised that everything fell into place so easily

Friday my daughter and I headed out to the Expo to pick up my race packet we looked at everything there was, and she had a chance to play Dance Dance Revolution at the New Balance booth (After I signed a liabilty release...) We headed to Downtown Disney and ate dinner at Wolfgang Puck's. It was a really fun girl's night!

Last night, after dinner out with my friend Colleen, I laid out my clothes
for this morning. It occured to me that I hadn't gotten my key holder. I tore the house apart and I couldn't find it. Unfortunately, I don't have a key that you can just tie to your shoe. I drive a Volkswagen and the keyless entry and key is combined and the key folds in with the press of a button. It's really convenient for storing in my purse, it is not convenient for runnning. And with no pockets, I was getting concerned.

I remembered that there was a baggage drop off and claim feature at the race. I did that. checked a backpack so I had somewhere for my key to live while I was running.

I made it to bed at 10:15 PM last night. an hour later than I had planned, although I knew I would never make it to bed by 9:15 PM. The alarm went off at 3:55 AM. The roads to the Animal Kingdom were going to start closing at 5:45 and I wanted to be sure I had enough time to check my bag, and make one last bathroom stop.

I woke up and was out the door at 4:30 AM. Everything went as planned and I arrived without incident.

During the first mile, I was wondering I my hamstring was going to hold up. It didn't hurt, per se, bu it is still not 100%. I would say, it's between 80 - 85%.

Days like today (when I'm not running on the treadmill) I wish I had a Garmin. I would love to report my splits, but I have no way to track them. I need to read the manual that came with my watch.



It was an extremely humid morning. The course started in the parking lot of Animal kingdom and headed to the entrance to Wide World of Sports and it we made a U-turn heading back the way we came. At that point a guy (there were 109 of them registered) directly behind me started coughing. And coughing. And coughing. Thinking of how awesomely classy Susan was yesterday, I was paying more attention to this guy. After a few minutes, I turned and asked if he was alright. He said it was his asthma and the humidity. We talked for a minute as we ran along and I wished him luck and I was off. - He beat his asthma - TI saw him after he finished the race.

The course made a few more turns and we were inside MGM Studios and running through the costuming tunnel that is part of the Backlot Tour we wove through the park and as we neared the path that would take us to EPCOT there was a water stop, where I proceeded to get powerade up my nose. I laughed and just kept on running.

As we got to the Boardwalk area there were at least ten hot air balloons in the sky, it was so neat to see that.

We ran in through the back of EPCOT straight into England. We crossed the bridge and we were in France. The moon was still in the sky, I saw one hot air balloon and the Eifell Tower. I wish I had a camera, it was breathtaking.

I cruised through the rest of "the world" and worked my way toward Spaceship Earth ( the big EPCOT ball) and I kicked it up for the last .3 miles - One of my late race goals was to pass the Race-walking man that got past me in Italy. I passed him with .1 mile to go.

My final time was slower than I had hoped: 1:35:08 - A new official 15K PR. 1 minute and 18 seconds faster than last year. (but slower than my half marathon 15k split.

And how it all breaks down? Pretty Darn Good:

Age Group: 116 out of 334 - 34.73 Percentile

Gender: 508 out of 1,882 - 26.99 Percentile

Overall 543 ou of 1,991 - 27.27 Percentile

Yay!