Sunday Jan 8 WDW Marathon
Up at 2 and ready before 3. Nerves. I feel ok, but truth be told, I’m sick,again, with a runny nose and a cough.
Lee drives me to the Fort Wilderness buses, even though it’s not a long walk. He’s worried about me, although he doesn’t want to say it. Probably doesn’t want me wandering around in the dark either. It’s awfully nice of him to get up at 3 am.
I’m to the start by 3:30. A lot of time to kill. I go over to the stage to try to find Paula and her group of friends but it’s hopeless. The music is very loud and there are so many people, many decked out in Dopey green and purple. Oh well! I grab some water, visit a portapotty, and slowly make my way to my corral.
It’s cold but I have on an extra shirt and a heat blanket. The race starts at 5 but it’s 5:30 before my corral finally starts. That’s not that bad for a race with 20,000 people!
It’s fun that they set off fireworks for each wave. It’s not so fun that’s it’s very very congested. It’s always crowded throughout the entire race. And because I’m not trying for a time I decide I don’t need to bother to put my watch on manual laps. Dumb mistake!
It takes me a long time to warm up. My arms sleeves stay on until way after the sun comes up. And my hands stay cold even after people around me are starting to sweat. Maybe because I’m sick? I don’t know but it was strange.
I’m using a run/walk interval of 45/30 seconds. I haven’t used this particular interval for a marathon in several years, but I’m so undertrained that I know attempting 1 min/30 sec wasn’t going to fly.
I do stop for a couple character stops. One with this green thing from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Oogie Boogie.
One with Mickey and Goofy.
And of course I stopped at the castle!
I wasn’t pushing it at all, and maybe started to get a little too relaxed, because at one point someone said that the balloon ladies were only 10 minutes behind us. The balloon ladies are these women that run at the very end of a Disney race, because Disney is very strict about time. They don't let you finish if you run too slowly. Fall behind the balloon ladies and you get swept off the course! That scared me, so I decided to focus and not stop anymore.
I really felt pretty good until around mile 20. Classic marathon woes. At that point my lack of training caught up with me. I could no longer speed up and I wasn’t running much faster than I was walking. It was here that my experience got me through the rest of the race. I changed to 30/30 run/walk intervals to conserve energy. I kept running when I was supposed to run because even though it was really slow it used different muscles, another way to conserve energy. And I used my mental training too. I would not let myself think about how far I had left to go, except to think “less than a 10k!” And eventually “less than a 5k!” I concentrated on the mile I was in, running from one landmark to the next.
I was so tired though. I didn’t stop for a beverage in Epcot because by then I just wanted to be done. Running around Epcot was truly endless. Right before the end Amy and her friend Laura saw me and yelled as loud as they could. But did I see them? No. Classic Lynn!
I have never been so glad to see a finish line in my life! I walked very very slowly to get my darling medal, then water, a Powerade, a cooling towel, and finally the famous Disney post race snack box. And a good thing too because almost immediately after I crossed the finish line I was ravenously hungry. I actually sat down on the ground and tore open the snack box, ate part of a honey stinger waffle and some pretzels. Then I staggered to my feet and headed to the Fort Wilderness bus.
When I got back to the RV I took a shower, ate a sandwich, and laid down on the bed. Before too long I was asleep. I slept most of the afternoon, until it was time to get ready to go to our dinner reservation At Flying Fish on the Disney Boardwalk. This was great because I was awake and could enjoy myself.
It was so nice to see Amy one more time, meet her friend Laura, and see Rich! No Paula, alas. She had other obligations.
Flying Fish was yummy. I had the shrimp cocktail and then the filet. Amy had the pork belly appetizer and shared bites with us, and it was great too. And Rich shared his dessert, a molten lava chocolate cake. We talked talked talked, so much catching up to do! I would have loved to stay longer but it was all catching up with me. Time to go back the RV and go to bed.
Monday January 9
I slept until almost 7. Boy I needed that! I ate some oatmeal to tide me over until our breakfast at the Fort Wilderness Lodge Whispering Pines restaurant. Google couldn’t figure out how to get there so we ended up being a little late but it worked out. The usual Fort Wilderness vibe, with a little interval where they invited all the kids in the restaurant to ride a stick horse around in a circle. Pretty funny!
Lee got the avocado toast with Jackfruit. It was interesting….. I got a Belgian Waffle with bacon and strawberries. It wasn’t shaped like Mickey but it was really delicious!
After breakfast we packed up and headed to St. Augustine. Only a 2 hour drive to a nice KOA. We’re just hanging out today but in the next few days we’ll explore St Augustine and the surrounding area.
