This next series of races was written by N. He wrote these last year after he ran the Disney Marathon in January. We were supposed to run it together and had trained for it, but at 7 months pregnant, we didn’t think it was a good idea especially as my doctor told me that running a marathon would be too much for me and the baby. I decided to post it now as we have now begun training for the Disney Princess Half Marathon, which will be in February. Looking forward!! -S

To give a little background, all this craziness started last April, because I had put on over 40 lbs in just about 10 months. S and I decided that it was time for some physical activity. Being huge Disney fans, we decided that although neither of us were runners, we would try to do the Walt Disney World Marathon!

Fast forward around 9 months and about 470 miles, I suffered an injury to my left leg that I thought was going to end my hopes of crossing the finish line. I had to stop training completely. For the 5 weeks leading up to the race I did a lot of stretching, foam rolling and praying. Six days before the race, I had an MRI and my doctor cleared me to run. He said I had IT band syndrome and some fluid in my knee that would make it painful but he assured me I was in no danger of doing any permanent damage.

We checked into our hotel (Disney’s Old Key West Resort) early Friday morning and headed to the Health and Fitness Expo to pick up our race packets. The expo was a lot of fun. There were tons of vendors, all demoing their latest and greatest offerings in apparel, footwear, sunglasses, high tech gadgets, nutritional products and other merchandise. Some of the stuff on show was not yet available so it was nice to get a peek into where the industries are heading.

We walked around and got some free samples and snacks, played some games to win free stuff and purchased a few pieces of gear. We also got a chance to meet Olympian Jeff Galloway. He was the trainer whose method we used to prepare for the marathon. He was very friendly and his face lit up when we told him how much we enjoyed his books and how successful we were with them. He talked to us for a good 5-6 minutes even though there was a long line and he wished us luck and that S would have a happy and “fit” child.

I mention the expo for 2 reasons. First, I tried a product I never heard of that really helped my leg pain. I was a little skeptical when I saw their booth and the line was really long but I think it helped so it is worth mentioning. It’s called KT Tape Pro, you take a strip of tape and stretch it out over the muscles and ligaments on your body that need more support. The line was long because the people working the booth weren’t just explaining the product, they were taping up everyone who wanted it and some people put tape practically over their entire body.

The other reason I mention the expo was that while I was on-line waiting to get taped, I started talking with a guy in front of me, D, and it turns out we live only a few blocks away from each other!

Sadly, we had only allotted 4 hours for the expo and it wasn’t nearly enough. We could have been there all day, but it’s always better to leave an activity wishing you had a few more hours to enjoy, then to leave an activity thinking you stayed an hour too long 🙂

Ok, on to the race!