There I was, weaving my way through to the front of the starting line at the Disney World half marathon when something catches the corner of my eye. I think to myself, “Was that who I think that was? Noooo, it couldn’t be… could it?” I look again, but she’s gone, and so I refocus myself and fiddle with my camera until the guns go off. 3 minutes later, as I’m breezing through the starting crowd I see her again. Its Snow White!! And she’s holding 6:30 miles to boot!
Like any heterosexual male would do I immediately jump on her tail and follow from a safe distance. As it happened I was digitally recording the run and felt that my efforts would be well rewarded if I centered the video around her. (Turned out it was too dark) For fives miles I follow Snow White through Disney property until we enter the Magic Kingdom. Then, somewhere in Tomorrowland, Snow White stops for a photo-op with Chip & Dale and I am forced to acknowledge that our time together had come to a close. I spend the rest of the race dwelling on happy adult thoughts.
Marathon day. This run might’ve been wholly unremarkable if not for the turn around at mile 21. There it was that I saw a very familiar sight, the most famous princess of them all… Minnie Mouse! (whether or not she’s a princess is up for debate) I had seen this very same Minnie Mouse at last year’s race and was extraordinarily frustrated when she passed me by at a similar section of the course. But this year was going to be different… this year I was going to catch her! I revved it up into high gear and over the next three miles inched my way closer. With just a few hundred yards to go I finally overcame her. It was a victory for men everywhere!
Then, as Minnie Mouse and I were approaching the finish line I heard a most confusing and later horrifying announcement:
“…and here comes another Goofy challenger, Andrew Suderman (me) from Calgary Alberta, together with Tetsutomo Iizuka (Minnie) from Tokyo Japan!”
Now I’m not terribly familiar with Japanese names, but that sure as heck didn’t sound very feminine to me. And sure enough, it wasn’t. Here are some of the photos I pulled from asi photos a couple weeks ago. That princess was a dude… twice.
Hence the nightmares this past month. The full first-person timelapse video of the half mary can be viewed here. Its the first of its kind I believe.