Castaway Cay 5K!

Well, that was interesting.  I had heard about the Castaway Cay 5k run via pinterest way back in the winter.  I told Mike that he should totally do it since he was already an avid runner.  I would go on the occasional run, but nowhere near 5k, and I figured I would have to watch the kids anyway.  Well I discovered that there is a kids club on the island that all runners check their kids into before beginning the run.  I thought about it for a few minutes and figured, "ok great! Sign me up! This way I can train all summer to run a 5k on September 2! No problem!"

Well, as life goes on, I only ever make it up to running just over 3k in the summer.  I run with Scout, it's boiling hot in southern ontario, and I have 3 kids at home.  Not super conducive to training all summer long.  I'm not a great runner, and 3k is an amazing accomplishment for me.  But anyway, Mike says not to worry it'll be ok and you can just run really slow.  I already run at snail pace, but I figure I can just take a walking break half way and just use the crowd and Mike as a motivation to keep going.  

In the morning we have a good breakfast to charge us up and then go get our numbers.  You can tell there are clearly some serious runners in this crowd.  Not to mention they don't even advertise the run on the cruise at all.  You just have to know about it through word of mouth, or through the RunDisney website.  As soon as the boat is docked the runners get to get off the ship first.  This actually worked out super awesome because on route to the starting line we dropped off our stuff in a prime location on the beach in the shade.  But I'm getting ahead of myself--first we step off the ship and are hit with a blast of intense heat and humidity.  It couldn't have been any cooler than 40 degrees celsius.  "This was a big mistake", I say.  As we make our way to the starting line after dropping the kids off (at what looked like a super awesome kids club with a splash park in it), I couldn't stop thinking about the route the lady had told us about when they prepped us for the run. Two laps though the bike path and down the full blazing sun air strip.  ie. no shade at all.  

So we start running.  I have my Cruise playlist which is actually quite motivating, but after running about 100 meters I was dying.  To make a long and painful story short, it took us 45 minutes.  This was my estimate, and it was spot on.  Crazy freakish runners were lapping us.  I can't even say I ran half of it.  After lap 1 I totally wanted to give up (plus I had to go to the washroom so badly....not sure how i didn't just sweat out all the water I was consuming), but I so desperately wanted to get my first ever medal of my entire life so I kept going.  Poor mike could have ran the whole thing but I held him back big time!! 

The funny thing is that as we finished the race I was thinking about how I would never do that again in my entire life!! But as time passed and I got hydrated and in my bathing suit in the ocean, the runner's high kicked in, and I started thinking, "As long as we go in the winter when it's cooler, I'd totally do that again!".  So next time I'm aiming for a better time!! And to run more vs. walking! Well, I say that now, but maybe I'll chicken out... I mean I already have a medal.