Disney World Half…

Here it is!The first race recap 
from my Goofy 2 race weekend…
the Disney World Half Marathon!
We arrived in Florida Thursday evening…
(By we, I mean my SIL Lisa and myself)

Hello, palm trees!

It was a little late to head to the expo- so we just ate and hung out.
One little hiccup was one of my bags not arriving.
The plane was completely full, so I tried to be nice
and let them check my bag at the gate.
Disney has a free shuttle you can take from the airports and they
will grab your checked bags and deliver them to your room a few hours later.
Well, the Disney shuttle person didn’t write down the number
for the bag I checked at the gate-
so they didn’t grab it from the airport with our other checked bags.
This was the bag with all of my running gear in it.
After a lot of back and forth with them, it finally arrived Friday afternoon.
Thank you, Wanda at Luggage Service- she was awesome.
I was super stressed until I finally got it.
Seriously- I wasn’t looking forward to buying all new running clothes…
or running in pajama pants and Converse All-Stars.
The next morning (Friday) we set out early to get to the expo before the crowds. It was quick and easy…

In and out super fast. I was able to move up from corral B to corral A because my marathon PR beat the cutoff by a whole 30 seconds. Yeah, I’m awesome ;).

We went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner-where I ate a giant cheeseburger (that’s good pre-race fuel, right? no?).
Lisa found a friend while we were there…

He really liked her.

We got back to the room and I got to bed reasonably early. I actually slept very well which made me happy.Lisa wasn’t quite so lucky- she says it wasn’t from my snoring. I don’t believe her.
We got up at 3am and headed out to the buses around 3:30. I felt good- not too nervous. Don’t I look ready?

The traffic was a little crazy getting to the staging/bag drop area.

We were dropped off near Epcot…

and found a row of port-a-potties with no lines.
I was impressed with the number of toilets available throughout the race.
Good job, Run Disney.


There was a 20 minute slow walk to the start line from there.
A slow, shuffling walk within a giant herd of people.
The traffic and the slow walking meant that my start time was
2 minutes away when we finally got to the starting line area.
By then I had to go to the bathroom again.
Then it turned out that my corral was still quite the jog from the toilet area.


I finally found my corral…

which was pretty much empty since the gun had already gone off :).
I still had about a minute to get going before corral B got going-
so off I went!
No time to get nervous for the start- that was nice.


Did I mention the friend that came to join me THAT MORNING?
Yes, THAT little monthly friend.
No bueno.
It wasn’t the best thing- but it was okay, mostly.


I had mostly decided that I would stop for character pictures
during the half marathon and maybe not so much for the full.


Turns out I took lots of pictures during both races :).
I just knew I wouldn’t be back there for a long time (maybe ever!)
so I couldn’t pass up a good photo opportunity!


Here’s what I got during the half:
(They were all taken with my phone camera, so not super high quality)


Entering Magic Kingdom:

First character I came across?
Stitch!

Tiana and a very light skinned Prince Naveen…

There were 2 photos that didn’t turn out at all.
Rapunzel and Mickey.
Don’t worry- I got better ones the next day :).


All of that was mostly the first half of the race.
By mile 7 or so we were out of the parks, so I could just run.
After a pit stop, I got down to it.
I used up a bit of time waiting for the pictures during the first half,
but that was the plan.

I felt good the last half, so I made up a little of it


All finished- 1:54:20

No PR’s for these races,
but I had a lot of fun stopping for all the character pictures.
The OTHER issue I had caused the pit stop, but it wasn’t too bad.


I thought it was a great race- 
very crowded and a lot of running around people the whole way,
but that’s to be expected with 23,000 runners.


I felt good at the end and not too gassed out for the next day.


I caught the bus back to the hotel, showered and chilled out.
We spent the afternoon/evening at Downtown Disney,
then got back in early to head to bed for another 3am wake up call!


2nd little hiccup- I lost my iPod and headphones
somewhere between the finish line and the hotel.
I never could track it down.
Sad.
That meant no music for the marrathon.


Marathon recap to come soon!