After 3 months of training, it was finally time to actually get on the plane and make this a reality. With the race on Sunday morning, we were required to go to the Expo on either Friday or Saturday afternoon to pick up our race packets. I didn’t fly down until Saturday morning, to save a night at the hotel. BAD IDEA!! What I didn’t consider is that hello…it’s winter in MO. I woke up early Saturday morning to a thin sheet of ice covering EVERYTHING. It had drizzled all night and then frozen. Seriously, pulling out of my driveway, I thought my brakes were jacked up, so I went inside and woke up my husband to have him check. Nope, brakes were fine, just the entire street was a sheet of ice. Good thing I budgeted 2 hours to get to the airport, instead of the 45 minutes I would normally need (see previous post regarding my Type-Aness). On the way to the airport, I saw more cars off the road than I’ve ever seen in a single day. I maxed out at about 40 mph on the interstate but did finally get to the airport about 20 minutes before my flight. As long as it’s not delayed, I’ll be in good shape. Fortunately, the flight left on time. If you’ve never flown to Orlando, the fun begins the second you get to the airport. There were the requisite kids who were just finding out they were going to DisneyWorld, and Kelly and I spent a few minutes texting each other from our respective terminals describing some of the folks that we would be sharing a plane with. The magic of Disney extends well beyond the park itself and actually back to any terminal flying to Orlando. Disney has this magical power of making people blind to any fashion rules any reasonable human being would normally adhere to in any non-Disney location. I saw more jorts (jean shorts) with braided belts and fanny packs than I care to remember.
Kelly and I arrived in Orlando at about the same time, so we met at baggage claim and then made our way to the Magic Express (which is VERY difficult to find by the way). We checked into our hotel (Caribbean Beach), which I’d rate as “fine.” It was pretty dated, but I didn’t plan on spending too much time there, so no big deal. By a random stroke of luck, Kelly’s parents were in FL for a conference the week before the race, so they drove up and met us at the resort. We grabbed some lunch, and then we hopped in Rick and Debbie’s car to head over to Wide World of Sports. One tip, don’t take a wrong turn on the Disney property – it takes FOREVER to get turned back around! Once at the expo, there were a ton of cool things to see. My favorite part was the funny running shirts. I personally liked on the back of a shirt “Dear God, please let there be someone behind me to read this.” And “This was a good idea 3 months ago.” There were a lot of cute 13.1 charms, stickers, etc. but Kelly and I both felt that it was presumptuous to buy one before having completed the race. Jeff Galloway and other experts were giving small seminars throughout the day also. Around 4:30, we headed back to the hotel, where we laid out all our clothes and accessories for race day.
We had an early dinner of chicken and pasta, and said goodbye to the parents and settled in for the night. Although we had been up since 5am, the nerves of course kept us from sleeping. We both drifted in and out of consciousness until the alarm went off…at 2:59AM!!!
We wanted to get on the shuttle around 3:30 (4am was the last shuttle), so we got dressed and put on a little makeup…hello – pictures, forced down some breakfast (half an English muffin with PB), and were off. The shuttle took us to the EPCOT parking lot, about a mile walk away from a pre-race party. We were there WAY early, so we walked around and then just sat and watched people roll in for a while. They started announcing that we needed to make our way to the start line, so we followed the crowd along to a huge bank of porta-potties. We decided to make one last pit stop, which took at least 30 minutes. Little did we know, we were still over a mile from the start line. We walked through back roads and past several other less-used port-potties (Grrrr) and eventually made it to our corrals.
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Before the sun came up, it was a little chilly, at around 62 degrees. I had on an old hoodie that I planned on throwing out during the race anyway. I ended up throwing it off actually before the race even started. We were in Corral D, so we were pretty far back, but everyone at that point was pretty laid-back, many of us experiencing our first half marathon (or like me, our first race altogether). There were fireworks and a good luck spell from the Fairy Godmother at the start of every corral, and with each celebration, we got closer and closer to the start line. Finally it was our turn, and we were off!
The road was wide, but with 16,000 runners, it was still difficult to get through, so we started off pretty slow and comfortable. There was plenty of good people-watching and some really fun costumes to keep us distracted. Also, starting at about the half mile mark, there were bands and other attractions to look at, so we were really never bored. Kelly’s shins started hurting, so we started alternating running/walking at each mile. By mile 3, we could see the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, so that perked our spirits. Once we got close to getting into the park, the road narrowed, and it was impossible to do anything but walk, so that was a little frustrating, but there’s no denying the energy there with the crowd (not that we had any friends/family in the crowd, but just knowing people are there is nice). We, like everyone else, turned into giddy children when we started running down Main Street. Kelly tried to take a picture of me with the castle in the background. She said, “Just keep running,” but I’m clearly a bad actor. J
Of course the highlight of the race was running through the castle (around mile 5.5). There are trumpet players on the balcony, and Cinderella and Prince Charming were there also (although the line to take pictures with them was SUPER long).
A girl even got engaged just in front of us once through the castle. I still haven’t figured out if she kept going or dropped out of the race at that point. What would you do? Just past the castle, we ran into a couple of our favorite characters from Toy Story 2!
Kelly’s shins were still bothering her, but I was starting to get really hot and really hungry, so I decided to break off at around Mile 7. Miles 9-11 were pretty exhausting, but by 12, we could see EPCOT again, and it was gorgeous! Finishing the race was an emotional experience that I can’t really explain (at 2:39, by the way), but it brought tears to my eyes, and I was sad that my husband wasn’t there to cheer for me. I received my medal (my official tiara!!!), snapped a picture, and anxiously awaited Kelly's arrival, just about 15 minutes later.
I used both Pandora and RunKeeper on my phone throughout the entire race (though Pandora kept cutting out), and I still had over half my battery! RunKeeper said that I burned 1800 calories, so that made it clear that the rest of the day was party time!! We went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and headed out for a day at EPCOT. We were so proud of our accomplishments and felt justified wearing our medals to the park in case anyone didn't immediately recognize our princessness.
Throughout the rest of the week, we visited EPCOT, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Universal Studios. Here are some of the highlights.
I returned from the trip still on my runners high, so I decided to try my powers of persuasion to try to convince my husband (a non-runner and Disney virgin) to try one with me. Stay tuned for the next post to see if I was successful! :)
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