Let me start by saying...this is my FAVORITE race so far!!! It was awesome!!! I am defintely going to try to run this one every year! The expo was fun but we got there late so I didn't get to shop as much as I wanted to...although that is probably a good thing lol! I attempted to go to bed at 8:00 the night before race day because I had to wake up at 3AM in order to catch the buses that took us to the race. I did NOT sleep well at all. My mother-in-law (bless her heart) was snoring like crazy and it kept me awake. And I was so excited too so I think that contributed to my no sleep too. I woke up ready to run though. I ate a bagel (instead of my normal banana) and started dressing up in my Minnie Mouse attire. Finally we made it on a bus (after waiting in line at our resort for about 15 minutes). When we got there we had to walk about 20 minutes to the start line..so that was my warm up! We had to be in our corrals by 5AM...race started at 5:45AM. I was sooo excited to be in corral A...I got to start first! They had tons of entertainment while you were waiting to start. Then the fairy godmother came up and counted off our start which was sooo cool! Not sure if they fired a gun to start or not...because I was too busy watching the fireworks! I've never had fireworks at a start line before!!! Finally I was running! And thinking that I couldn't believe I was actually running my dream race! The first 2 miles we headed down the main drag towards the Magic Kingdom. I was running at a pretty decent pace! Before we hit mile 3 we saw a pirate ship from Pirates of the Carribean and a huge hot air balloon of Spaceship Earth! So cool! I stopped and took a picture with some of the Disney men and princes! Had to take that one of course lol! Then I came upon the entrance to Magic Kingdom...I will always remember what the Disney cast members said as I ran through the entrance, "Welcome to the Magic Kingdom! Watch out for the speed bump!" Lol! That made me laugh! Miles 3-5 were basically in the parking lot. We had to run up and down the hill under the water bridge which was pretty tough. But there was a DJ on top of the bridge playing awesome music and then when you reached the top of the hill there were guys jumping on a trampoline! What an incentive to get up that hill lol! Finally we were running down Main Street towards Cinderella's castle! There were tons of spectators cheering you on as you ran down Main Street! We turned right at the castle and ran through Tomorrowland. I stopped to take a picture with Cinderella and Prince Charming and then I ran through the castle! That was sooo awesome! Tons of spectators were cheering us on as we ran out of the castle! We turned right and headed toward Frontierland. About this time, I stopped at a porta potty...good thing about being in corral A...no lines for the porta potties AND barely any lines (I think the most were 3 people in front of me) for the character picture stops. Then I headed out of Magic Kingdom towards the golf course and the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. Miles 7-8 blurred by and then we were back on the main drag heading towards Epcot. I passed the pirate ship again (and this time stopped to take a picture) and the hot air balloon. At mile 10, I stopped and took a picture with the green army man from Toy Story! He was hilarious...he had a microphone and was shouting orders at us to run, pick up speed, etc. At around mile 11 they had a huge television screen set up so you could see yourself running by! I was starting to hit a wall around this time...and then I see some hills I have to go up. I made it though! Reached mile 12 in the Epcot parking lot. And then we were finally running through Epcot and around Spaceship Earth which was awesome! Finally I reach mile 13 and knew I was almost there! I ran through the finish line towards Mickey, Minnie, and Donald Duck! My official time was 2:27:13!!!! That is a new PR for me...which amazes me because I made all those stops for pictures!
Here's a few pics of my GORGEOUS medal!!!
And since I took sooo many great pictures...I uploaded all of them to Walmart.com. I couldn't pick just a few to share on here so you get to see them all lol! The pics include our time at the parks too plus race day! Enjoy!
I'd like to share my Walmart Digital Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
