This update is long overdue. I’ll start the story quick. I ran the Disney Dine & Wine Half with the flu. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that. I survived. It didn’t feel good. I was sick for, oh, three weeks….and that brings us to Las Vegas.
I spent a couple days in Zion hiking and resting up for the big day in Vegas. I was just beginning to come out of my flu fatigue and still not 100%.
Back in Vegas, I realized I left my wallet in the rental car. After a mad dash back to the airport, I broke into our rental car (it wasn’t hard, they leave the windows down) and retrieved my wallet from under the passenger seat. I have no idea how it got there.
Having raised over $7,500, I attended the Team Challenge VIP party for the second year in a row. My mom had to change her flight plans and missed the VIP party, but I had a great time and finally got to meet some of my Twitter “friends” who are also superstars for CCFA. Had a chance to hang out with my coach Chris Adams as well.
My mom did make it for the pasta party! We didn’t have much time together, but it was great seeing her. I started running because of her and will continue to fundraise every year until they find a cure for Ukcerative Colitis.
On Sunday, I strapped on my VivoBarefoot Evos (yes no socks) and headed to the rather warm start line. Not expecting it to be so warm, I had a wardrobe malfunction with my Team Challenge jersey instantly starting to chafe over my tank top and my left foot hurt a little. I ignored those little issues.
Being in corral 28, we started about an hour after the gun. It was slow. I ran out to pee once. I was already tired of standing up by the time we hit the start line.
And then we were off. I had a good group of girls with me and, of course, ArtBoy. What was that ahead? A photo-op.
Having been deprived of all photo-ops and fun stops at Disney because ArtBoy rightly figured I’d either give in to fever or get swept if we stopped, I veered off the course for a photo in front of the Las Vegas Sign. I will say, they photographers were extremely streamlined compared to Disney photogs and people were through that line in a jiffy. ArtBoy almost missed the stop but he caught on and we had our first photo taken.
From mile 1 to mile 3 or 4 (I’m guessing because I never saw any mile markers), I was pretty bored. It was basically a loop around the Las Vegas sign by the helicopter side of the airport. No bands, no water, no anything. A guy holding a Jesus sign did keep passing us over and over again–the miracle of Jesus.
Once back on the strip things went faster. I had run exactly one training run between Epcot and Vegas, so we were taking it real slow. We stopped and took photos, ArtBoy went to the bathroom a few times, we hung out with my parents for five minutes or so. We generally had the race I wish I had at Epcot–we had fun.
About the time we veered off the strip, I had to pee. My Team Challenge coaches said every water stop would have 30 or more portapotties and every stage would have maybe 2 or 3. That was not the case at all. Port-a-johns were scattered through the course willy nilly, some stages had rows of them, some had one. Some water stops had no bathrooms at all. Regardless, for these couple miles off strip, there were no bathrooms, no water stops and no bands. Having to pee made my belly and sides cramp upm which led to the chafing of my shirt to really start to hurt, and that foot thing, what was up with my left foot? Those were probably the slowest 3 miles of my life (I would have peed in the median, but we were running through empty commericial area, the land of churches, and then Fremont). And they were real slow; I’m positive I only felt like I was running, but was really just walking slow.
I hit the first bathroom I saw and came out like cheetah. Well, like someone who could run again. The chafing still hurt, but at least I could move again. It’s crazy how one small thing makes everything else so much worse.
We took some more photos. We stopped and talked to a lot of team members who were alone. We ran into some friends. We had a great time.
I should have ran the last mile in, but my foot was really hurting, so we took a couple of 1 minute walk breaks to shake it off. We finished at the exact same time as the Epcot Food and Wine, just over 3 hours. I felt slow, but I know we had a fun unlike Epcot where I just wanted to finish and had a miserable time. I knew going in, having had the flu and not running, that I would be slow, so I was perfectly happy with it!
Then the death march. I honestly think the moment after crossing the finish line until I get out of the secured area is the worst of any run. The 1 mile hike down the strip at snail speed before being shot out by the Paris hotel sucked and felt like 5 miles. By this time I couldn’t put pressure on my darned left foot.
My parents never found the finish line to meet us. Well they found the finish line and then went looking for the Team Challenge tent and gave up after walking a mile down the strip. We finally found them in the hotel where they handed off our finish line margaritas.
Oh that foot thing: I had a blister the size of Cancun on the bottom of my foot and between every toe. I noticed the pain before the race, but passed it off as just a foot thing. Had I looked, I would have put something on it. It didn’t feel like a blister. It felt like I stepped on a nail, with very localized pain in one spot in the center of my toe pad. How do you even get a giant blister between every toe?
In the end, I raised over $10,000 for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and had an awesome time. Now to work on my pace!!!!
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