Lookie! I am in Corral A for the 5k! That is the last time I will ever be in Corral A...I'm pretty sure it was based on when you signed up. I ended up running in the last corral with Nathan and Madre, but that is ok! After wearing my 10 miler shirt at night, I noticed that it glows in the dark! Pretty awesome right there...
Here is my loot from the expo (and some Figment stuff from Epcot). I got all three pins for the races, as well as the ToT race necklace.
We got to the ESPN right before it opened on Thursday. There was line out of the complex, but it was moving pretty quickly. In no time, we made it inside.
The view of the expo
First stop was the official merchandise area. There were lots of I Did It shirts, but nothing really stroke my fancy (limited budget and all). The line was a little long, but did not take that much time to get to the front. (Hey, I can see Marty in line in this picture!)
Jeff Galloway
We walked around the booths a bit before getting our packets. I ended up buying a 48.6 Dopey Magnet, but will of course not display it until January! I also got a STICK, which I have wanted to get for a while to help with my IT band.
I picked up my packet for the Happy Haunted Trails 5k first, and then got in line for the 10-miler. Then I headed over to Runner Relations so I could get my corral changed. I moved from corral G to corral E. Woot woot!
It was a fun expo, and I wish I had more money to spend!
Coming up on October 5 is the Tower of Terror Race Weekend. I will be arriving in Orlando late Thursday for a quick trip to Disney World. Friday will be spent at packet pick-up and expo, as well as some time in the parks. Saturday morning is the Happy Trails 5k, which I will be running with Nathan and Madre. That evening I will be running the 10-miler with Marty and Heidi. After the all-night party at Hollywood Studios, I will be flying home early Sunday morning (and then I will sleep all day before returning to school on Monday).
A week after the Tower of Terror weekend I will be running in the Heritage Half Marathon in Gainesville, VA. This will be my 2nd half marathon and I am hoping to beat my time from my first (which was just awful...).
The day after the Heritage Half I am going to force myself to get up early before school and run a virtual 10k for practice for Dopey. This race is in support of Give Kids the World. The medal glows in the dark, but I don't have a picture of it to post at this moment.
On November 17, Marty and I are going to run the Lake RidgeRunners 10k Turkey Trot (like we did last year). Yes, I will be dressing up like a turkey once more :)
I have some other virtual races planned and really need to get more running miles to prepare for this January. I am really excited about my races coming up!!!!
After we finished our race and got our medals (and I took a trip to medical to get some ice!), we went back into Animal Kingdom for the After Party. It was about midnight! Animal Kingdom is so neat after dark! The Tree of Life is lit up, as well as Everest. Unfortunately, my phone camera does not do well in the dark.
The lines were really short, so we rode Expedition Everest twice. It is such a better ride in the dark. You don't see the drop coming at all, and the rush is more intense. We also went once Kali River Rapids and got wet, not soaked, which was refreshing. It was so not crowded, the other people in our tube got to stay on the ride for a second time.
We then went on Primeval Swirl (or something like that). I don't need to go on that one again. Too much spinning. There was a short wait before we started because someone had gotten sick. I can see why.
Then we got some pictures printed out at the New Balance Booth and visited some characters: Baloo and King Louie, Pluto and Goofy, and others.
It was a fun night and a great experience to be in Animal Kingdom after dark!
May 4. Heidi and I got to Animal Kingdom around 7:30 p.m. hoping to be able to exchange our shirts for a smaller size, but we had no luck. No smaller sizes were available.
We relaxed in the car for a while, put on our bibs, and then went to get some pictures taken. It was pretty crowded, but the energy level was high. There were two snow machines pumping out snow on everyone and the DJ was blasting music and talking to the crowd.
The race officially started at 10 p.m. but we were in corral C so we started at 10:12. The first mile was in the parking lot, but it was still exciting. They had speakers out with music and animal sounds. It was also amusing to see the other runners. One guy was dressed as Tarzan and had a stuffed monkey making tons of sounds. In this mile was the first obstacle - jumping over hay bales. Pretty easy.
The next mile was inside the park. We ran towards the Tree of Life which was lit up, and then through Asia, backstage for a bit, and then past Kali River Rapids and Everest. We then went backstage and ran past the back of Everest, coming to the second obstacle - tires. There was a short line for this but we got through it pretty fast.
The third mile was all backstage and not much excitement other than waiting for the finish line to come. My knee was hurting pretty bad by this point, but I kept running. We came to the last obstacle - crawling under a net. I passed by this one because of my knee and crossed the finish line.
We were handed a clue card and were back off to the front of the park to get our next clue. For the clues, each was a direction of the compass. We were running all around the park getting more clues until we finally had to use all the clues to figure out a puzzle giving us the final answer needed to cross the finish line. We had about 3/4 of a mile to run to the finish line, so we hobbled there and got our medals!
Saturday morning everyone packed up and headed out to Disney's Wide World of Sports for the Expedition Everest Challenge Family Edition. Only Madre and Ellie were going to compete in the race, but I tagged along to help with the scavenger hunt clues. It was raining on and off that morning, so it was a lot of taking the ponchos on and off.
We got a map and had to run around the ESPN complex to get and solve clues. Some of the challenges involved running around bases to find letters, which had to be arranged in a certain order to find the answer. Most of the clues involved word challenges. After we got all of our clues we headed to the finish line by running around the track. Even though I wasn't officially registered for this event, I got a medallion when we finished.
This was a fun event, despite the rain. It took us a little while to figure out how the clues were going to go, but we finally got a hang of it and had a good time. We finished in a little under an hour
My weekend at Disney World finally came! Madre and I left DC Thursday night and arrived in Orlando very excited!
On Friday morning Heidi, Madre, and I went to the Art of Animation for brunch, then headed over to Disney's Wide World of Sports to pick up our race packets. We got there about 30 minutes before it opened, and their was already a line. New Balance was passing out tickets for those that wanted to get the Disney shoes, but I did not have money for that (but that is ok, they were already out of my size.) Maybe next race.
After taking some pictures we picked up our packets and OVER-SIZED t-shirts (The small was 2 sizes too big and they wouldn't let us switch sizes. I mean c'mon, why were the sizes so over-sized??!) We then explored the "expo". I got a cute turtle running headband.
After that, we went to the Magic Kingdom. We each got a Dole Whip Float, checked out the Trading Post for pins, and then went on Splash Mountain. We also went on the steam boat and the Haunted Mansion.
We then took the monorail over to Epcot for Dinner. We ate in The Land. I got some rice, potatoes, and fresh green beans, along with a cookie. We then went on Nemo and Spaceship Earth before leaving for home. It had started pouring and we didn't want to stay out late.