Look for the BEAR NECESSITIES and Just LET IT GO: 2019 Wine and Dine Recap:
This year things kicked off a bit early as I arrived at the Expo and entered the Arena just before 1030am on Thursday pleased to find that despite the lack of maps in the event guide that the layout was the same!
Entering the side of the entrance that said ‘Bibs’ I noticed once more that like with last year they had little flourishes of Disney decorating the halls as I saw and Olaf, Caballero and Timon silhouette in the hall (I’m sure Mickey and Baloo were somewhere as well)
I first had to go to Runners Relations as when I went to print my wavers for some reason it had my birth year way way WAY off… After that I managed to grab my bibs and was placed in B for the 5K and E for the 10K as expected (for the record corals went up to C for the 5 and F for the 10 and I put in a 1201-13 minute mile)
Runners Relations and Bib Pick Up took me about 20 minutes and then it was off to pick up my merchandise however that included more waiting as we were instructed to head into a side room with tape lines on the floor for what amounted as a 30 minute wait JUST to get into the merchandise area! When all was said and done I got my preordered Logo Pin/Magnet sets for both my races as well as a passholder tervis/pin set (which I had to go into the guest recovery to get as that set wasn’t in the computer for some reason). As far as out of pocket I got a dated headband (there were no race specific ones this year shockingly) my medal replica pins and a race weekend tervis water bottle as well as a magnet and shoe ornament for my sister who wasn’t arriving to the expo until the following day.
Once I left the merchandise area they had a character meeting and while it’s been chef Mickey the past two years I was pleased to see it was Colonial Mickey Mouse and so I waited for him and was doubly pleased to see it was a photo pass picture to boot! There were also some fun photo backdrops due to this being the event's 10th Anniversary which were pretty neat
I then headed over to the Visa Center…J Center…whatever the building is called you know the one to get shirts. I’m so glad I always tend to try them on first as I got the same size as previous races and they were way too tight. When I went to exchange sizes I was informed that they changed from Champion this year to RunDisney’s IN House company and that there were much more people exchanging then in the past. I was able to trade my 10K one in however not my 5K which is sad considering that this was the first 5K to switch to technical shirts from normal T shirts and also because I was still in the process of trying to make lemonade out of lemons considering the only reason I had signed up for the 5K in the first place was because I really wanted to run through a different park and am still not in a place to commit to a half marathon however the day after AP sign ups it was announced that the race would move from Animal Kingdom to Epcot.
When all was said and done it took three and a half hours at the expo and I hadn’t heard if the room was ready or not and so we decided to just drive to Epcot spending the rest of the day at the park before finally checking in and getting into the room close to 9 which was when I wanted to be tucking in for the night.
Friday Morning I woke up at 203am (with alarms set for 145 and 205 AM respectively)
Pre-Race Breakfast once again was a bagel and peanut butter along with about a half a bottle of Powerade before getting dressed and making my way toward the buses at about 255am. There were a few busses lined up and about four people waiting however I knew I’d have some time so I decided to use the lobby restroom instead of trying to maneuver around a port-o-let especially as I was running solo and I didn’t have to want to maneuver my running belt/bib/costume accessories in a small space.
Bus loaded at 315am and headed out of the parking lot at 325am. Going into this race there was no staging so I didn’t know how things would be set up. The Bus pulled into Epcot at 337am and it was about a six minute walk to get over to and through bag check. They instructed that Gear Check and Food Venders were straight while characters were to the right. Characters were Western Mickey on one side and Western Minnie on the other. I was a bit surprised that there were only two options as the last 5K I did had SIX options so I was expecting at least four and definitely someone from Jungle Book (more on that later). I opted to wait for Minnie since I met Mickey at the Expo and so as I waited 20 minutes to meet her I pinned myself in and I was ready to go.
Five minutes after I left Minnie’s line I pondered going to Mickey after all it was only just after 4am and corals don’t normally open until 430am. The Cast Member was already telling people entering the line that Mickey would only be there till 5 and the line looked LONG and so I asked where corals were and was directed toward where the Gear Check/Food Trucks had been. I sat and waited a bit… it was humid but I didn’t want to seek out a place to buy/get water as no bathrooms until post-race as well as no digging out my headphones that were already tucked away. I saw a group of people moving across the parking lot at about 440am and so I got up and started following them on a long long long thirteen minute walk to the corals.
Going in since the race is untimed my goal was not to worry about pace or elapsed time but that I wanted to finish by 730am/8am at the latest as the last bus left at 830am and I wanted to get my I Did It photos in.
There were three corals in this race and I was in the second wave of coral B so that made the fourth wave (fifth if you count wheelchairs) I don’t know how many mini waves there would be but as far as time I crossed the start at around 542am.
I didn’t keep track of the video screens or DJs but as far as characters that I both stopped and didn’t stop at well…I got you covered.
