A Wickedly Delicious Time (Wine and Dine/November recap):
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 differences were that there were no character photo ops at the expo but as you left the merchandise area there were mileage numbers as well as a weekend logo photo prop to pose next to for selfies
We than went to grab bibs in the field house where there was a new digital Expo Pass system that seemed to work smoothly for us allowing us to walk right in and claim our bibs….
As you see instead of coral letters they did starting group numbers...we were in group 4 of 4 with a projected pace of a 1201-14 m/m
Finally we headed to the Visa center to pick up out shirts and grab a few Bondi Bands from their booth as I’m addicted and will purchase my 3 bands for $20 at every expo just because…. {not pictured but I got a solid brown band for race day as well as a mermaid print one for Jess and a Minnie Mouse inspired band}
It was roughly 2-2.5 hours between getting to the expo and arriving in our room at POFQ
We spent the rest of the evening at Epcot (Harmonious exceeded my expectations) and opted to spend a rainy Friday splashing around Springs instead of Hollywood Studios and than it was race day!!!!!
This year Jess and I decided to dress as Rescue Ranger Chip and Dale and so my Chip costume consisted of a home sewn brown skort, a Calia by Carrie Underwood top doctored with a zipper and faux fur collar, a white All In Motion white tank layered underneath, Fedora from Forever 21 with Squirrel (yes I know Chip is a Chipmunk...) ears from Wallmart, with a hand made scrunchie matching my skort and the above mentioned brown bondi band in my hair....
We didn’t know what to expect in terms of entertainment on or off course as we woke with our alarm at 145am. We got dressed, grabbed a half a bagel with peanut butter (enough to energize but not totally fill up to ruin an appetite for post race beignets!) and were out to busses by 250am….Busses started at 3am officially and ours pulled out at 301. We arrived at the TTC parking lot at 312 and cleared security by 316. As we cleared security there weren’t character photos which was to be expected instead they had two different photo set ups….
The Queen of Hearts’s throne (if only I re-wore my outfit I ran last years virtual in) & The Nautilus
We waited about 12 minutes for the throne but decided not to wait for the nautilus as the lighting wasn’t the best even if there was a photopass photographer (I did snap a quick selfie seen above)
As we started walking the DJ stopped playing and I really started getting emotional in hearing that John and Carissa were back as MCs for the events.
Since there was nothing else outside of the start group area aside from port-o-lets and gear check I decided to take a quick stroll towards the stage on the far side of the lot while Jess waited in line to get into the start groups…. While John and Carissa had already stepped off stage to warm up (did I mention it was the low/mid 50’s and windy with a slight drizzle???) I did get to have my first “Character Sighting” in the form of Ursula rolling around the lot
At about 345am we were lead into the start group area where we were definitely near the front of our group giving us ample buffer against the balloon ladies
While the race started officially at 500am we officially started at around 537am
Despite the nasty rain the day before we had seen from various social media sights that the 5K had various characters on course and so we were pleasantly surprised about ten minutes into the run to see that some neat light projection on the side of an overpass was more than met the eye as soon Maleficent literally creeped out of the shadows on the shoulder of the road. While I’m sure people paused for selfies it wasn’t an official photo-op however she was mic-ed up and you could hear her from the road.
Six minutes later we reached mile marker 1 {16 mins}. During this next mile stretch we passed screen looping clips from Nightmare Before Christmas, Water Stop one, and the first character sighting that was a photo-op in race host Jack Skellington. Having met him before we skipped this one and soon reached mile marker 2 {15 mins || 31 min overall}
This year the front end of the course had gone back to something similar to Wine and Dine 2017/Star Wars 2018 and so the road continued straight and in this stretch of road we were met with another photo-op in the form of Oggie Boogie. I told Jess if she wished to wait I wouldn’t mind however that line was crazy long and she ultimately decided to keep going with me….I did get a good photo from off to the side though
And we did get some cute photopass pics once we hit the parks so I’m glad we didn’t split up. Also on this stretch of road was another screen playing the Witches Transformation scene from Snow White as well as the SAG Wagons…. We did It!!! We passed the sweep point with not a balloon lady in sight….Victory was OURS!!!!!
