Running with the Boys: Just Keep Swimming

Once upon a time....way back during New Year's Resolution time.....I made a goal to run 14 half marathons in 2014. This weekend, I got to meet that goal in the place where it all began - Walt Disney World.

I may have mentioned that my brother is getting married in Orlando on the Saturday after I run the marathon in January. Well, people who are getting married tend to have Bridal Showers, and, as the groom's family, my mom and I got the nod to come down to Orlando to participate in the festivities. It just so happened that the shower just happened to fall on Disney Wine and Dine Weekend. And it just so happened that a bib just happened to become available. (Really...it was a legal transfer and everything!) It's fate folks. When life hands you a bib, you take it and you run.

So, on Friday morning, I said goodbye to my family and got on a plane to sunny Florida. They were going to have a boys' weekend and I was going to smile at the shower and then run 13.1 miles. It was a win-win. There was some rain in the forecast, but I can handle a little rain. I packed my trash bag just in case.

We went right to the Expo from the airport. I picked up my bib and my packet and then went to check out the vendors. My beloved Sparkle Skirts had a booth. The booth had a really cute skirt with wine bottles and grapes on it. The booth had one less skirt when I left. Of course, then I needed a new shirt. Luckily, Raw Threads was right there. I got myself a new shirt too. I had planned to wear a Sparkle Skirt and Raw Threads shirt for the race anyway, so it wasn't something new on race day....it was just a different combination.

(In other news...I also had some new bling for my shoes from my buddy, Sophie!!!

We checked into Port Orleans - Riverside...the same place we stayed 2 years ago for Princess and the same place we are going to stay for Marathon weekend.

This was our view every morning.

This was a daily option at breakfast. (Yes, it was an option that I took. Every day is better when it starts with a Mickey waffle!)

Race day was a little different than I am used to. I woke up, ate my Mickey waffle. (Yep, you read that right....) I got pretty and went to the Bridal Shower. Please notice that I haven't done any running yet. I got back from the shower at about 3:30pm...in the afternoon...still no running...and tried to take a little nap. If I thought last week's race was bad when it started at 4pm, NOTHING could prepare me for a 10pm start.

After my nap attempt, I got race ready. I ate my bagel and my banana. I finished hydrating. I got dressed and headed to the bus that would take me to the starting line. Remember how I said that the race started at 10pm....well, the buses start at 7. Normally, I am all over that very first bus, but this time I met some girls and we got on the bust at 8. I was starting to get a little nervous when it was 8:45 and we were sitting in a line of traffic trying to get to the drop off point. I could see my corral, but I was stuck on the bus. (Okay, so you are probably wondering why I am in a panic when there is still over an hour until the gun and I have some extra time since I am pretty far back. Here's the thing. Disney opens the corrals at 9:15. They have a pretty serious pace requirement. The front of the corral is a happy to place to be.)

The bus got there. I hit the rather short porta potty line and then it was time to get into the corrals. I found my way to Corral I and settled in for a nice wait. The people around me were sitting and chatting, so I joined in. At about 9:30, it started to rain. Then it started to rain some more. I put on my fashionable trash bag, covered my legs with the extra bags that I brought, and sat there in the rain. When the first round of fireworks went off, it was time to stand up. I lost the bags for my legs, but held onto the Hefty bag for a little while longer.

Usually Disney puts about 5 minutes between corrals to try and spread people out a little. (A little math lesson....Corral I is the 9th corral. 5 minutes between corrals means about 45 minutes of standing around and waiting.) This time, they took some pity on us all and played Hurry Up Racing and shortened the time to just about 2 minutes. I guess they figured the faster we got through the start, the faster we would finish. Just before the send off, I ditched the Hefty bag and took my chances with Mother Nature. (Spoiler alert....Mother Nature won...)

Even with the rain, Disney knows how to do a starting line! Every single corral got a countdown and every single corral got fireworks. It's pretty awesome!

Now, I am not going to talk about the 13.1 miles of rain. You get it. It rained....the whole time. No need to beat a dead horse. However, the conditions made pictures a little difficult, so you've been warned!

The start of the race took us out of Wild World of Sports (where some "sportsy" music was playing!) and onto a really, really long road....the road to Animal Kingdom. It's like road to nowhere. It goes pretty much forever. There was a little bit of entertainment....some characters....as few water stops...the people who were 4 miles ahead of me coming back up the road. There were some "hills" in the form of overpasses, but they were more of an irritation than a hill.

First character stop of the evening!

I passed the first mile marker pretty quickly! All of the mile markers were of a country that would be represented at the Food and Wine Festival in Epcot. They were pretty cool!!

Disregard the clocks on these pictures.....

Just after the first water stop, I came across some porta potties with NO line. I don't generally need these during a race, but after hydrating all day and then waiting in my corral for over an hour, I adopted the "better to be safe than sorry" mantra and took a quick stop. Amazingly, I caught back up to the pack I had been running with a little while later. Then it was time for another character stop!

