I slowly open my eyes still half asleep and all I can hear is my Mom saying, “Jack wake up and get dressed quickly if you want to get to the start line before the race starts, it’s already 4:30.” I quickly jump up and get dressed faster than I ever have gotten dressed before.
“Yes it’s finally the day I’ve been waiting for,” I muttered to myself. My dad pins on my bib and all suited up in my uniform I go and walk out of our room into the kitchen. I quickly gobble up a yogurt with my brother Carter and then we both go down stairs to meet some of our neighbors who also signed up. Everyone is supportive but I know they don’t think I’m going to make it to the end. We’re late as usual and our neighbors tell us we need to come quickly. We speed walk over to the start which is about 15 minutes away. Carter's best friend Carl is way faster and is in a farther up coral so we split up and go our own way. Carter and I are in coral C and we make it with minutes to spare. The wait slowly climbs down and the closer the start gets the more nervous I am. Were about to start!
“3, 2, 1, GO!” says the announcer. I start off at a steady 9:30 pace with Carter. We pass a gate into the Disney park. There are lot’s of workers cheering all the runners on. It’s quite dark out so all the lights on the roller coasters were on. They are super bright. It’s a crazy experience being there so early in morning. The frozen air feels super refreshing and numbs out my body. It’s so cold out that I can't even feel my legs. Probably a good thing that I can't feel the pain. It's already been a mile and it feels as if it had just started. Still going strong at a 9:30 pace I push on. Everything seems to be fine. Now around 3 miles in we leave the park into the behind the scenes area. The pain started coming on and all I could do was think about what would happen if I did complete this race. I could prove everyone wrong. This gave me anger and a way to push on. Finally the first water/Gatorade station. I try to signal my brother to also get a drink but he just runs right through. I decide to skip this one and hope that my brother would slow down at the next one. The behind the scenes area wasn’t very big so we’re now running out on the street.
“Wow so many bands from so many schools.” I say to Carter. He responds
“lookout!” One of the band people had their instrument in the road. It trips me and I fall down with a tremendous amount of force. I hear some people fighting and I see a bearded dark skinned man being taken away by policemen. He stares directly at me while being taken away. I didn’t think to much of it. Some of the other runners help me up and with a few scrapes I push on. But then I realized that my brother was gone. I start running at a much faster pace but I can’t find him. I start running faster but I’m afraid of wasting too much energy. Then I see a sign that says 4 miles.
“Already?!” I think to myself. I couldn’t believe the fact that 4 miles had already gone by. It felt as if the race had started 10 minutes ago. Still frantically looking for my brother I see another water/gatorade station right after the 4 miles mark. I speed up a little bit and hope that my brother is getting a gatorade to drink. As I’m passing through I grab one of the cups and just drink as much as possible. I end up spilling half of it on myself. Still no sign of my brother I start losing hope. “There's no way I’m going to find him” I mutter under my breath. “He’s probably farther forward.” Still I find a way to keep running even under the pain the race has induced on me. I look at my watch and check the time. “5:45” I say aloud. Everyone looks at me with an odd look on their face. As I’m going over this bridge i hear a click sound behind me. I look back and see a man with a prosthetic limb. I just think to myself that if he can run a half marathon then I can too. I slowly speed up and after about a minute of going faster I finally see my brother again. He's a good distance in front of me but i’m just happy to see him. This once again made me want this so bad that I couldn’t give up if my body wanted to. Every single mile that went by multiplied the pain. While running pain doesn’t climb at a steady pace. If you run 4 miles it will slightly hurt but if you run 6 miles it will feel like you're on fire.
Finally I catch up to my brother around 6 miles and the pain is so intense because I messed up my pace while catching up.  I feel as if I’ve been stabbed and I’m bleeding to death but I’m not even halfway done. Slowly as I return to my normal pace a little pain goes away. “Finally a liquid station,” I yell in relief! My brother doesn’t stop or even take a glance but I go and get a drink anyways. I try to go at the same pace while drinking the refreshing gatorade. It helped so much just to be hydrated again. A surge of energy shoots through my body and most of the pain goes away. My brother starts speed up a little bit so I speed up too. Out of nowhere a quadcopter fall out of the sky and the super speed blades slice into my my right legs flesh. “What are the chances?!” I scream out in pain. Just after running a few steps the gash opens up a little more and the pain increases. Luckily Carter heard me scream and he turns around and comes back. We quickly find a worker who gives us a first aid kit. We wrap up my leg in gauze just good enough to hold up during the rest of the race. As I’m walking back to the road where the race was I look over to the side and see the same bearded dark skinned man but this time with a quadcopter controller in his hands. I tell my brother and he says
“It doesn’t matter it probably was just an accident.”
