35: Zombie Baby

My Half Marathon starts at 10pm tonight (yes, you read that right) so I spent the day at Disney World with my close childhood friend Amy and her perfect 3 year old "big boy" Alex.

Here's what not to do the day of a night race... Spend 8 hours walking around in the heat, lifting up and carrying a 35 lb wiggle worm who is hopped up on high fructose corn syrup and chocolate cake, and is desperately in need of a nap but isn't getting one any time soon.

I'm super fast with games of distraction. Won't eat? No problem - food gets carved into shapes. Won't poop - I have a storehouse of effective bribes for that. Wandering off and racing ahead - things I find in my bag get turned into toys. I've got songs and stories and there's always ice to play with. To quote Amy yesterday, "You realize you are entertaining about 15 kids right now!" True that - little necks were craning around snaked 40 minute lines to watch me teach Alex a dance move.

All easy fun for me while there is a basic energy level to work with, but sometime after 3pm, the wall rises up and all that's left is a zombie baby... Eyes wide, mumbling something about blankie (which we left in the car because it was 90 degrees), and Amy and I frantically determined to get one more ride in, or maybe three.

I didn't want to say but at about that time, my feet and legs started to be noticeably sore. I'd taken 45 minutes off after lunch to ice my foot, but on little sleep myself, in the heat, and constantly lifting Amy's little sack of zombie goodness, I was starting to melt down too.

When we finally got out of the park, we were well off schedule. Poopy diapers will do that to you. I grabbed a vegetable spring roll from a cart for dinner (what NOT to eat before a race, by the way) and in the end barely made it to the start on time. Forgot my Nike+ attachment, Vaseline, wristband, and was so tired I lay in the holding pen for 2 hours before the race rubbing my feet and wondering how I was going to keep my eyes open for another three hours, let alone run!

As 10pm approached, people started turning on their light up costumes. A band played. I reluctantly cued up for the port-a-potty. And then, with a few fireworks and the National Anthem, we were off into the darkness...