After a little break it was time to go meet Wayne at the finish line. This is where my planning skills completely failed me...I really didn't think about the fact that for each of the runners there were probably an equal or greater number of fans and I was REALLY surprised when the lines for the Monorail were insanely long and that the monorails were really really crowded.
The rail ride to Epcot was pretty amazing because you could see various parts of the course. For the sections the runners were already through they were using bobcats to scoop up the empty cups. We could actually see some runners coming down the final stretch in Epcot as the monorail circled Spaceship Earth.
As the monorail entered into the Epcot parking lot area it looked at first like it wasn't going to be too crowded and I had high hopes that we might be able to stand near the finish line to see Wayne and Tim cross, but as we got closer it was clear that we weren't going to get anywhere near it, which was very disappointing.
I'd signed up to get texts to my phone so I'd know where he was at key points in the race. The veteran Marathon Spouse had told me that those weren't always good to rely on because they don't seem to get to the phone quickly. Sure enough, I'd gotten one text that he'd started the race, but didn't get any others until the next day. Luckily Wayne's Mom was getting the emails in 'real time' and sent me texts about hit progress. Here is the one saying that he'd finished! Yeah.
Based on the times Wayne's Mom was sending I decided to take the kids to the family waiting area, which seemed like it was a million miles away from the finish line. We walked and walked for ever before reaching the area and then finding the tent with our letter of the alphabet. Apparently the distance from the finish line
allowed the runners to get their medals, space blankets, go through a food/photo line and reclaim their bags from the morning.
While we waited the kids ran around and watched the runners on the jumbo screen. Mostly they tried to keep warm. I watched for Wayne, but wasn't 100% sure where he'd be coming from...and as I noted before there were a lot of people with similar outfits on, and now most of the runners were also bundled in the mylar space blankets which made it even harder to tell people apart.
But then we saw him! And it was amazing!
He'd thought ahead and had us bring a duffle with extra warm clothes, but even with a jacket and extra layers he was still chilled to the bone. I don't think chilled to the bone comes close to how cold he was. But he was so stoked and proud and we were all so proud of him. He called his folks to let them know he was finished and to celebrate with them.
Then we all walked over to wait for Tim to come through the line. He'd had an injury just weeks before the race and wasn't sure he'd do the race at all, so after a while he had adjusted his pace and had Wayne go on ahead because he knew Wayne was hoping to do a 4 hour race.
As he came through the line he spotted Wayne and I believe the first words out of his mouth were "If you EVER talk me into something like this again...." the rest of the crowd around us had no idea who he was talking to, and collectively took a big step backwards...just in case.
1 comment:
Awesome...just awesome!
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