Say it isn’t so? My relay partner
Disney added a new event this year to the marathon weekend called the Chip and Dale relay. A team of two people – one runs the ½ of the Disney marathon – running though Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Then just outside the Magic Kingdom, the first runner tags off to the 2nd runner who runs through Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot. They finish just outside Epcot.
Or at least this is how it is supposedly should work.
On the bus ride back to my hotel after the race another runner shared her story about when the plan doesn't always worked as it should.
As the story goes, she and her teammate had agreed to do the relay. She was to run the first half while her teammate was to run the 2nd half. Everything was going to plan, she took off hard. She ran faster than expected through Epcot. She charged through Magic Kingdom and then headed for the relay point ready to handoff to her teammate.
Here's where the nightmare occurred. No it wasn't that she couldn't find her teammate, because she did.
But at the relay point, her teammate told her she could go. She injured herself. The common sense thing to do was drop out. After all, she was completely spent from dropping a fast ½ marathon time, but no, she asked for her teammate's bib. She exchanged it for her own and promptly took off to run the 2nd half of the marathon.
She ended up 9th overall female even with the time lost in the exchange.
However, do to the fact the she was in the relay category and not the marathon cartegory, she got no recognition for it, medal, or age group award for running the full marathon. All she got was a hard day's work and maybe a little personal satisfaction.
As I listened to her story, I could hardly believe it. I cannot imagine running the first half of marathon leaving everything on the table only to find out that I had another 13.1 miles to run.
Bad situations occur when we least expect them. We can either let them conquer us or we can go about conquering them. In the case, she gets my "kudos" award for being the ultimate team player
By the way, this is really a true story. In the Disney results, their team is called the Disney fanatics and they actually won the all female division. Look up the bib numbers on brightroom.com 70017 and 70018. The pictures are of the same woman coming out of the Magic Kingdom and at the finish.
Sharing one thought at time,
The Cool Down Runner
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