An Angry Meeting

One of the things that I love about this blog is the ability to connect with runners all over the place. Angry and I have been following each other's blogs ever since we discovered we were both going to be at the same marathon event. Angry and I met up Saturday afternoon after I had finished the half marathon. We found each other in the crowd of people at the UK pavilion and the first words out of his mouth were..."You're taller than I thought." Ah...well...good to know! I thought we would sit down somewhere to chat and hydrate but as it was so busy where we were we just started aimlessly wandering around World Showcase. Before I knew it we had walked all around there and some of Future World and Angry turns to me and mentions we've probably walked about a mile and a half. Uh oh...so much for resting my feet! We make our way back to the UK and find a bench but pretty soon I have to rush off for my pre-race dinner at Spoodles at the Boardwalk.

We planned to meet up at the start of the marathon, but thanks to two missteps that didn't happen. #1 - I wasn't wearing my glasses so couldn't actually see Angry. #2 - I had told him I would be wearing safety yellow and never followed through on that. By the time I rolled in to the finish line Angry and his family were already eating lunch at the German restaurant.

Several e-mails had flown back and forth before the race about celebrating post-marathon at Pleasure Island. Runners get free admission so we were supposed to meet up, share stories and a few drinks. I texted Angry around 8:30 to see if he was still in but I got the reply "I am an old man and am going to bed." Sigh...with no one to party with I turned in for the evening.

Angry and I met back up at the UK again on Monday and swapped race stories over a beer. Once the beers were done we wandered over to the ride at Norway where I oohed and ahhed over the offshore oil platforms your little boat passes by. From there we stopped in at Germany to grab another beer and headed over to Spaceship Earth to people watch. Along the way Angry wanted to stop and get a picture of us with our beers doing a simultaneous head tilt. I think he was hoping for a picture like this:

But this was what we got instead. Better luck next time on the head tilt Angry.

You could tell the marathoners in the crowd - mostly from the tell tale limp, but several folks were sporting their shirts or their medals. We noticed one fellow wearing jeans, his race shirt, and his fuel belt. I guess you never know when you are going to need to hydrate at Epcot... It was terrific meeting up with Angry. Hopefully opportunities for other blogger meet ups will happen in the future!