And some more miles ticked by....

This will be the last one for a while....I was wet and they were always on the other side of the road

Finally, we saw the gates for Animal Kingdom. And we ran all the way through the parking lot to get to the entrance. There were some floats to light the way!

We dodged some pretty serious ~~lakes~~ puddles in this section. But, Disney had some people on hand to shine a light on the puddle and tell us to move. (This theme would be repeated throughout the evening. There were lots of volunteers who stood in the rain to show us massive puddles!)

And then it was time to run through the first park of the evening!

Things got a little tight for the next couple of miles. It was hard to get moving and harder to stop for cool things. I know I missed a couple of characters because I just couldn't get to them. I got a couple though!

It's Flick from A Bug's Life

King Louie....I wanna be like you-oo-oo

Pluto and some girl I don't know. This placement did NOT make it easy to snap a quick picture.

I stopped to get a picture in front of the Tree of Life, but it's not up on Marathon Foto yet. I saw Everest and we ran through Dinosaur Land. Just as soon as it started, it was over and we we back out in the parking lot. As we ran through the gates of Animal Kingdom, the Lion King cast was there to greet us! (They were under the awning and perfectly dry.) I didn't notice them until it was too late to get a picture.

The next section was mostly long and boring. We ran back up the road to nowhere, heading back to somewhere. There weren't any characters or any entertainment because of the rain. Between miles 7 and 8, the most significant "elevation" happened in the form of an on-ramp. Sarge from Toy Story wasn't scared of the rain! He was out there yelling at us to take the hill. I didn't get a picture this time, but I got a high five.

I found another mile marker that I liked after that!

The best thing about this race is that all of the awesome happens at the end! I am sure there would have been more characters (I saw where Lilo and Stitch should have been) and more entertainment if the weather had been a little more magical. But, Disney saved the best for the end.

After the road to nowhere, we ran through Hollywood Studios. We came in by Tower of Terror - is was there in all of its glory. Then we ran past Rock and Roll Roller Coaster and down the road. I started to get excited a little too soon, thinking that the main event, the Osborne Family Christmas Lights would be next. They weren't. We did a lot of weaving through the backlots of Hollywood Studios. There was a Disco Tunnel by the costume shop. (Pretty cool!) We came back up by the Sorcerer's Hat and down by Toy Story (Buzz and Woody were out, but the line was pretty long). Finally, it was time! The rain had even stopped. (Don't get too excited...it was temporary.) It made those 5 minutes of the race the most magical and perfect 5 minutes of the night! I walked the whole part so I could take it all in.

Star Tours was around the next corner as we headed out of Hollywood Studios. I heard rumors that Darth Vader had been there in that past. I guess he thinks he will melt because he wasn't there this time. But, Boba Fett was!

The course narrowed even more as we went on the path to the Boardwalk. People were getting tired. It was a little hard to keep my intervals from here to the end. My race plan had been to take some chances at the end. I was just trying not to run anyone or bust my behind on the wet wood!

There is an institution at Disney Races. Ms. Peggy is at every single one with a sign that says "Perfect Stranger, I'm proud of you." I saw her at Princess and, to be quite honest, I had no expectation of seeing her in the middle of a dark and rainy night.

When I saw her at 1:30 in the morning, sitting on her scooter on the Boardwalk, in the rain, I got choked up. I didn't get a picture, but I got a high five and thanked her for being out there. She wasn't the only one out there, which was nice. There was a good amount of support out there in the late and cold and wet.

Just before the turn into Epcot, Disney had another surprise.

We came into Epcot right by the Journey into Imagination and cut across FutureWorld to head to the finish line.

As usual, the finish line is a loud, celebratory place. I passed a number of people in the last .1 of that race. That lifted my spirits! :)

I crossed the line, got my medal, got my heat blanket, and made the trek to the buses to head back to the hotel. I didn't go to the afterparty because I was wet and tired and cold. Besides, we were heading to Epcot the next day to celebrate!

Overall, this was a great race. The weather was miserable. It just didn't let up. Because of the weather, the Disney "experience" was not as magical as it could have been. However, it was a great course. (Better than the Princess course, I think.) The volunteers, who were just as wet and miserable as the runners, were AMAZING!! The water stops were frequent and plentiful. The medal is awesome. The shirt glows in the dark! Running through the Osborne Family Lights was just magical!!

I didn't love the timing of the race. I am a morning person, so it was hard for me to be awake and running at midnight....1am....2am. I have had a hard time recovering from the weekend. I also wish Disney would pick a side of the road for things and then stick to it. Sometimes the entertainment (characters, mile markers) were on the left and sometimes they were on the right. In a race with 14,000 that is always in the dark, it's hard to be safe when you are cutting across 4 lanes of people in order to get a picture.

All in all, even in the rain, every single mile at Disney is magical!

My mom and I celebrated the next day at Epcot with Dole Whips and Grey Goose Slushies. Way better than beer at the finish line!!