Tuesday January 10
Around 10 am we drove to St Augustine and parked at the Visitor's Center. We downloaded an app called Florida Stories and took the walking tour but it was way too talky for our tastes. We did get to see a nice slice of the historic old town.
We ate lunch at the Roosevelt Room. Lee got a brisket thing. I got the fried chicken and biscuit which was massive and delicious. I could barely eat half of it and took the rest of it in a box.
We went to look at the Fort but by then we were too tired and it was getting close to 1 pm. We might come back and tour it on Thursday. Tomorrow we’re going to ride our bikes to the State Park, go see the lighthouse and the beach.
We’re spending the the afternoon relaxing. It’s pretty cool today. We’re sitting outside and it was warm in the sun so I put on shorts and a short sleeved shirt but now the sun is getting lower and pretty soon I’m going to have to change back into jeans.
Wednesday January 11
Last night Lee fixed the red snapper he bought at a nearby fish market. It was awesome, fresh and tender. I miss good seafood!
It was very chilly last night, the low was 47, cold by Florida standards. Harper has an upset stomach and threw up in bed last night. UGH! So I decided to go ahead and do laundry this morning, since it was too cold to ride our bikes comfortably anyway. It wasn’t as fancy as the Disney laundromat but it was perfectly acceptable and cost half as much.
Lee went over to a nearby French bakery and bought pastries and croissants, which I devoured as a mid morning snack. They were soooo good!
After lunch we hopped on our bikes and rode to the nearby state park. It was kind of disappointing. Just a single straight road that led to the beach. It might be a good place to hike, or hang out on the beach. But I was hoping for a nice place to ride bikes. And although supposedly you could ride your bikes on the beach, it was anything but flat and not solid enough for the our tires. You needed a mountain bike or a fat bike. It was very pretty though.
So we decided to go see the lighthouse. In New England there are so many lighthouses up and down the coast. You can visit them and climb them if you want, no big deal. But the St. Augustine lighthouse was part of a museum and charged admission. Humph! It’s very distinctive, with its black and white spiral, so maybe that’s why.
So we decided to go get coffee. Starbucks it is! We had to ride several miles on Hwy A1A to get there. It has a bike lane, but it’s not protected and that really makes me nervous.
Thursday January 12
Last night we went to a Japanese restaurant, Ginger Spice. It was very good. I got the small omokase. The fish was very fresh, thinly sliced, with potent wasabi and perfect rice. Tuna, yellowtail, salmon, shrimp. Nothing fancy but delicious. Lee got their ramen which was pretty wonderful. I had a taste, wow.
We took it easy this morning, but after lunch we went into town and toured the Castillo. We got in for free with our senior National park passes. It was very interesting, lots of exhibits and explanations about how the fort was used over the hundreds of years of its existence. Then an afternoon coffee on the porch of City Perks.
St. Augustine has been a little disappointing. I was hoping it was more like Savannah where the historic places are historic and the touristy stuff is separate. The buildings are very well preserved but are as likely to hold a tourist shop as a museum. And doing a walking tour, of architecture, or history, was hard to find. The Florida stories app I downloaded didn’t cover much and was way too talky for my taste. Maybe I should have looked for a Rick Steves tour. Maybe I should have planned ahead more. Maybe we’re just getting old!
Saturday January 14
Thursday night we went to a Peruvian restaurant in St Augustine named Llama. It was wonderful. We decided it’s probably one of the best places we have eaten in years, maybe since Bo Innovations in Hong Kong. We got the grilled beef hearts and the octopus as apps and then we shared the hangar steak entree. The beef hearts were supposed to be reminiscent of Peruvian street food. They were served in a glass dome that was raised at the table to let the snoke out just like it was fresh from a food truck! It was served with potatoes and an aioli sauce. The octopus was tender and served with a sauce made from a special olive that was wonderful. Lee said he wanted to lick the plate, but he restrained himself. The entree was very flavorful, served with tagliatelle and a mushroom sauce. So good! I got a dessert too, chocolate mousse.
Friday morning we got more pastries and then made our way to Apopka, FL, near where Tom and Nicole live. We met them at the Crooked Thumb brewery in Winter Garden. We sat outside near a heater but it was really cold for Florida, 50's and dropping and windy. We talked a bunch, caught up on things, on their plans. Nicole graduates in May and then they will be on to their next adventure. Their kids are growing up too, August is almost three, and Harrison is 5 1/2!
It dropped into the 30’s last night and it’s going to do it again tonight. We run a little electric space heater to save on propane, but the RV heater kicked on too.
After lunch we drove along the Lake Apopka Wildlife reserve drive. We saw lots and lots and lots of birds, and alligators too. Egrets, heron, eagles, hawks and ducks. Lee’s friend Dan recommended it to us and I’m very glad he did!
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