It all started last September when Doc and I participated in the Disneyland Half Marathon, about which I never posted. Swanie had already started to work on me for the March 2010 Princess Half, even before the 2009 Disneyland Half. She pointed out that if I finished the Princess and the Disneyland in the same calendar year, I could earn two medals. She even offered that, one way or another, she could help me figure out extremely low-cost if not free housing options. Something about sticking with her because she had connections or some such thing...
By mile 5 of the Disneyland Half, I knew I needed to do this again. It must have been the adrenaline, that's all I can figure. When DaddyDoc and I saw swanie at the finish line, I asked the announcer to tell her over the microphone that I was going to do the Princess. And he did. All we had to figure out was the logistics.
That's where my mother and sister came in. I suspect that they were motivated partly by love for me and also partly for concern over my health. I know how they operate. "What? PerkyMommy's considering more exercise??? How can we enable her to make sure this happens???"
That said, I'm not complaining. When I mentioned it to my mother, aka GrandmaChurchLady, her immediate response was "How much is the registration fee? I don't have a birthday gift for you yet, how about if I help pay for that for your birthday?" But I still had another concern: DaddyDoc had used up so much of his vacation time for various Scout camping festivities in 2009 that his pool was running dry. I worried about asking him to take time off for this endeavor. GrandmaChurchLady and AuntieDoc did not skip a beat. They volunteered to come stay with my family so that Doc could go to work while I would be gone.
Swanie ended up making reservations with her Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) points for three nights, Friday through Monday. I really had wanted to fly in on Thursday, both to have more time in the parks but also to be able to hit the Race Expo the first day. At Disneyland, I missed getting a lot of the merchandise I wanted by arriving on Saturday. I have priorities, you know.
I offered to swanie that if she was willing to fly out with me on Thursday, I would gladly make a room reservation. She agreed. I called my Jennifer@AAA to ask about a room on Thursday night at the All Star Music. She remembered that I had upgraded to a Walt Disney World Annual Pass and booked an awesome AP rate for our room Thursday night.
With all of these dates set, my mom and sister divided up the time. On Thursday, my mom would drive out to our place and stay overnight. She picked up the kids from school, made sure that their homework was finished, made them dinner, got them ready for bed, made them breakfast in the morning, got them to and home from school on Friday and before she left Friday night, she made and cleaned up dinner all over again. On Saturday, my sister came out. She spent the weekend with the family and Monday. She told her office to not schedule any patients for her on Monday. Private practice doctors don't get paid vacation. If they don't see patients, they don't get paid, you know. So on Monday she took care of my kids. Each night she was here, AuntieDoc took one of her nephews out on a date. And yet, even then, on Sunday and Monday, she made dinner for Doc and the boys who stayed home!
I will leave it up to the reader to decide who my mom and sister spoiled more, me or my family. In either case, we were pretty darn blessed.
And so with swanie's promised accommodations and my mom and sister's promised support, I went to Florida. To walk 13.1 miles in under a 16-minute pace.
On the one hand, it seems a little nuts of me. I could have saved a lot of money and sweat just staying home. But. I would get to bring home some pretty bling.
Assuming I finished.
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