This was another marathon like no other with the lure of Disney and roughly 50,000 runners participating in all the events over the weekend, in spite of record low temperatures for Florida. My daughter and I had been planning this for 9 months, well before she was diagnosed with MS. In spite of the hurdles, she trained through them and reached the starting line healthy, but quite a bit under the goal of 20 mile training runs. The goal was to finish before the “sweepers” caught us. You see, this race had a time limit and anyone not keeping up would be pulled off the course. This was not something Jaime would accept.
The weekend started off with my granddaughter, Anna, running her first race; a 200 yard dash as part of the Kids Marathon race program. It was rainy and cold, but she was undeterred. She ran strong until I told her to look for the sign we made for her as she approached the finish line, then she nearly stopped running trying to find the sign. Of course, the race was not timed, but there was a medal which she proudly wore all day.
Marathon day started at 3:00 am ET, so we could leave by 4:00 and get to the start by 5:30. There was a ton of traffic and we ended up getting there just in time to bring up the rear of the field. We had our extra jackets, plastic bags for cover and gloves which we wore for almost half the race. We built up a cushion for our time goal in the early miles, but by the time we hit 15 miles it was trouble city. Jaime hit the proverbial wall. However, she worked through it and we kept going. At 21 miles the “sweepers” were only 10-15 minutes behind us and we were well behind the required pace per mile. With the fear of not finishing we kept pushing to get to one milestone after another. Hoping that if we reached a certain gate or reached the Hollywood Studios part of the course, we would be safe. With about a mile to go the end was in sight, however it was on the totally other side of the lake in Epcot. It seemed like another marathon just to get there, but Jaime persevered and we reached the finish line in 6:56:26; just three and half minutes ahead of the required finish time. Amazingly, Jaime only suffered one blister on one foot with no other significant injuries.
We all thanked God for this accomplish and continue to pray for Jaime and her battle with MS. She did great. I was so proud.
