A Big Well Done to you all, not been on for a few weeks I think... not sure where to begin with me 
....
went for my last long run on 23rd dec and was fine til about 12miles, energy hit the floor and I wheeled back to finish of at a 13miler. Struggled through until Christmas Day night, then spent the next 3 days in bed with a terrible headache, fever, aching all over, I thought it was "man-flu" but it turned out to be the real thing 
the next 4 days were spent in bed or on sofa while the flu tried to go and a chest infection set in! Went to the doc and she confirmed it was flu and to carry on doing what I was doing to get well (which involved taking far too much paracetemol/codeine), while taking a weeks course of anti-biotics for the chest. She signed me off work until I was due to fly to US on weds, and I said "I will be ok by the 13th as I have to run a marathon on 13th?". She lifted her head and peered over the top of her glasses and said "You're not going to be running any marathons in the next few weeks!"
Went for a run on the 6th as my anti-biotics had run out, managed 4 miles but the nasty green snotty stuff I coughed up during and especially at the end shouldn't be described on here (oops sorry, just did 
)
Saturday I felt ok and lined up for the start, went well for the most of it, couldn't keep cool, poured so much water over myself I thought I was going to end up with webbed feet like Donald! I had to slow later on and took a few pics with characters and was pretty pleased with sub 1:40 (Not even paced and I thought I was working too hard for my miles late on).... Donald medal ... in the bag!
Sunday, I was a bit over ambitious. Went off with the 3:15 pace group, managed 3 miles with them but was struggling, so gradually dropped away from them to run my own run. At 6 miles I hadn't slowed much and was still around 3:16, then it hit me and I started to go backwards, at 8 miles I switched to survival mode. Each drink station I hit a cup of yuckerade at the beginning and tried to grab every cup of water in the line, to tip over my head as I was struggling to keep cool. Ground down to a walk at 16.6miles (I did manage to get a few photo stops in as it kept me going... especially like Lightning McQueen as my little lad loves Cars!! - and Donald, Mickey and Goofy at 20 miles) plus had to have a couple of emergency loo stops, I think the last was because I tried to eat one of their gel products, was like trying to eat thick jam straight from the jar but with a horrible taste. I tried to spit it out, but it stuck to the inside of my mouth, lol! Jogged as much as I could and walked when I couldn't, I adopted a sponge in ESPN I think it was, I dropped him between 24 and 24.5, I was like Tom Hanks when he lost Wilson in Castaway, I was so sad 
or delerious... not sure which?!
25 miles came and Epcot came into sight and I managed to perk up a bit and managed to almost run to the line, got a big high 4 from Donald on the line and had to fight from bursting into tears (I'm not normally the cry at the end of a race kind of guy, haha)
WOW that was TOUGH .... hats off to all those who do Goofy year after year. Mind you I'm not sure I could put up with all those "Good Job"s and "awesome"s and "looking real good"s when you know you're not 
My time, thanks to my "Epcot Burst" was just under 4 hours, not too bad but what a tough 2nd half of a marathon that was!!
