During the pre-race festivities, there’s a roaming camera and commentator who chats with people in the corrals, looking for cool costumes or interesting stories, selling the idea of magic in the miles we’re about to undertake. Some are inspiring – a person running in honor of a loved one, raising awareness and money for a disease that if it afflicts even one family member is honestly one too many. Some are silly – the gals today dressed as Pigs in Space complete with an inflatable Swinetrek spaceship. But sometimes, as is all too often the case with public discourse, an intended message is lost in the reality of how the mob takes the tale.
Such was the case with the woman today who said she decided yesterday at the Expo to sign up for the four-day Dopey Challenge, not having trained before, not having run a marathon before, but she was just so inspired by everyone. But here’s the thing — there is no race-day registration. In fact, the races have been sold out for months… they sell out within hours and sometimes minutes of being posted… and this despite the extreme prices Disney charges. So what the organizers thought might be a charming story about a person braving a challenge, perhaps foolishly given the lack of training, was taken by me and many around me as an outrage. Who was this person who apparently did not have to abide by the rules? I had friends who couldn’t register months ago when registration opened because the system crashed and the events had sold out. Why were they denied and this woman was allowed to just Walt(z) in and get a bib? I suspect there will be more than a few angry emails sent to runDisney. And I can only imagine what the social media pitchforks will look like. I’m barely on any such things — I have this silly little blog and do my utmost to avoid the ‘Book, the ‘Tok, the ‘Gram, the whatzits and whatnots. But I’m tempted to try and find someone who is still submerged in the social media cesspool to see if they can let me know what the temperature is on this. Maybe I’m alone in my tut-tuting and rage against the Mouse House money machine. But it certainly felt like a slap in the face to anybody who followed the rules and registered in a timely manner… even if that meant using five devices to try and get into the registration page on the day of release for bibs.
On the plus side, I caught up as I do every year with N and A. So I suppose one should accentuate the positive.
Day One of Four: I’ve done something to my leg – overuse or pulled something. Nothing is broken per the X-rays. I’ve been seeing a really great PT person (which isn’t always the case — most of them seem like they’re more interested in billing my insurance company rather than helping me get better. Not so the good people at Vissers — if you’re in Orlando and need some help, these are the folks to see!). But my leg is… dodgy? Wonky? Wobbly? All of the above? It hurts though about the same running as walking… and it doesn’t hurt worse for having run… so, well, as far too many runners do when injured it’s off to the races and on with the show.
Speaking of, here’s the characters I came across in today’s 5K:
Tomorrow: the 10K.