Unlike any of my characters, I am not an athlete.

Yes, I swam competitively for a few years when I was a teenager, and I did flirt with both soccer and baseball at earlier points in my life.  But somewhere along the way, I wound up taking the fork in the road that had me spending more time as a service-oriented volunteer instead of spending hours in the pool to shave off a few seconds from my best time.  While there is a part of me that lives vicariously through my fictious Olympians, that was just never the path I was ever destined to take.

I continue to swim for fitness reasons, though, for my career is sufficiently stressful enough to need some sort of outlet that can help to balance out everything.  It’s sort of hard to describe the Zen-like aspect of watching the tiles glide by beneath you as you work your way from one end of the pool to the other; when I was an age-group swimmer, I often thought of it as monotonous and boring.  Now, like both Sean and Vasily, I find it has become part of the ritual of getting to that blissful meditative state that can shake loose whatever it is that is currently of concern.

My wife has long been a runner.  Her grace as she glides over the pavement has always brought a special smile to my face, for it is truly something special to behold.  When she suggested I join her for an outing – extolling the very virtues I espouse over swimming — I repeatedly demurred; the fear that a swimmer such as myself could never cover the same distance on land was real, and one that I didn’t overcome until the mid-2000s.  

What changed, you asked?  In short, Disneyland.  

Paula signed up for a 5K hosted by the Happiest Place on Earth and as I cheered her on, I realized the race looked like a ton of fun.  Organized as only Disney can, they had music and characters and theming that elevated the simple act of running to something else entirely.  Having the racecourse plotted through the parks was just the icing on the proverbial cake.

So, I began to run.  Slowly at first, then increasing both speed and distance until I found what was my comfort zone.  Paula encouraged me to register with her for a three-run series hosted by a local organization here in Tucson, partly so we could run together but also so I could experience what it was like to navigate a course with a bunch of other people at the same time.  That proved to be especially prudent, for I’d had no idea the sort of dynamics required when sharing the road with a crowd; by the time I finally arrived in Walt Disney World in 2017 to run my first Disney race, I felt like I was ready to tackle whatever I faced.  The two of us had a great time in Orlando, and soon, other runDisney races appeared on our schedule; I even began contemplating tackling the half-marathon distance – and, perhaps, qualifying for the special Coast-to-Coast award if I did a half in both Anaheim and Orlando.  Things were looking spectacular as we wrapped up another 10K at Walt Disney World in January 2020.

And then, COVID hit.

The world shut down, and with it, our next race in 2021 at WDW.  During that first year, the pools I normally used also remained closed, so running became the only way for me to try and decompress from the incredible events we were forced to live through.  Those early morning runs allowed me to keep enough of an even keel to deal with the insanity of trying to keep a top ten business school functioning technologically while working out of my living room.  They also allowed me to hang on to the dream that I might yet run that half at Disney – someday, perhaps, when the world reopened.  

Which of course it did.

Fast forward to this past weekend; after years of effort and twenty-two weeks of focused training, I completed my first ever half at Disneyland during their Halloween runDisney weekend.  And just to emphasize how all-in I’ve become on this running thing, I ran the 5K and 10K as well – which, according to the spiffy t-shirt I received, winds up being slightly more than 19 miles in total over three days.  Toss in a few days wandering the park and, yes, there are parts of me that I didn’t know could even be sore – but I’ve also never been happier at hitting a personal goal.  (It wasn’t particularly fast, mind you, but I did clock in at 2:30 on the half.  Not bad for a first timer.)

I’m not done, of course.  I’m getting ready for the back half of that goal now, that being running the same three distances in Orlando later in October.  The Wine and Dine Weekend was one of the first ones Paula and I raced together years ago, so there is something wonderfully poetic about it being the coda for this leg of my running journey.  I learned quite a bit during my first outing in Anaheim, but also know Florida is a different critter.  I’ll have to lean into my training and, as the race announcers told us last weekend, be at peace with whatever pace I muster.  That sounds like great advice no matter the sport.