Four minutes into the first mile and already reached my first character spot of the year as I approached Big Al and Wendell. I contemplated stopping especially since Wendell is the only bear I’ve yet to meet and I’d of loved a Photopass picture with Big Al however since it was the first stop I pressed on only to get to make my biggest mistake six minutes later when I decided to get in line for Baloo and King Louie considering I had expected they’d be at the start/finish of the race and so didn’t everyone else. Thirteen Minutes later in line and an attendant came up saying that the all the corals had been let out and that the Balloon Ladies would be their shortly (I was under the impression they didn’t run the 5Ks as it wasn’t timed/there wasn’t a strict pace requirement) and that there would be plenty of opportunities to meet characters in the park as well as saying that there was still a significant wait to go. I put the petal to the pavement trying to make up time and finally reach mile markr 1 with a mile split of 25:17 Yea that mistake killed me but I felt that I could maybe attempt to wait for one character at this point still so long as I could pick up the pace a bit in between stops.
Two minutes after marker one and now on stage was Chef Donald over by Imagination with a crazy long line I skipped it as Donald is easily meetable. Shortly after this there was an even more insane line for a picture with Spaceship Earth in a distant amount of distance. Getting into the countries now there was Remy in France and the sole water stop in Morocco. I reached Mile Marker 2 with a FITBIT split of 14:54 for this mile meaning meaning I picked up my pace but at 45 minutes running was already above my 5K PR not that I was counting.
Four minutes later I arrived in the Germany pavilion and had seen a slight character line where the attendant said that it was for Dopey and he was just about to be coming back from a break. The wait for Dopey was 8 minutes long and nobody warned about balloon ladies so I put a smile on my face and continued to make my way around the world and beyond
Seven minutes after Dopey I was off stage back on the road thinking that characters and photo pass would be done for the run and chatted up some runners dressed as Troy from High School Musical about how hyped I was for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series until head someone say there was someone around the corner. It was Flick and I thought REDEMPTION for when Jessica had met him back during our first 10K when I was apprehensive about meeting anyone during the first half of the run. It was a 4 minute wait for Flick.
Three minutes after leaving the line I passed another Pixar staple of Lightning and Mater from cars however again like I said last year cars not my favorite and I was already well over an hour into my run and just wanted to make it to marker 3 and the finish line. Another three minutes after cars I hit the marker with a split of 23:07 and .01 miles later give or take I crossed the finish line.
My FITBIT read that I ran 3.6 miles in 1:15:17 and a pace of 20:55 m/m it was my personal worst as far as time however I had fun and honestly if you take off the 13 minutes I burnt in the Jungle Book Line I still would of finished in about an hour and also for the record as far as my ACTUAL CLOCK Time goal of crossing before 730am I crossed pretty much at 7am
Deciding against going back to meet Western Mickey I went through the finisher shoot and arrived back at my hotel less than an hour after crossing the finish line and then it was a shower a mini nap and then off to Animal Kingdom and Disney Springs for the rest of the day.
According to my FITBIT I was asleep at 1004 PM with a wake up at 202AM on Race Day with a total time asleep of 3 hours and 53 minutes with 0 times awake 2 times just lying restless and 5 minutes of said time being restless.
Saturday Morning I woke at 202AM with the same alarms and routine as the day before only with the Anna to my Elsa AkA my sister and 10K Running Buddy Jess also getting ready and raring to go.
We left the room a little later then the day before this time at 301am… there were definitely more than four people waiting though not enough to fill the first bus and so it gave us ample time to once again use the hotel lobby restrooms instead of the port-o-lets before heading back outside. Like with Friday busses loaded at 315am and left at 324am (okay technically Friday was 325am but whatever)
Getting to the TTC Parking Lot we cleared bag check at about 338am and looked at the character options. This time there WERE four lines however once again it was interesting as the host characters were nowhere to be found. On the Frozen front 10K Host Olaf was instead represented by Anna and Elsa while the Challenges Hosts the Three Caballeros were only represented in the form of Chef Donald (Chef Goofy and Chef Minnie & Mickey were also meeting and were on the nearest side to the drop off and it seemed that unlike with last year the meets on that side of the DJ booth seemed to look the longest and we were pleasantly surprised how short the Frozen Line looked (I told Jess it reminded me of the wait for Vader during Dark Side 2018) We got in line at 343am and waited 20 minutes. We then headed to Chef Donald as we’ve met Donald at the Start or Finish of every 10K and we didn’t want to break that streak. We were reminded he was leaving at 5 and we decided if we didn’t clear the line by 445 we’d start to make our way to the coral. It took 28 minutes for Donald and we were heading to corals just after 430ish.
At this point I felt like garbage as my head was pounding really badly and I pondered heading to medical before even hitting the coral to see if I could grab an ibprophin however decided against it as I didn’t know how it would impact my run. At first I thought it was sinuses or not drinking enough however later in the day I found out that aunt flo was just waiting for my races to end to make her visit. I pulled my cute side braid into a back ponytail and it helped lots.
