The high point… I finished.

So I woke up this morning (or I should say last night, as it was 2:30am) and made the trek down to Anaheim without incident for the Disneyland Half Marathon.

Unfortunately, the race itself was not “incident free” for me. High heat and humidity (it was 70+ degrees at 5:00am) made for some rather hot racing conditions.

That said, the weather was the least of my problems.

One thing for certain, I was “off” from the get go. Some people would say it was “one of those races,” but I know I wasn’t firing on all cylinders when the gun went off and “Let it Go” started playing for the umpteenth time.

As I’ve mentioned, my running has been less than ideal the past few weeks and it definitely culminated in a heap of suck today.

While I knew I was off pace after mile 4 (my original game plan had me aiming for a 2:10- 2:15 time) I wasn’t horribly behind and since this was really supposed to be glorified “training run,” I wasn’t overly upset.

Then the unexpected happened.

Mickey woulda kicked my ass today.

During my trip to the podiatrist a week ago, he added padding on my right orthotic to change the angle of the insert… a stopgap measure until I got a new orthotic made later this fall (NOTE: Timetable on that will be moving up to ASAP).

At mile 6, the padding shredded (probably because it was saturated from my sweat aka “liquid awesome”) and screwed up how the orthotic sat in my shoe, causing all sorts of problems with my gait and quickly led to foot pain and blisters.

Even a pitstop to the curb where I took off my shoe and fiddled with the orthotic for a few minutes couldn’t make my right foot “right” again.

My foot was hurting, my gait was off and I was completely out of rhythm both physically and mentally.

Oh hell.

This is where you would cue the “wheels coming off” music. The next three miles were a stop-start/run-walk fest (heavy on the walk).

This was clearly not my day. Yup, I was in a world of running suck.

Up ahead I saw a medical tent and for a moment considered pulling the plug on Disney. Certainly the world wouldn’t end if I took a “mulligan” on this particular race.

But in the end I decided that as long as I had the ability to put left in front of right, I was going to finish.

So, I trudged. And trudged. And trudged.

After what seemed an eternity I finally managed to cross the finish line. I accepted my medal, grabbed my snacks, posed for a quick “I survived” finisher’s photo and then hightailed it to the car.

One last bit of irony… at the Disney parking structure, the only escalator up to my level was broken. Figures. So, I had to decide whether to walk it or take the elevator. Guess which I chose? Hint: it involved button pushing.

I plan to expound on this subject later this week. But as for right now, I think it’s time for a bit of a nap.

2014 DISNEYLAND HALF MARATHON

CHIP TIME– 02:42:47

PACE– 12:21 min/mile

CALORIES BURNED– 1,786

Run on!