Wrapping Up Goofy Challenge Trip

February 9, 2013

In case it wasn’t clear from all the posts about the various races (5k, half, and full marathon), this trip was pretty magical.

I thought I was going to be able to wrap up the magical-ness into some riveting blog post. Maybe it’s ’cause I’ve been away for weeks, or maybe it’s ’cause I’ve hit all the great parts, but I don’t think I have a super riveting post to write.

I pretty much just wanted to say that things were so chill – so very, very chill.

I had considered going back to try again at The American Idol Experience in Hollywood Studios. (I glossed over that in the last Orlando trip, ’cause I don’t like to admit that I didn’t make it to the final round. (Grr at myself.) It wasn’t my best performance or best song choice… But there’s always next time – if I come back a next time.

When I first fell short, I was determined to come back to Orlando as soon as humanly possible to try to undo my failure. Then I realized it’s the re-creation of some show I don’t even care for, in a theme park. Why do I let it get me so riled up? I was actually acting pretty normal and human about it by letting it go and not squandering my whole vacation trying to “fix” the performance that disappointed me the time before… (But let’s get real. I still might go back and try again another time.))

We didn’t go to any of the parks (though I went through them all during the marathon). This was one of the few vacations where I actually unpacked my whole suitcase. Just chill out… Spend some time in the hotel acclimating (and obviously watching runDisney TV on loop). It was just so nice that everything was so very relaxed.

Since this was almost the last trip of the journey, I didn’t have a bunch of planning and logistics in the back of my mind for future things I had to work out, which was nice (and ultra-not-time-consuming).

I just unpacked, watched a bunch of TV, spent a bunch of time talking to my dad. And it was the loveliest.

I spent the entire weekend giving all of my energy to the marathon – didn’t try to squeeze anything else in, didn’t worry about anything else – just focused on one thing. I soaked it all in and enjoyed every second.

(Not to say you shouldn’t fit some other stuff in. For some people it’s great. For me it was nice to decompress and just to one thing (or one series related things).) (Although, we did stay longer and go to a basketball game. More on that tomorrow.)

My dad and I met this amazing group from Canada on one of the many buses going to an even for marathon weekend – and we seemed to bump into them everywhere (which wasn’t too surprising considering we were staying at the same hotel and doing all of the same races).

If you’d like to check out the blog of one of my amazing new Canadian friends, you can see it here.

I cannot emphasize enough, by the way, how much my dad took care of me over the weekend and how much I appreciated it. He was basically my personal race crew. He made sure to always have on him anything I might need – Gatorade, Shot Bloks, flip flops to change into. If I said I was in the mood for a burger, he wouldn’t rest until we found one. He always let me go to bed crazy early. He made the races as easy as they could’ve possibly on me, and I am so lucky and thankful for that.

All trip long, Disney called everything “magical.” I know the company seems to really love that word. I don’t want to overuse it or anything. But really, it actually was pretty magical.

It’s nice when things turn out even better than you’d imagined them. I imagined a big ending to the project, and I imagined a great time at Goofy. But the whole weekend seemed to work out so perfectly. It fully lived up to (and surpassed) expectations. (Yay!)

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