The two days before the race we spent walking around Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios - I thought my feet were going to be toast for the race, but we left the parks early on Friday afternoon and had a low key dinner at the hotel. I think I was asleep by 8:30 the night before the race!
My race bib
THEN - We woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 2:30 AM - yes, you read that right - Two-freaking-thirty in the MORNING. The race started at 5:30. Painful.
On the shuttle to the race
The shuttle dropped us off, we porta-pottied, Vaselined (me), posed, and hydrated.
Pre-race picture
After using the porta-potties twice (nervous peeing), we hearded ourselves to the start line. It was about a half mile walk that took the better part of 20 minutes. It was kind of annoying, but at least we had given ourselves plenty of time! We still had over an hour before our corral started by this point.
Hearding the cattle...er...runners
This guy was in full Jack Sparrow garb. How was he going to run in that? I'm still wondering...
Then we were off! They actually do full fireworks when the first corral takes off - pretty cool!
The race starts out on the streets around Epcot and heads in the direction of Magic Kingdom. It wasn't even daylight out before we entered the gates outside the parking lot of Magic Kingdom!
Can you find the little vegan aka Sarah?
It was pretty much awesome running through Magic Kingdom and right under the Castle (where we had dinner, two nights before). Then as you exit from the Castle, they have professional photographers ready to take your photo.
All business...
After exiting Magic Kingdom you follow the streets back toward Epcot. This is about mile 11 or 12 as we're making our way towards Epcot.
You run about a mile through Epcot (maybe a little less), then you exit back into the parking lot. I made the girls stop and take a picture at mile 13 :)
Right before we crossed the finish line...
The coolest medal ever - even cooler than Mercedes!
They gave us special buttons the next day at the Polynesian :)
We finished!
Official time: 3:33:45 - an 11 minute PR
As expected the race - and the trip - were amazing! Maybe it was the magic of Disney. Or spending 5 days with great friends watching them crush their first half marathon, but I seriously had so much fun that I would consider making this an annual trip. Even though we walked about 20 miles Wed-Fri, I felt strong pretty much the whole race. True, my feet hurt really bad the last 1-2 miles, but compared to my other half it was nothing. I didn't feel like I trained very hard for this race, but it proved me wrong. I was more than ready. So ready, in fact, I'm considering doing the Nashville Rock n Roll race in April. JUST CONSIDERING....so far.
I also caught myself thinking about a marathon while I was racing two weeks ago. I thought to myself, "Disney is the ONLY place I would consider doing a marathon." Then I quickly realized that I have never had any desire to do a marathon up until this point. Scary.
Of course since the race I've only ran twice...haha...post-race laziness is ensuing. I'm going to try and do 6 this weekend. It may be rough...
4 comments:
Congrats! Love the pictures! And that is an awesome medal. :)
Congrats!! Put the Princess on your list to do - it's so much fun and costumes galore!
Congrats! That medal is awesome!
So awesome! You inspire me.
Post a Comment