Marathon in Pictures - From Start to Finish

More pictures, for those of you interested, in our marathon that we just completed.  Enjoy :)

The starting line.  If you look closely you can see that it is packed with people.  It is crazy the number of people who run this year after year!  Notice the flames going up in the air, it was so cold prior to starting that as soon as they went off the whole crowd went, "ahhh," because a wave of heat warmed us up for 5 seconds.  Heat never felt so good!   

This is somewhere in the beginning, miles 2-4.  The lights behind us are one of the many ginormous Christmas tress decorated and lit up throughout Disney.  This one was at Epcot center.  Too bad the picture doesn't capture its beauty.

This is between miles 10-11 - the second best part of the course!  I love the Cinderella's castle, its so magical, don't you think? I heart Disney World. 

I believe this is around mile 17 at Animal Kingdom, Dinoland to be exact.

This is at Walt Disney's MGM park and is between miles 22-23, I can't believe I am still smiling!?!  Must be the delirium.

And this is leading up to the finish line...almost there...getting a little choked up...and so very excited!

And the best part of the course...the finish line!!!  Told you I fist pumped!  This one's for you Shannon!  Try not to laugh too hard. 

Final time...3:58:25...Run Disney!

Up next??  Goofy Challenge!  Anyone?!?!

*Sorry about the low resolution of the pictures.

Magic Kingdom

If you can dream it, you can do it.  ~Walt Disney

We went to Magic Kingdom the day after the marathon for Marathon Monday, ie Andrew and I got in the park for free!  It was packed and just as magical as I remembered as a kid!  It was also wet and rainy, but it didn't stop the fun to be had by yours truly.  We rode the ever famous Space Mountain, It's a Small World, Stitch, and a few other ones I can't remember the name of.

We also rode the train and stopped at Main Street USA just in time for the parade!

The best part about going to Disney in January?!?  All the Christmas decorations are still up!!!  It is gorgeous.  Huge Christmas trees all decorated and lit up and garland everywhere!

Such a fun fun weekend and such a great ending to an amazing trip full of wonderful memories!  I love Disney World and cannot wait to go back.  Now, to only convince my husband...

Goofy Challenge anyone?

Marathon 26.2 - Walt Disney World Take 2

Did you know that only one tenth of 1% of the population actually complete a marathon?  Well thats what Olympian Jeff Galloway told us before the start of the marathon.  

We did it!  I ran my second marathon and Andrew ran his first and joined the club!  Our marathon weekend started two days before the big day.  The first day we got to Disney, we went to pick up or packets and enjoy the huge expo that is put on every year.  There were over 50,000 runners competing the entire weekend, so you can only imagine the massive amounts of people there at one time.  It was crazy!

"I tell our runners to divide the race into thirds. Run the first part with your head, the middle part with your personality, and the last part with your heart." Mike Fanelli

My mom and brother ran the half marathon the next day.  They did awesome!  My mom got a PR and my brother placed 119 out of 27,000.  My mom placed 43/916 in her age group.  Pretty awesome if I do say so myself!  After their race, we decided to go enjoy the Animal Kingdom Park.  It was so much fun!  All of the parks have a central interest point.  Animal Kingdom's is the Tree of Life.  It was incredible and I was obsessed with it.  The pictures do not even do it justice.  I was in awe of all of it.  Pretty sure I drove Andrew nuts about it.  And seriously thinking about devoting an entire post to "the tree."  

We also went on a safari and saw amazing creatures!  And I learned that I desperately need to take my husband to the zoo.  He loved the animals like a kid loves a candy store!  It was like he had never been to a zoo before, ever!

I think this is one of my favorite pictures of all time.  And this is an upside down tree.

The beautiful African Safari landscape. 

We carb loaded that night at Rainforest Cafe and tried to go to bed early, ha, like we could actually sleep!  3:00 am came sooner rather than later and we were up and ready for a 5:30 am start time.  We had to catch the bus before 4:00 am to get to Epcot, where we then had to walk 20 minutes to get to our corral.  There were 8-9 corrals and we were in the second one, thank goodness for that, unlike the hour it took others, it only took us two minutes to cross the actual start line!  There were tons and tons of crazy people there!  Why crazy you ask?  Because we all signed up and paid for this torture we call 26.2 miles.

