Together Again

After spending countless months apart due to illness and travel, two best friends are reunited and all is well with the world.

Life Lesson Courtesy of Mickey Mouse

I am a perfectionist by nature. What? This isn’t news to you?! I expect things in my life to go the way I want them to go and do what I want them to do. There are many, many things in my life that I can control and making them perfect makes me happy. It's the things that I can't control in my life that make me insane (as if being a perfectionist doesn't already qualify me for the loony bin.)

Our trip to Disney World a year ago was perfect. In every way. And it had nothing to do with me or my planning because we decided to go on a Thursday and arrived 3 days later. No time for planning = no time for stressing.

This trip, however, was booked well in advance and left me plenty of time for planning. And stressing. And trying to make sure that everything turned out perfectly.

Riiiiiiiight.

I'm not quite sure when I am going to accept that the things in my life that I can't control don't always need to be feared and can even sometimes be embraced. But this trip to Disney may just have helped me along.

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, everything did not go perfectly on this trip. In fact, a lot went wrong. I compiled a list:

1. The day before we left, Molly started with a cough. Hack hack hack. Spending 8 hours cooped up with her in the car on the way there solidified that we were all going to catch said cough. And we did. Brody had the worst of it, spending 5 solid days with a fever of 102 in addition to the hacking cough and runny nose.

2. It was the coldest winter on record for Florida (I mentioned just how chilly it was in my previous post... something about being frozen.) There were frost warnings several mornings we were there. Brr.

3. The last 2 days we were there it rained. And rained. And rained. In fact, there was a record rainfall in Orlando... 5 inches in 45 minutes!

4. The box springs under the mattresses at the hotel had to have been 30 years old. Every time any one of us would move (or breathe) the entire bed would shutter and creak and everyone would suddenly be wide away. Additionally, we had the cleanest family in the world in the room above us who felt the need to take 6 showers every night at 10 pm.

The thing is, that despite all the things that weren't perfect about our trip, we had a fantastic time. Better than fantastic even.

We made a late night call to the front desk and got honey from the continental breakfast for our coughs (try this... it really helps!!) I was able to give Brody the Motrin (that I so smartly packed) to keep his fever down so that he was pretty much his happy go lucky self. We wore layers to keep us warm in the morning, but were still able to enjoy the wonderful warmth of the afternoon sun when we took our jackets off. We wore our Wal-Mart ponchos on the rainy days and were able to stay relatively dry while riding ALL the rides in the park. Who knew a little precipitation would keep away the crowds and allow us to walk on to everything??!! And as for the bed situation, Drew dragged the mattress off the box spring and after rearranging the room, we slept soundly on the mattress - on the floor.

In addition to all the things that went "wrong" on our trip, there were also some pleasant surprises that were not part of my master plan. We snagged a wonderful dinner at The Garden Grill in the Land in EPCOT, a place I was unable to get reservations to prior to the trip. We just happened to walk up as they had a cancellation. We were also super happy with the location of our room at Port Orleans, only a few steps from the bus stop! We we also able to eat at the Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex, both happy surprises. Molly and I loved being secret agents while playing the Kim Possible game in EPCOT. And the kids and I had way too much fun trading pins with all the cast members at the park. All in all, it was an amazing family vacation.

Even still, I can't promise myself that I won't stress out over our next trip. I know that I will. But I also know that come rain, or cold, or cough, we will still have a great time. I can't control everything. And maybe sometimes it's better that I can't. Because life does not stop when I go on vacation, it comes along with me. So it might be better if I just accept that fact and pack it its own bag next trip.

Culmination

On November 20, I signed up for the Disney Princess Half Marathon and I began my training. Within 2 weeks I discovered that I am prone to Illiotibial Band Syndrome. Running with IBS requires significant time and dedication. Instead of running a few minutes each day to train, I spent hours rolling on a foam roller, stretching, and strengthening in addition to the running itself. It was way more of a commitment than I initially intended on making. But I have this thing about seeing things through, so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. There was also a lot of icing.

On Sunday, March 7, after about 4 hours of broken sleep, I got up out of bed at 3:10 AM. I washed and dressed quietly so as not to wake the three sleeping members of my family in the same hotel room. I got on the bus to the race at 3:37 AM and arrived at 3:57 AM. The temperature was 41 degrees. Brr.

I was reluctant to leave the warmth of the bus. After a 15 minute walk, I arrived at the staging area where we were to wait before the race. I wandered aimlessly among the other runners for about 10 minutes before I spied one lone tent across the parking lot. As I approached I realized that it was a merchandise tent and there were signs in front which cautioned against entering unless you intended to actually purchase something. I thought I could at least fake it for a few minutes. Once inside, I realized that no one that was already in the tent had any intentions of purchasing anything, so I cozied up to a few of my fellow runners, and we stood shivering together in the tent for the next hour and a half.

At about 5:30, people started clearing out and it was time to make our way to the starting line. The starting line was over a mile away. Once I arrived, I headed to the back of the crowd. There were 5 corrals of women and of course, I was in the last one. So that meant more walking. By the time I reached the end, I could no longer see the starting line. (See the lights at the far end? That's the start!) I ate some breakfast (bagels and bananas) and waited some more. By this time I could no longer feel my feet but were hoping they were still there.

At 6:00 AM the first runners began the race. 13,000 runners and half an hour later, I finally crossed the starting line. It was still pretty dark, but the sun was just starting to come up as I began to run. It was a wonderful feeling finally getting to move!

All along the way there were Disney characters and music, local marching band and spectators. Each mile was marked with a huge Disney sign. Lots of girls stopped to have their pictures taken along the way, but I just kept moving forward.

At about mile 5, I got warm enough to take off my sweatshirt. I bought cheap sweats from Goodwill in anticipation of throwing them down along the race. So off came my sweatshirt.

Running into the Magic Kingdom was surreal. The park was closed of course, since it was about 7:15 AM when I arrived. We ran down Main Street, into Tomorrowland, through Fantasyland and into Cinderella's Castle. Amazing.

As we left the Magic Kingdom, we passed the 6 mile marker and I was feeling especially good, both physically and emotionally. However, the next 4 miles were really, really long. There was not much to look at and the exhaustion of the morning started to set in. At mile 10, we had to run up two exit ramps which were very steep. Finally, at mile 11, I saw a glimpse of Spaceship Earth in EPCOT... I was almost finished!

At mile 12 I called Drew to let him know I was almost done and to be looking for me at the finish, only to find out that all the buses were redirected to the Ticket and Transportation Center and that he was standing in a mob of several thousand people waiting to ride the monorail to EPCOT.

I ran as fast as I could through the last mile in EPCOT and crossed the finish line 2 hours 20 minutes and 8 seconds after I began... only 8 seconds off my goal (if only I hadn't stopped to take that last picture!!)

There were 3 times during my training that I seriously considered quitting. My knees were in constant pain and it took valuable time away from my family. At one point I didn't think there was any way I was even going to be able to finish, much less finish strong. Out of 10,924 women, I placed 3179... not too shabby!

I cried at the end. The culmination of so much hard work. It was such a magical experience. I don't know if I will ever string together another 13 miles all at one time. I may just be sticking to 5Ks from here on out. But at least I can say that I ran a half marathon. Every step. And I wouldn't trade a single one of them.