Ditto, Bob. Hope you had a good time at Disney!

Thanks so much Pam, Mike and Katie for keeping me grounded. I appreciate it very much! I was in a funk leading up to Disney, not being able to run. That's a poor excuse for being absent. My sincerest apologies. I did end up going to Disney, not knowing if I would run. A bunch of friends would be there, so I didn't want to miss out on that and I figured I could cheer everyone else on at the very least. I did end up running. I didn't really want to, knowing it wouldn't be pretty if I did. Not running at all for 12 days before a race, and being undertrained to begin with, is not the best way to approach the Goofy challenge. Plus my ankle tendon was still iffy. Ultimately what made up my mind was an email I got from Amy. Amy is my patient partner from Boston's Children's Hospital, which is my charity for the Boston Marathon. Here was her message: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7828316766219280718 So I ran the half marathon on Saturday with my friend Max. He wanted to break his PR of 1:40. Unfortunately he wanted to break it by 10 minutes! So we ran the first 5 miles at 1:30 half marathon pace, but it was too much for Max, plus it was warm and muggy, and we ended up slowing and finishing in 1:35. Still it was a hard effort. Here we are at the start of the half. That left me pretty sore the next day for the full marathon. You don't want to start off running a full marathon with already sore legs! Needless to say, they didn't feel better as the miles wore on! I ran with the 3:30 pace group, which was my training pace. The effort was fine, but my legs were really sore. At mile 23, I finally had to let the pace group go, my quads felt like they were going to rip apart if I didn't slow down, and I hobbled in in 3:33. The ankle held up reasonably well. It didn't get any worse anyway, which is encouraging. So thanks to Amy's urgings, I'm glad I decided to run. And I'm also glad I have people like you guys looking after me. Thank you again!

AWESOME just AWESOME Bob!!! I tried to see the video but it said not available Amy is one special little girl!! Way to HTFU hun!! Congrats on finishing the goofy challenge despite the obstacle's you've faced as of late!! Very proud of you!! MTA: NICE SHIRT!!

Thank you very much Pam! I thought you'd like the shirt! At the end of the half marathon, some woman reporter comes up to me and asks if I'm from Seattle, and I told her no, that I was from NY. With that, she says "Never mind then" and walks away with a disgusted look on her face. I, and the other runners around me at that point, got a good laugh out of that. "You're from NY? Sorry, don't need you!" I get that not available thing sometimes too when trying to view the video. Try it again, it's worth a peek!

Congratulations Bob! I can't believe you did the half so fast and then the marathon- holy cow! You still beat my PR even though you had to hobble in so I'm very impressed. That video is the sweetest thing I've ever seen- oh my gosh, she's so cute!! Funny story about that Seattle lady- weird! Maybe she's never been to New York or something... Congrats again- hope you can heal up a bit and get some miles in for Boston on healthy tendons!

Katie, with the way you are running right now, you are gonna rewrite you marathon PR BIG TIME in a few weeks! Yay, I'm glad you got to see the Amy video! I cannot wait to finally meet her in April in Boston! Regarding the Seattle lady, maybe she HAS been to NY, and that's why she freaked out and ran away from me! We're a bunch of weirdos here. Thank you for checking in!

Congrats Bob! Glad to hear you made it through your funk and run the Goofy. Hobbling in for a 3:33 - that's just amazing!

Thank you Mike!! I'm still hobbling a bit today. I can totally see you being Goofy some day. You, and your family, would love it!