Goofy Day 2 (Mickey) 2012

Another day, another early wake-up call. I woke up feeling excited about the marathon. I was on a quest to complete six marathons in 6 months in order to become a two-star Marathon Maniac and today's race would be my third in 3 months. Halfway there!

Once again, Chuck and I stumbled through the kitchen to prepare our water bottles and fuel belts. And once again, we were grateful for the breakfast provided by the hotel. We met up with our friend (my son's savior from the previous morning) and her husband in the lobby and proceeded to the shuttle bus. Once again, we were all rock stars at the Galloway tent. I usually have a Diet Coke with my breakfast on my long-run mornings*, so I was once again thankful those were provided for us in true VIP fashion.
*Please remember that in an earlier post I mentioned that this is NOT a nutrition blog!

The Birmingham Galloway group had been a bit confused as to the technique used by walkers. Instead of a run/walk/run, the walking strategy is described as walk/shuffle/walk but we never could figure out just how to shuffle. Due to some foot issues, my friend's husband was planning to walk the whole marathon, so we decided to ask Jeff Galloway for a last-minute demonstration of the shuffle technique. He graciously shuffled for about 25 yards and back so we could observe. To my chagrin, I learned my "run" is actually very similar to his "shuffle." It's a close-to-the-ground, low-impact, high-speed forward motion. Afterward, we joked that we should have videotaped his demonstration and created a soundtrack using the LMFAO song where they say "Every day I'm shuffling."

We hung out at the tent for a while but didn't wait until the last minute since another member of our party was a first-time marathoner and was eager to get to the starting corrals. Chuck was running the second leg as a member of the Sorry ExCuses relay team, so he stayed behind for a while drinking coffee (lucky him!) before heading off to the shuttle that would take him to the relay exchange point.

Here is the view of our route in Google Earth (race route from 2010):

If you'd like to check it out using Google Earth, I saved the data HERE. Man, that looks like a long way (and it really was!), but it was a great time. I can no longer remember the details of the race, but I do remember that it was a PR for me. Completely unexpected, and so very thrilling to accomplish.

Chuck finished the second leg of the relay, which earned him a membership into Half Fanatics at the Jupiter (4 moons) level. Sadly, this ended up being the first and last year of the Chip N Dale Marathon Relay. So Chuck has a very special medal and tech shirt that are probably now collector's items.