My Magical Miles

  I feel like it’s been one step forward two steps back this year. It started in the spring…when I got my second Covid 19 vaccination the morning before the Gaspirilla Expo… I had to take my Easter Weekend Training Run Times as my official because I was suffering some minor side-effects but I thought it would all be worth it in the end right? Wrong- than August’s Watermelon run moved bib pick up venues at the last moment and got rid of the post race Watermelon while September’s run had ‘drive up’ bib pick up and October’s run only had bib pick ups the day of the race (though IDK if those were pandemic mitigation or already in the plans) Wine and Dine went better than expected as the crowds and adrenaline made things feel like they were back to normal even if the Character Sightings were at a roped off distance and didn’t take place at the start/finish… I even felt somewhat normal knowing that I would be getting my booster shot in a few weeks…. Now THIS was IT…. THE LIGHT AT THE END...

  “The Magic is Calling”  and RunDisney is back to being live and in person…. Sure, I’ve done a few local live races and the expo for Gaspirilla was live but it didn’t set in that I was doing my first BIG race and first timed race longer than a 5K since Feb 2020 until I arrived at the expo where while there were some changes as to the ways things were done it felt like I was coming home… I didn’t mark down the EXACT time we arrived but considering time stamps from some photos it was pretty close to the 10am General Public opening time… Once we arrived we decided to head straight to the Arena for merchandise… it was about a 20-30ish minute wait to enter but once we did we noted that they definitely were NOT letting in as many people at a time as in years prior as there was NO wait for pre-orders or the check out area (I pre-purchased my pins and ear magnet and than purchased the AP weekend Tervis and a Jack Skellington RunDisney Spirit Jersey live at the event) One of the diffe...