John and Carissa said after the wheelchairs were released they’d be counting down fifteen more times. We were in the first mini wave of coral E which was wave 9/15 overall.
We officially started at 604 and once again I only logged characters, water stops and mile markers not any DJs and Video Screens this year…
This was yet ANOTHER different course however the run from TTC until we got to the Epcot Parking Lot was pretty much the same it was just the on stage portion that was slightly varied thanks to the Epcot construction going on.
This year with us starting in the next to last coral our objective was to try to stop for one maybe two characters since we had a bit of a cushion instead of trying to beat last year’s PR.
Like with yesterday the first character stop came pretty much right out of the gate as seven minutes in we saw Mary Poppins and Burt which was skippable as I’ve met Mary in the parks before (again like with Big Al not with a photo pass but still…) Seven minutes after Mary I reached marker 1 with a split of 14:22. During this next mile stretch we passed Chef Chip and Dale, our first Water Stop and Chef Daisy. It was a bit underwhelming to see it just being classic characters that you can meet every day however the lines for them were still fairly decent in length. We reached marker 2 with a split of 15:34
We soon saw the first set of SAG wagons and noticed that they were using the new busses. I guess if you had to be picked up a Monsters Inc. of Figment Bus might soften the blow. Once more we arrived at the hill of doom however it was refreshing to see that instead of Sarge it was another cadet from Andy’s Room who was more encouraging towards the runners though I didn’t see a photo line this time. With the second Water Stop in the books (which I forgot to mention we took two cups at all stops this time and I doubled up at the 5K stop as well) I hit up mile 3 with a split of 16:52 and an official 5K time of 51:11 definitely not a PR but still better then yesterday’s race time don’t you think?
I could almost taste the on stage time as we passed Carl Frederickson from Up whom I pondered waiting for considering I’d seen all the other UP characters at Animal Kingdom the day prior and have NEVER seen him in person before however we decided to inch closer toward the park past the Frozen Bus waiting for the next hard sweep and got to mile 4 with a 17:01 split. Just after the mile was Robin Hood who was one of the characters who was on Jess’s list since our first race in 2016 and we stood in line for a minute or two when I realized that this was the exact spot Baloo and Louie were in the day before and we were in about the same spot I was at when I decided to abandon ship. I noted this to Jess telling her if he was in the same spot which he was that there was still a ways away and so she agreed to head to the countries where in my gut I knew that there would be some more interesting characters around the bend.
Just before getting on stage was our third and final water stop and as we started around the corner my mind was racing OH MY GOD. Not only was it a character with practically no line it was such a rare and obscure unicorn of a character we HAD to stop…. Yep it was Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons
It was about a 2 minute wait which made me feel as if it was Lego Land again as we made a dash towards the countries seeing yet another stop of Chef Pluto off towards the side of the course by the entrance to World Showcase but with a significant line none the less. Crossing the bridge from International Gateway to France I noticed a CRAZY line and thought it was Remy again or maybe Lumiere however it was Marie. Jess asked if I wanted to meet her and I shook my head as we had most of the countries still to go through.
We got to mile marker 5 with a split of 19:31 due to that brief pause for Robin and the wait for Bowler Hat but we still felt we were in a good standing and so we decided to wait for the next character stop we passed which was Jiminy Cricket in Italy so once again a bit of a redemption from skipping them in years past as we opted to skip him last year to chance someone else being on course and wound up with a PR and no character meets to show for it…
The wait for him was about 10 minutes and another 10 minutes after getting back on course we saw another line at about the place Flick had met the day before. I decided we were near the end of the run and would be in the clear and so I hopped into the end of the line while she went to check to see who it was. She returned saying there was nobody there while someone else joining in the line said they heard from a character text chain they were on that it was Thumper. Before we could even decide if we wanted to wait or just finish I was almost run over by bike security who yelled out saying that the balloon ladies were coming and I couldn’t tell if he was saying that they were rounding the corner in one minute or that we had one minute to round the corner or else we would be swept however we weren’t waiting around to find out and so we ran for it…. Well ran as much as we could considering the stretch of roadway was a complete bottleneck and as we passed the Cars characters again whose line was capped I heard someone say 20 seconds however we probably had maybe a half a mile if even left and there was nowhere that we could even be escorted off the course….and besides the Balloon Ladies PASSED us in 2017 when we were in Canada and we had a far longer stretch to make it to the finish and we finished so no worries
I got to mile 6 with a split of 23:45 and crossed the finish with an official time of 2:02:06
We decided against waiting for Post-Race characters as once again Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy can easily be met and besides we had a long day ahead of us with plans to hop to Magic Kingdom and Epcot later in the day
Overall I’ll say again that this and Gaspirilla (which is my next run on the docket at the moment) are my favorite two weekends to run and I can’t wait to run next year’s 10K for the 5th anniversary oh how time flies when I’m having fun.
Comments
Post a Comment