On Friday morning, before the Disney half marathon and full marathon, there's a 5K. This year it was a 'fun run' through the Animal Kingdom theme park. The theme was the Lion King Circle of Life. Not really a race, no chip times and kind of a family party atmosphere.
I had tweaked my right ankle the Monday before the half and was nursing it with rest, ibuprofen and good thoughts all week. On Tuesday I didn't think I'd be healed in time for the half on Saturday. I was feeling pretty good by Thursday night so I decided to see how I felt Friday morning. If I felt OK, I'd take it easy on the 5K and see how that went.
I caught the shuttle at 5:45AM and got to the Animal Kingdom park at about 6:00AM. It was probably in the low to mid forties. Not exactly balmy. I was slightly cold in shorts, a long-sleeve dri-fit and a sweatshirt. I ended up checking the sweatshirt before the race start and I was fine.
The 5K start is sort of a mini-half/full marathon start- Loud music, cast members in costume who are way too awake and cheerful for that time of the morning and fireworks at the starting gun. At the start gun, (Still dark out...) they played "I just Can't Wait to be King" from the Lion King soundtrack. Loud. It's Elton John and it's a decent running tune so I started out a little faster than I wanted to. I dialed it back a little bit and my ankle felt pretty good. I had thought that the course would be pancake flat. Nope. There were some ups and downs and a reasonably long descent just prior to the finish. It was pretty cool running through this park. I didn't see too many animals but they sure sounded ticked off that we were waking them up.
Finish time was 00:34:46 by my watch. I was kind of surprised in that I had been aiming for about 36 minutes to go easy on my ankle.
A fun race. I'd do it again- even getting up before dawn! The only downer was that I waited for about 50 minutes after the race for a shuttle bus. Normally, I wouldn't care as much about that except that I had to shower and change before the TNT coaches and staff meeting.
The bib is one of the coolest I've had. I just had to scan it!
You even get a dorky little rubber medal!!...
2 comments:
hey - I talked you into the LBM concert, too!! ha ha! and it was fun!!
Ben, buddy, pal, friend of mine. 26.2 with Donna ended today. We all had good races, and I had 2 beers before you finished! But who's counting?! Since my name is on this blog 8 million times, don't you think we deserve some photos?? I mean, really - a bunny with a pancake and doughnuts made it.......SO - when you update the blog to include the latest 13.1 - I expect pics!
You're the best!
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