I forgot to update my blog with what the ENT Doc said at my appointment on Thursday. She told me I absolutely could not run a half marathon. She told me if I insisted on doing it, that I had to walk. No running. No jogging. Just walk. She seemed more concerned about the deep laceration on my eyebrow than she was about my broken maxilla bone. Luckily I don't need surgery or anything. It'll heal on its own. She removed my stitches, told me not to blow my nose, and make sure I sneeze with my mouth open. She said to take Sudafed and Afrin before the flight to help with the sinus pressure. She also said I had to stay away from any jarring rides while in Disney (Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, etc) And that I had to buy a big "Audrey Hepburn hat" to keep the sun off the road rash on my face and use a ton of sunscreen.
Here's a few pics of the healing process…
So I was looking and feeling a lot better by the time I left for my trip. Still colorful but not as swollen, and my sinus headache was pretty much gone. It's amazing how quickly a facial injury heals. Before I left I decided I'd shred one of my fairy wings since I wouldn't be able to run. I thought it would be symbolic and it would match my black eye….
We got up at 3:30am to fly down to Cali on Saturday morning, and headed straight from the airport to the Health and Fitness Expo to pick up my race packet and find BFF and her family. After walking around there for a bit, we went into Disneyland and took the kids on as many rides as we could. It was a long day. We got back to our hotel around 10:30pm that night and I showered and put on my KT tape, compression sleeves, etc before I went to bed to save time in the morning. Then I got up at 3:30am AGAIN to get dressed and head to Starbucks in Downtown Disney at 4am to meet BFF for the race.
The race started at 5:30am so we had plenty of time to get breakfast, use the porta-potty, etc. We seemed to be about 15 minutes ahead of the crowd. When we left Starbucks there was a huge line, and when we left the bathrooms there was a huge line too. Smooth sailing! We found our corral and waited there until it was our turn to go at 6:15am. By the time we left for the race, I had already walked 2 miles and stood around for about an hour.
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| I love BFF's costume. :) |
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| Still dark when Corral A left. They lit off fireworks! |
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| Start line encouragement :) |
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| Start line selfie! |
It was so weird crossing the start line and just walking. I was dying to at least jog a little but I was good. I just power-walked along. BFF is super short so my walk was her jog. I knew we needed to keep a 16 minute pace so I tried to encourage her along. The first mile or so was through a parking lot, and along a road that ran parallel to the parks. We passed the 12 mile sign and it was right across the street from my hotel so I was excited that it would work out that my husband and kids could come out and cheer us on when we reached that point. Then we headed inside California Adventure.
It was really fun to run through the park. There were people cheering and characters all over to take photos with. Some characters had huge lines (Especially Tinkerbell). I have no idea how those people had time to stand in line and still finish a race…. but they were running and we weren't. We just kind of ran by and took photos with them in the background and kept going. After weaving all over California Adventure, we went through the exit and into Disneyland. Again, lots of characters, and a lot of the rides were up and running empty which was neat. We were able to go to a lot of "behind the scenes" areas. The 5 mile mark was near the Haunted Mansion… then we went a mile further and exited the park.
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| Lightening and Mater |
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| Tinkerbell |
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| Goofy |
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| We found a pirate |
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| Capt Jack Sparrow |
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| Oh no! Trolley tracks! Gotta be careful so I don't break my face again! |
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| This was BFF's idea. I will never live this trolley track thing down, will I? |
All the high-energy excitement abruptly ended. We went through residential streets and there were signs all over that said, "Shh. Neighbors sleeping." So everyone kind of whispered and went mile after mile in silence. Once in a while there would be people cheering us on in their front yards which was nice. After a couple miles of that, we were out of residential streets and went along more commercial areas (hotels, restaurants, shops, etc.) There were cheerleaders and bands, and different sponsors (luna and cliff bars…) that would have music and cheer, but it was still nothing like the fun experience of the first 6 miles in the park. Miles 7-12 just went on and on and on.
We kept an eye on the pacer balloons behind us. Pacers on bikes would come by once in a while and tell everyone how many minutes ahead of cut off pace we were. We heard we were 8 minutes ahead of pace, and then it was 6 minutes ahead, then it was 2 minutes ahead, then we heard we were only a minute and a half ahead of pace. Eeeeeek!! I kept an eye on those balloons back there thinking how awful it would be to be cut off this late. We just chugged along as fast as we could. We passed the 10 mile mark and we were told we were 6 minutes ahead of pace and that we made it. He said we're all in, we've made it. That was such a huge relief. We could relax a little bit and I could stop speed walking and take a normal paced walk break. Walking is so much different than running! I didn't train to walk so far. It amazed me that I used completely different muscles to walk. My feet hurt like they had no padding left, my toes felt like they were getting squished, and I just felt stiff and sore all over. Running feels better to me. I'm kind of able to bounce along and stay loose. This was just smacking my feet on the pavement over and over and over. I was in pain. Different pain than I usually am at mile 10, but definitely still in pain. I thought this would be easy but I was very wrong. I'm doubting my full-marathon ability in December now. I figured with no time limit in Honolulu that I'd have no problem. I need to train the run/walk method and see how it goes.
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Me, the Thug Fairy. Keeping the sun off my road rash.
My eye/sinus did pretty well. A little pain here and there but not too bad considering. |
Finally at mile 12 we were back near my hotel and my husband and kiddos were there to give hugs and cheers. I needed that. I knew we were almost back to the park and we had just a little more than a mile to go. Even though they said we had made it, I could still see the pacer balloons back behind us and they were getting closer. Could they change their minds? Could we still be cut off? I didn't' know but I was determined to make sure we didn't fall behind those balloons. BFF was dying. She said she felt like she was going to puke but I told her she didn't have time to puke. I literally took her by the hand and dragged her the last mile. I wasn't about to let the fail bus get her! She was going to make it to that freaking finish line! This is where I think everything happens for a reason. If I wasn't forced to walk, I wouldn't have spent the entire race with her. I would have had fun and goofed off through the parks, and then I would have taken off and gotten through all the boring miles as fast as I could. I would have left her behind and I wouldn't have been there to encourage her to keep going. Is it weird to say that I'm glad I broke my face? ;) I also think it's good to know that if I'm going to do a marathon that I need to train to walk as well as run. I wouldn't know that otherwise.
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| YAY!!!!! |
I could not walk 2 miles back to my hotel when we were finished so I opted to head to BFF's hotel instead. I had my husband bring me clothes so I could shower there.
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| She has a pretty sweet view from her room |
We took a little break and then spent the rest of the day at the park. Freaking crazy. I was exhausted. My garmin said I walked a total of 20.6 miles that day. I went to sleep at 8:30pm with my 2 year old daughter while my husband took my son on more rides.
Craziest whirlwind of a weekend. I'm still recovering. I feel like I have a lot more to write, and I have a ton more photos but I think this is long enough. I met some other fairies at 4am walking to the race who were super nice, and we also met a girl we called "selfie stick" while waiting at the corral that I saw two more times after that. I met and chatted with more women wearing race shirts and/or medals all over the park, my hotel, restaurants, the airport going home… all connected now. It's like we were part of this exclusive little club for the weekend. It was great. I really recommend anyone train for a Disney running event! I'm glad it's over though. :)