It felt so cold during the hour we were waiting before the race started.  We were freeeezing.  It was so cold!  Brrrr...  Then finally At 5:35 am we were off, with fireworks and Mickey Mouse to send us on our way!  It was, as they often say in Disney World, magical.  Andrew and I kept pace with each other for the first 5-6 miles.  Then I lost him in the crowd.  Boy was it crowded!  I stopped a few times to try to find him and ended up creating more problems due to the huge crowd around me.  I was unsuccessful so I just had to keep running.  Luckily I had set us both up for tracking on our phone, so every time we crossed a certain point a text message was sent to our phone.  I ran with my phone, set to the Black Eyed Peas station on Pandora, of course, and listened for text message notifications so I would know when Andrew would cross certain points.  Since he had been so sick the week leading up to the race, I felt so bad for him and I was so worried about him the entire rest of the way.  Poor guy!  Little did I know, Andrew had torn both of his hamstrings around mile 6 of the 26.2 mile run.  He was miserable!  I do not know how he finished!  I really don't!  Probably not a race for him to remember.  Maybe I can get him to blog about his story.

"If you feel bad at 10 miles, you're in trouble. If you feel bad at 20 miles, you're normal. If you don't feel bad at 26 miles, you're abnormal."  Rob de Castella

 
Needless to say, everything that could possibly go wrong with Andrew's marathon did.  I feel bad saying this, but everything that could go right for me went right for me that day.  I ran well, with little pain.  Thank you God!  My first five miles were at an 8:59 minute mile pace and then all the way to mile 22, my pace was around an 8:40 - 8:45 minute mile pace.  Except for my feet throbbing, I felt great!  Mile 22-26 were a little rough.  My calves were starting to ache a little and my feet throbbed harder, but I don't remember hitting the wall nearly as hard as I did my first marathon.  I can remember around mile 19, seeing a sign that said, "Pain is temporary, pride is forever."  Along with praying, I recited that to myself the rest of the way.  Then I can remember singing along to a song at mile 22 with some of the other runners around me, delirium setting in?  I think so.  The miles in between were filled with awesome cheerleaders, and running through the ever famous four Walt Disney World Parks, with the Magic Kingdom Castle being my favorite.  The course also had all of the famous Disney characters scattered the entire way.  It is magical, it really is.  I finally crossed the finish line at 3:58:25, that is 3 hours, 58 minutes and 25 seconds.  I beat my first marathon time by 2 minutes and got a sub 4 marathon time!  I got a little emotional too, who wouldn't?  Such an awesome feeling, runners high for sure!  And you better believe I fist pumped at the finish line, told you I would didn't I?!?  Oh, and our medal is so freaking awesome!  You better believe I run for a medal!  As do others, just ask all the silly people who wore their medal everywhere the next few days, probably even in the shower. 

We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.  -Emil Zatopek

The Walt Disney World Marathon is incredible!  Put it on your list of things to do!  Run Disney!  You will not be disappointed.

A special thank you to my awesome family and friends who have been so supportive to Andrew and I.  We love you guys and truly appreciate all of the encouragement you have given us.  More pictures to come soon!

"I've learned that finishing a marathon isn't just an athletic achievement. It's a state of mind; a state of mind that says anything is possible."  John Hanc

Marathon training weeks 16 & 17.5 - Life happens

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me...  

Walt Disney

I am waaaaay behind!  As most of you know, we just finished the marathon!  More about that in a bit.  For now, I want to tell you all about our last few weeks of training.  Week 16 consisted of running 5, 8, 4 and a 12 mile long run.  It was pretty uneventful.  Week 17 was a 4, 6, 3 and an 8 mile long run.  Our training week was cut a little short due to our mini vacation to Colorado to bring in the new year with Andrew's family.  I ran my 8 mile long run on the Thursday before the weekend as opposed to actually running the long run during the weekend like we were supposed to.  Andrew was not able to run the long run, due to waiting until the last minute to pack time constraints.  We left for Colorado on Friday and I must tell you, I had every intention on running while we were there; however it did not happen.  I went 6 days without running and then finally did my two last training runs, that were 4 and 3 miles, until the marathon.  Was this smart of me?  I dunno.  Looking back now, I think so!

The inevitable happened for Andrew though....He got the flu on our trip, 6 days before the marathon.  He was only able to run a short 2 mile run during the week and a half prior to the big day.  Life stinks happens!  He was pretty stressed during the week before race day.  And I don't blame him one bit!  I can only imagine the thought of putting in all the time training over the past 3 months and then to get the flu.  Oh how I wish he would have gotten a flu shot!  Better luck next year, along with getting a flu shot for sure!

