Monday, September 29, 2008

A big step

The Start sign at the beginning of the course

Last weekend, Sue and I went down to Disney World to participate in the Everest Challenge endurance event. It included a 5K run, a short obstacle course, and a scavenger hunt. Sue had heard about it and suggested that we sign up. For me it was a landmark way to put all the challenges of last year behind me. I had been walking some but not in any sort of athletic way so about six weeks ago Sue and I started a program of timed 5K walks to get in better shape. It worked. We did our 5K in our best time ever. We checked the results and we came in with the bottom third of the participants but that's way better than dead last. The course was through the Animal Kingdom park and they kept the park open for the participants after the race so that we could ride the rides and relax a bit. It was a ton of fun. The event was held on Saturday evening. Animal Kingdom usually isn't open at night so it was fun to be there in the dark. The lighting on the Everest ride and the water ride was impressive. It wasn't crowded at all so we were able to go on the water ride three times in a row. We were soaked but happy.
In front of the Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom park

A view of the Everest ride from a bridge at Animal Kingdom

While we were there we did an assortment of other fun things, too. On Friday evening we went to Pleasure Island to go to the Adventurer's Club one last time (first time for me). It closed for good on Saturday and was jammed when we were there. We also toured through Epcot. I had been there before but we did several of the things that I had missed or were new since I was there last. The Soarin' ride was really cool.

What with one thing and another I had slipped way out of shape over these last few years and at this time last year I didn't think I'd be doing anything like this again. This event was a BIG DEAL for me. I had a wonderful time and am grateful to Sue for setting it all up.
Our very cool medals and the race shirts. We got the standard event shirt plus Sue ordered us team shirts. Our team name was Bluffingwildly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for doing this with me. I didn't have the courage to do it by myself. We made a great Bluffingwildly team. Kungaloosh!

Anonymous said...

I admire you for participating in the Endurance challenge. What a fun opportunity to renew and refresh! Too many folks withdraw and do less as they mature. Your active life is an inspiration. :-)