Right now my feet are still tender from the Walt Disney World Half Marathon over the weekend… more than 22 thousand people finished the event that began well before sunrise at 5:30am Saturday morning.. that meant my husband and I were up at 3:00am to make sure we got to the start line on time… he was such a trooper… when he dropped me off he looked like he was sending his kid off to college or something.. there were people everywhere and it was really dark… I told him I would find him after the race.. and not to worry about me…

We arrived in Florida on Thursday afternoon.. I got my race packet at the expo… and we didn’t have to worry about waking up too early on Friday.. Matt suggested we go to one of the theme parks since I had never been to Disney and I am so glad he did… we had the best time at Magic Kingdom… the castle was an awesome sight to take in when you enter the park… even though it is in the distance the size is so massive and truly magical… that I must have looked like a kid.. just staring at the symbol of fairytales that I loved as a child….

We spent all day Friday at Magic Kingdom… ate lunch… rode rollercoasters… looked around… saw a 3D animation movie that was amazing… there was so much to do I can see why people spend entire weeks at Walt Disney and still don’t get to take in all that it has to offer.. it really is its own city…

Friday night we retired early and woke up at 3:00am… I couldn’t eat.. normally I can eat any time of day.. but the thought of food turned my stomach.. I forced a granola bar down in the car on the way to the race… I got to my corral with 90 seconds to the start… I started to feel hungry but just figured I needed to put that thought out of my mind for the next couple of hours… It was good that I didn’t have a lot of time to be nervous before the start…  I crossed the start line and that began my journey for the next hour and fifty four minutes… some of it dark… some of it lit by giant spotlights… some bands… plenty of water stops… the route took me through Magic Kingdom.. where we had been the day before.. so it felt familiar and that was nice around mile 6…. and then the sun began to come up around mile 9-10… and then at mile 11-12 I could see Epcot in the distance with a pinkish huge from the sunrise and it was beautiful.. and then finally I hit mile 13 and knew there was just .1 to go… I was tired… I was willing my legs to move… and I couldn’t wait to see Matt at the finish line…

My official time was 1:54 for 13.1 miles… I had never run a race that long by myself before… I had made a special playlist so I would atleast have my music.. but there is something about running alone for that kind of distance that is well.. lonely… as soon as I finished I was given a finishers medal that will go in a shadow box at home… and I heard my sweet husband yell… “Hey, Karen… you feel okay?”

And I thought to myself… now I do…

I owe a special thanks to WSLS 10 for being so supportive and nominating me to run the race on behalf of our parent company Media General for a wonderful trip filled with fabulous memories.