On a more positive note, we did it!!!  We completed the 18 week training program recommended by the famous Hal Higdon.  I am so proud of Andrew for sticking to the plan and doing it with me.  It really takes a lot of time and dedication to even attempt, let alone finish.  Good job hunny!

Stay tuned for how the marathon went.  Coming soon!

2010 Year in Review

2010 was a great year for me.  I can't complain one bit!  I feel so lucky to live a very blessed life and and be surrounded by amazing family and friends.  Here are some pictures to recap the wonderful year!

Andrew and I went on a vacation to the Riviera Maya on one of my weeks off of work.  It was much needed and we had such a great time.  The Riviera Maya is gorgeous, you may remember this post where I blogged about our mini vacation.

In April, two of my good friends had baby boys!  Chelsea and Robby had their little angel Bobby and our friends Natalie and Jonathon had Owen!  It sure has been neat seeing them grow and change.  Oh, and lets not forget that Andrew held a newborn for the very first time....now, he's completely smitten with him. 

Andrew's grandpa came to visit us from Sweden and helped Andrew build a deck for us in our backyard.  We sure do love it! 

Macy loves the deck too!  So much so that I have to beg her to come back inside when I let her out.

One of my very bestest friends got married!  Alex & Dylan had such a gorgeous wedding and I felt so blessed to be apart of it.  They got married in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, which is an hour south of Austin.  It was incredible!  Andrew, my mom, and my sister all came too!  We had so much fun and now have so many fun memories.  I love this girl and her family and lets not forget her crazy friend Rachel! 

Andrew and I celebrated another year of being married!  I love this guy with my whole entire heart!

On our way back home from Alex's wedding, we hung out in Austin for a few hours.  We met up with one of Andrew's friends from highschool and went to Mellow Johnny's bike shop, owned by the one and only Lance Armstrong.  If I had to describe Austin, Texas in one word, it would be AMAZING!  We loved the small part that we saw of it and cannot wait to go back for an extended period of time.  Andrew loves this picture, because some where on that wall of wheels is Andrew's bike wheels...

I completed my first year of pediatric residency!  Coach Meek let me play in the annual faculty-student softball game, as faculty because I am old now, and we won! 

I have made some awesome friendships during this past year and love the people I work with!

I was able to volunteer for the Special Olympics in Stillwater with some of my wonderful colleagues.

My sister got her masters degree!  So proud!  She's pretty awesome at what she does!

One of my favorite sister-in-law's graduated from highschool!  She sure has grown up fast! 

The Dyerette's reunited at last! 

I had my ten year highschool reunion.  Geez, I am old!  How in the world does time fly by so fast?!?

Andrew and Danny ate sandwiches in the dirt.  We went to the lake a few times with some awesome friends and had a great time!

I got my medical license!  Now it's official, I mean, I am :)  Yikes!

My other favorite sister-in-law got married!  Such a beautiful bride she was and so so happy!

With the help of my family, Andrew and I directed the Second Annual Run to Breathe 5K and helped to raise almost $6000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help find a cure!

My dog officially became the laziest dog of all time!

Andrew and I completed a Quarter Marathon and then I convinced him into training for a full marathon!

I hit 100,000 miles on my car.  I love my car, I hope it lasts another 100,000, even though I don't think my husband will let me see the day.

Our crazy, psycho beast for a dog placed in the Dock Dogs competition! 

We went to one of the most amazing cities in the whole world, San Francisco!  So much fun!!!

We ran the Tulsa Run, as did Andrew's dad, my mother, and my dear friend Sarah!

Andrew's best friend got married, in the Bahama's!  Fun times!

Andrew and his dad completed his first half marathon!  My mom, Sarah, and I ran it too!

My adorable little cousin Sean and my favorite Aunt Susan came to visit!  I love this little guy, he does anything I tell him too :)

Macy became 11 years old!  Oh how my heart loves this little dog!

Jaxon got fat!  Ha, just kidding!  He turned 5!  (And in case you are wondering, Roxy turned 3 and is still psychotic!)

We went to the Christmas Train and was reminded of the true meaning of Christmas! 

 We celebrated another year gone by and all that it brought us!  Looking forward to so many more wonderful memories that we will create in 2011!