If you follow this column, you know I am a runner. A little more than a year ago, I wrote about my first race, which was a half-marathon in Philadelphia. Later I wrote about my second race, with a focus on the business of these events. This weekend, I ran my first full marathon, which was the Walt Disney World Marathon in Florida. This was an experience like nothing else I have been through, and I would like to share it with you. I apologize for the delay in the publishing of this column, but I was in no condition to write on Sunday evening.

We arrived at Disney on Friday morning, leaving ourselves a couple of days to spend in the parks before the race. We are a big Disney family, and we were excited at the prospect of this short visit, but I knew that I needed to be careful and not overextend myself, particularly on Saturday, as I did not want to try to run 26.2 miles with legs that were tired before I even started. The first challenge was getting up at 3:00 in the morning on Sunday. Due to road closures and the size of the event, transportation was being very tightly controlled, and I had to catch a 3:30 bus in order to comply with the dictates of the organizers. I arrived in my corral before the 5:00 deadline, and then sat down to wait for my 5:42 start. Aside from firing off a few bored tweets, I had little to do, other than to listen to the inane banter of some DJs over the P.A. system. This was okay, as I was focused on the task before me. I had been training for months, and I had done a number of long runs, but nothing longer than twenty miles, so this race was really going to test me in a big way. My hope was that all of the entertainment and distractions that Disney had sprinkled throughout the course would allow me to make it through this crazy distance. I wasn’t going to dash off the road to quickly have my picture taken with Disney characters the way I saw a few people doing, but it was cool that there would be things to see and watch along the way.

I made it to the halfway point with what felt like little effort. I run that distance or close to it on a pretty regular basis, and with the added adrenaline of this day, those miles slipped by with ease. That early part included a run through the Magic Kingdom, by the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian, a lap around the Walt Disney World Speedway, and a bunch of roads that got me to the back of the Animal Kingdom. At that point, I thought that maybe this would be easier than I expected, since I felt like I had an awful lot left in me, and I really only had a half-marathon left to do. I know that I should not have set time goals, with this being my first marathon, but I was hoping to finish in under four hours. Yes, I really just wanted to finish it, but the target time was in my head throughout. I was ahead of that pace at halfway, so I felt good about that. The next five miles went by with no real issues, and I entered the Wide World of Sports Complex feeling pretty good, if a bit tired and rather warm (it had reached 70 degrees or so by that point). I passed the twenty mile point and started into unknown territory. By this point, it became very clear to me that I was tiring.

A few tenths of a mile after the mile 21 marker, there was an uphill run involving a highway ramp from Osceola Parkway onto World Drive. It was the steepest hill of the course, and it came at a very tough time for me. I had heard a lot of talk from runners about “hitting the wall,” a phenomenon that many experience when running some serious distance. The limited research I have done suggests that it’s a real thing, and it involves the body’s reaction when it runs out of glycogen in the bloodstream and starts trying to burn actual body fat to create more. The body (and the mind along with it) almost demands that you stop. Forcing myself to keep going was one of the hardest things I have done. My pace, which was still slightly ahead of my goal up to that point, really suffered from then on. My mind jumped back and forth between a strong desire to stop and lay down and a pointless self-flagellation for not keeping up the pace. Still, I quickly realized that the goal had to go out the window, and that all I should be focused on was my legs continuing to move me forward. The Disney Hollywood Studios and the Boardwalk were a bit of a blur, and I finally arrived in Epcot. The knowledge that my wife, my son, and my parents were all somewhere by the finish line was my focus, and I stared at Spaceship Earth as I went, knowing I would pass under it and be finished shortly thereafter. I rounded the final turn, managed to easily spot them cheering me on despite the huge mass of people there, and coasted the final stretch to the line. I missed my time goal by eleven minutes, but, at that moment, it didn’t matter at all. I had just run a marathon.

During the first two and a half years of my running career, I never considered myself an athlete. I was not terribly fast or anything like that. I was just a guy who ran. On this day, though, I became an athlete.

Good sports, continued:

2) Last week, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted for this year’s slate of players eligible for the Hall of Fame. The list included a number of guys whose careers were called into question because of issues involving performance-enhancing drugs, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro. I am very pleased to report that none of them were elected for enshrinement.

Bad sports:

1) Two high school relay teams brawled at last week’s Hispanic Games in New York.

2) A football player who was days away from enrolling early at USC to play football was told that the school no longer had an early-enrollee spot for him because another kid that I guess they preferred had just committed to them and was looking to enroll early. Another classy move by Lane Kiffin.

3) Milton Bradley, a former Major League Baseball player who was no stranger to legal troubles during his playing days, has apparently not improved as a human being. On Thursday, he was charged with domestic abuse and faces up to 13 years in prison.

4) Chris Rainey, a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was arrested on Thursday for allegedly hitting his girlfriend. The team cut him later that day.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02

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