We start running again but the gauze doesn’t really help with pain. I keep pushing and am trying to hold out as long as possible. I felt as if nothing could get worse. But I was wrong. All of a sudden while passing the 7 miles sign a huge rock comes and slams on my head. I go black out in an instant. Being tripped by an instrument, getting hit by a drone, being hit by a rock and the dark skin bearded man doing two of these acts. This just wizzes through my mind and I feel the pain over and over again in a never ending loop. I open my eyes and everything is blurry. When things start getting clearer I hear women saying
“Are you okay?” I sit up and see so many people just crowding around. I ask them
“What happened?” They tell me how a rock was thrown by some bystanders who ran away. I feel my head and there's a huge bump that aches whenever I touch it. I get handed an ice pack and I ask them “Did you see what the bystanders looked like?” A younger kid walks up to me and says
“There was a creepy man in a mask. He was dark skinned too.” I ask him if he had a beard but all I got was maybe before his parents pulled him away. All I can think to myself is that this has to be set up. The same man has repeatedly hurt me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I look around for my brother but he nowhere to be seen. My first assumption is that he kept running but the people said that he walked off with the bearded man. I hand back the ice pack and just keep on running. All I could think was about this man and how I had to complete this race. I decided to put racing over safety and decided to push on. I’m better rested now so I decide to go at a 9 minute pace. Everything seems fine but I’m always on the lookout for the same bearded man. I start speeding up and finally I pass the 8 miles sign. I continue running and then remembered how my brother went with the bearded man. A few ideas pop into my head. Maybe my brother is the planner of trying to stop me from completing this race or maybe he was trying to catch him. I put these ideas behind me because nothing strange is happening and I’m still running a comfortable pace. Passing the 9 mile sign I’m extremely surprised that I don’t see the same man. Nothing happens for the next 3 miles and now I’m about 12 miles in. I start running harder and faster than I ever had before. Even with cuts and bruises all over my body I find a way to go faster. I’ve forgotten completely about the dark skinned bearded man and can’t find my brother but whatever. I’ve decided that I’m going to complete this race no matter what gets in my way. Now into the twelfth mile I see over 20 people all barfing on the side as if they had been poisoned. A quarter mile later there were people passed out in the middle of the street with runners running around them. Then right before the end of the the twelfth mile I hear a man yell
“You’re next JACK!” Just as I hear that I get whacked on the head by a swinging object. I wake up watching the police chase down the strange man. They taser him and he falls like a dead object. The police handcuff him then come over to me and ask if I need any help. I tell them that my head hurts. They quickly check me up. and they say I shouldn’t keep racing but I ignore their advice and continue on. As I pass the bearded man I say
“KARMA!” and then start sprinting. I sprint the last quarter mile and 5 feet before the finish line I lose my balance and faint. - All I can think about is that I didn’t make it to the end. I couldn’t get past the finish line. I hope nobody picks me up or moves me. I want to wake up and just be able to run past the finish line. I quickly open up my eyes and as things start getting - clearer I see a nurse and I’m on a bed. Before I can say anything she says
“Drink some water” while handing me a water bottle. I gulp down the whole water bottle completely. After I’ve caught my breath I ask her
“Where did you find me?” The nurse says
“Some runners helped carry you over, they said that they found you a just after the finish line.”
“Yes” I scream aloud and the nurse just giggles and congratulates me. I tell her my parents phone number and she calls them up. My parents both come in panting which is a very unusual sight. I ask them why they we’re so tired. They told me that they we’re freaked out to hear a call from the medical tent. My parents sign some waiver and we’re able to leave the tent. I told them the whole story about the weird man and show them all my cuts and bruises. When I show them my leg it now had been covered up in a new piece of gauze with my leg sewed up. I assumed the nurse had done it. Later on we meet up with my brother who apparently was actually following him. My brother was able to hold him off for a few miles but couldn’t stop him at the end. He told me that he overheard the man talking on his phone to some buyer. He said that he wanted to kidnap you to sell you to someone else. He kept trying to hurt you hoping you would stop running but you persevered. He didn’t talk about why he wanted you so I’m not sure what made his decision. We look around and find my brothers friend Carl and he congrats me on my time. Which is a big deal because he never does.q He had a 1:40 time while if you take away all my stops I had about a 2:05 time. While we're walking back to our hotel I go on my dad's phone and I check the standings on my age group but find that due to all my stops my time was horrible. I ended up in 11 place in my age group. If I want to do better it looks like I’m going to have to try again next year.