Matt graciously held up the fort last weekend at home so that I could cross something off the bucket list. I flew to Florida last weekend with 2 friends to run the Disney half marathon and do a few days at Disney World.
At the airport Thursday night meeting the bus to take us to our resort.
Friday we went to Animal kingdom to check out the new Avatar land and ride the 2 new rides. We went to Flight of Passage first thing and probably waited about 45 minutes (no fast passes available). It is very comparable to Soarin', but I really enjoyed the feel of flying on a dragon and feeling the dragon breathe against my knees. Really cool! Though it did make us all queasy.
On Na'vi River Journey, which is a boat ride through Avatar land
The Safari ride is always a favorite
After lunch and the Lion King show, which neither of my friends had ever seen, we went to Asia to ride Expedition Everest.
We did the single rider line
pic taken on the ride
Meeting Pluto after finishing the Dinosaur ride
This tree is so detailed!
We left Animal Kingdom around 4pm in order to make it over to the Expo and pick up our race bibs.
The race start time was 5:30am, which in itself was shocking, especially taking into account the different time zone. We assumed we would need to wake up at 4, catch the bus at 4:30, then have an hour till the race started. Basically, all our assumptions about the race were completely off!
We learned that we needed to get in line for the bus by 3:30 am since there would be a huge crowd. Once we saw the line at our resort (which we tried to capture in this picture...you can see the bus in the distance and the line went that far back), we understood the reason for the 3:30 call. It took about an hour waiting for a bus + drive time to the race. Although the starting line was near Epcot and not far away from our resort, the traffic was bumper to bumper.
So our alarms were set at 3am. We made sure to go to bed as early as we could Friday night. We were in bed by 8:30 and asleep by 9pm. I'm a pretty light sleep though, and a consistent noise woke me up at 1:22am. I tried in vain to get back to sleep and finally just read my book until the alarm went off at 3. :o(
Snapping a picture around 4:30am and trying to look awake.
Waiting in our corral for the race to begin.
SO. The race. Let me back up by saying that when you sign up for the race, you have to prove your running pace by providing a finisher time from a race in the last 2 years. My friends haven't run a race in the last 2 years so they were put in corral H, the last corral. My last half marathon time, surprisingly, qualified me for the first corral, corral A. The plan was to run the first half of the race with my friends at their pace (8:45/9 min. pace) so that we could stop and take a few pictures together either with characters or any other picturesque spots. Then I was going to pick up my pace and run the last half on my own. I had no way to know then that this was a significant sacrifice.
We didn't quite realize the sheer number of people that were there. Turns out that getting 21,000 people across a starting line takes some time. Who knew? As the minutes continued to tick by, we were shocked when 30 minutes passed, then 45. An hour later, we finally started our race. By that point, we were tired of standing (especially after doing a lot of standing/walking the day before), cranky, and tired. Why don't they stagger the start time for that many people?!?
The race crossed back on itself so that as we were passing mile 2, corral A runners were passing mile 11. Gah!
The other thing I just can't wrap my head around is why would anyone pay $100 for a half marathon just to walk the whole time? Why not pick a shorter distance to walk? Why 13? Well it turns out, lots and lots of people paid that much money to walk. Being the last corral, we were stuck behind so. many. walkers. And for some reason there wasn't either a stated or understood rule that runners are on the left and walkers are on the right. Every half marathon race I've run, I have spent the first half mile or so weaving around people as it is so congested starting out. That frustrating weaving was THIS ENTIRE RACE!! We were surrounded by walkers and slow joggers and therefore couldn't run together and chat comfortably as someone was leading the way through the weaving. It was so frustrating. I especially felt bad for my friends who set a goal to run the race under 2 hours. Ain't no way that was going to happen! Honestly, I had higher expectations from Disney. Start times should have been staggered, all walkers should have been in the last corral, there should have been a rule stated about walkers to the right, and there were too many narrow running places that made it even more congested than it was.
Positives: It was fun to see so many runners (and walkers) dressed up for the race. There were some crazy costumes! There were about 6-7 characters along the race that you could stop and take pictures with, though Jack Sparrow was the only one I was tempted to stop for. (The rest were old Disney characters and no princesses.) The course was mostly flat--just a few hills.
#1 lesson learned: Don't sign up for a Disney race unless you have a previous race to prove your start time. We have a friend who has run it before in corral C who said she had a great experience. Walkers moved to the right, and she didn't have to do much weaving.
Stopping for a picture in front of the castle in Magic Kingdom around mile 5. It was neat to run through the castle.
All done with the race!
This half marathon pace was my slowest ever. I averaged 10:08 minute miles. Different muscles hurt from all the weaving and running through grass/dirt trying to pass the walkers on the road.
The weather was unusually warm for January in Florida. The starting temperature was 70 degrees and warmed up from there as the sun came up. I felt bad that my friend, Katie, had her leg seize up weirdly for the last mile or two. She said it hurt worse to walk, so she ran through the pain and immediately went to First Aid after crossing the finish line to get it looked at and iced up. Fortunately, the pain went away, and her leg didn't bother her the rest of the day.
Our agenda for the rest of the day was Hollywood Studios including our first fast pass window from 9:45 to 10:45am. We thought that was plenty of time to run the race from 5:30 to 7:30, go home and shower, eat breakfast, and then be at the park by 9:30. Considering we didn't finish the race until 9am, we missed our fast pass to Rockin' Rollercoaster and another fast pass was not available for the rest of the day. :(
After we showered and ate a few race snacks, we actually decided to take a nap. Our next fast pass wasn't until 12:30, so we figured we might as well get a nap in and then just stay until the park closed at 8pm. After an hour nap, we grabbed a real meal and then headed to the park.
Riding the new Skyliner transportation to Hollywood Studios
It was pretty cool!
Tower of Terror
Checking out the new Star Wars land. We were only able to ride 1 of the 2 new Star Wars rides. The passes were all gone for Millennium Falcon by the time we got to the park at 12:30.
About to ride Slinky Dog Dash. Very smooth roller coaster and a lot of fun.
Visiting Olaf
We stayed for the fireworks show at the end, then headed back to our resort.
The Disney Resort we stayed at was Pop Century. Our room was basic, but we loved all the fun decorations around the resort.
My legs were so tired after this weekend from the standing/running/walking. It was such a fun and memorable trip though, and I'm glad I got to hang out with these fun gals and get to know them better!
