I had a hard day, with some medical issues that I thought I had conquered in my training coming back to bite me. While I did not make my goal, I am happy to report that I finished the marathon. I am choosing to label this in my mind as "The Day I Did Not Quit," and to focus on the fact that I was able to get through even though things did not go as planned.
Overall, I think the course is really great. I am a strange one: I like WWOS. I enjoyed seeing the sports teams, having real bathrooms there, the lap around the track, and, especially, all the awesome spectators in the baseball stadium. I LOVED the Streetmosphere characters at the entrance to the Studios, and the run through MK was the highlight of my day. I also like the run from DHS all the way to the finish. I worried about slipping on the boardwalk because of the rain, but it was not a problem.
I was so grateful to all the volunteers, and hope to be one of them some time soon.
The only part of the course I really hated was the race track. That steep hill was brutal, especially since everybody around me stopped to walk it, and the lap around that track just seemed to go on forever. The car people were really nice, though.
One thing I wish Disney could do something about is all the people who buy up all the merchandise to sell it on EBay. For items like the Magic Bands, I wish they would do some kind of pre-order so that if travel plans prevent you arriving on Wednesday you can still get one.
One of my favorite things about Disney is that everybody is treated with equal care: start in A or start in P, and you get the same fireworks at the start, the same enthusiasm along the course, and the same food at the end. RunDisney is a great blow to the "running elitism" that you sometimes hear in the running world. (Runner's World posted a nasty, hateful article just today complaining about slow people like me who are "ruining" the marathon.) At Disney, each person's journey is respected, and I love that.
I hope all of you are doing ok with getting back to real life. Congratulations everybody! I hope you all met your personal goals and had a lot of fun, and if you did not meet your goals, I hope you are choosing to focus in all that you DID achieve on this long journey.