Race Report: My First Marathon - Mickey 2012: Part 3

Part Three: Post-Race & The Magic Kingdom

Did you miss Part Two: The Race?  Check it out here.

My makeshift ice bath.

During training, I had a lot of success using ice baths after my long runs to aid in recovery, so I knew that I wanted to do something similar after the marathon, but since Carrie and I were sharing a room, neither one of us wanted to wait on the other to take one before we could take ours - so I came up with the solution of hopping in the pool!  After all, it was just footsteps from our hotel room door, and it wasn't heated - so it would definitely do the trick!  So I took off all my electronics (errr...except the heart rate monitor which was under my bra strap that I'd forgotten about...oops!), hobbled over to the pool, and not-so-elegantly slipped in.  It was definitely cold, but exactly what I needed!  After a few minutes, mom came out and sat by the pool to keep me company.  I stayed in for about 40 minutes, and I even did some underwater leg stretches while I was in there - something that "hurt so good."

At dinner with our medals

Mmmm.  Raglan Road.

After getting cleaned up, putting on my compression gear, relaxing and reorganizing a little bit, it was time for our celebratory dinner.  Carrie requested that we eat at Raglan Road at Downtown Disney, one of her favorite restaurants on property.  We were able to enjoy pre-dinner drinks, bread, and a delicious meal - all without any guilt - since we knew we'd already burned off the calories!  After dinner it was back to the room for a well-deserved night's sleep.

Thanks to the ice bath, stretching, wearing compression gear, and walking around Downtown Disney on Sunday night, I felt surprisingly good on Monday morning.  I'm not saying I wasn't sore, but I felt much better than I thought I would, with the exception of my tender feet - but that was expected.  On top of feeling remarkably good, we were all very excited to get to wear our "I Did It!" shirts that we'd purchased at the Expo.

Mickey & Minnie were impressed!

Monday morning we were at the Magic Kingdom in time for the opening ceremony, and then we made a beeline for the Town Square Theater to show Mickey our Mickey medals!  We were the "First Family" of the morning, so we got to spend some extra time with the two of them.  Mickey was very impressed that we had run "his" race the day before,

On Tom Sawyer Island

and Minnie seemed very happy that we'd run dressed as her!  We spent the whole day exploring the Magic Kingdom - riding our old favorites and experiencing things we hadn't done in a while, like Tom Sawyer Island (which was a little more challenging than usual with post-race soreness.)

BFFs!

Family!

Finishers!

Pooh at Crystal Palace

Tigger

Crystal Palace is one of our favorite post-race meals.  Good food, fun characters, and a view of the castle makes for a great respite during a busy day at the park!  Plus, Pooh and Eeyore are two of my favorite characters, so I'm always up for seeing them!  And Pooh loved our bobbly ears!

Piglet

Eeyore

Main Street Electrical Parade

One Last Picture!

After a full day, including watching the Main Street Electrical Parade, and Wishes! fireworks, it was once again back to the hotel for our last night at WDW.  The next morning we had to take one last picture on property with our medals before catching Magical Express back to the airport and getting back to the "real" world.