Here was where the overpass was but after the one that we climbed during Wine and Dine 2018 and 2019 this one was definitely not as steep as I remember….as we were rounding the hill we reached mile 3 {16 mins|| 47 mins overall} and the 5K mark soon after {48:21 from the official results}
During this next stretch we passed a DJ Van, our second water stop and had a brief moment backstage and through some of the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater/Sunset Blvd area of Hollywood Studios. There were a good amount of cast members out giving crowd support and via other social media sites apparently Hades was somewhere though he might have been distanced like Maleficent had been and we must have missed his cycle .It was also during this stretch that I noticed my fitbit paused the first of what would be two times which is why I’m going by time-stamp times and not what the app says for splits.
We reached marker 4 {17 mins || An Hour 4 Mins Overall) located in the studios parking lot and we knew from past course experiences that the stretch from here towards Yacht and Beach Club would be a bottle next. In this stretch there was a Chernabog backdrop that was a selfie spot though nobody was really stopping but hey it looked cool
As we continued to down this path we overheard some bike medics saying that the balloon ladies had cleared mile 3 but not how recent that had been...this stretch also included the second fitbit pause as well as another character photo-stop where we waited six minutes to pose with the Big Bad Wolf
We finally reached marker 5 (22 mins || an hour 26 mins overall) as we strolled down the walkway past Beach club to make our way into our final stretch through Epcot. We were met with a final screen looping Poor Unfortunate Souls as well as another water stop. In Future World there was another character sighting/photo op however since we had waited for Bowler Hat Guy in 2019 we passed (if it were any other Villain we most likely would've waited)
Than came my FAVORITE piece of on course entertainment. The random streetmosphere construction workers telling “Dad Jokes”
finally it was backstage for marker 6 (18 mins|| 1 hour 44 overall}
And than if was finish time…. My fitbit (with two pauses) clocked me in with 6.4 miles in 1:44:45 going by screenshots and rounding up minutes had me at an hour 48 but OFFICIALLY I was at 1:46:52 which is four minutes to the SECOND over my PR…. had we not waited for the Big Bad Wolf and/or sprinted a bit more on the Beach Club path despite it being slick we could of set a new time….
After we went through the finish shoot where I was sad to see that while the plastic cheese was back the gogo squeeze was no more in the snack boxes we looked to see what there was for post race entertainment.
There was the Evil Queens Throne, Magic Mirror which were the props out for the Evil Queen themed 5K which started and stopped in this lot the day before as well as a few I Did It photo ops…. We waited for the Magic Mirror
Though judging from the pictures from the day before it looked much cooler before sunrise
Though after that we were FREEZING and so we headed back towards the resort to warm up….
Aside from Hades it looked as if we missed appearances by the Hag as well as Governor Ratcliffe on course though despite that and the fact that this was the first race weekend back and all the changes that it had to make due to the ever evolving state of society it went off rather smoothly and despite the freezing cold corals and not thinking to bring throw away layers or mylar it was one of my funnest Disney races to date!!!!
UPCOMING RACES
WDW Marathon Weekend 10K Jan 7th
Gaspirilla Half Feb 27th
Those are all that I'm signed up for now that I'm hoping to get into the Everest 5K and/or Tower of Terror 10 Miler for Spring Surprise, I'm pondering if I want to do the Promise Run 5K six days after my first half, and I'm also pondering Rock and Roll Clearwater...I WILL sign up for Mayfair but will most likely wait till after the first of the year
Marathon a Month:
8:02:59
FitLife:
Parlor Trick and Slight of Hand x2 + Hug a Runner x3
PRS
1M {15:26} 3K {30:59} 5K {42.46} 8K {1:13:59} 10K {1:42:52} 15K {2:19:09} HALF {3:48:35*} FULL {7:08:15*} *virtual half/full run in increments
Run The Year Progress: 1864.10/2021 miles moved
Comments
Post a Comment