This weekend was our very first Disney race! Almost a year ago we registered for the Dark Side 10k at Disney World and all of our training has built up to this weekend. It was not only our first Disney race, but also our first 10k race. A lot of build up. A lot. Training to run 6.2 miles wasn't really a small feat for us. So we have been thinking about this race as a new stepping stone for us.
Race weekend started earlier than the actual race though. First, we had to plan for what the kids would do for the weekend because a Disney race requires a lot of prep and a very early wake up time. So, we decided that they would get to have a fun weekend at Nana and Papa's house! Yay! They were super excited. It meant that I had to start packing them up a couple days before though to make sure everything made it to Nana and Papa's with them. The annoying thing was that they spent all day on Friday telling me that it was time to go to Nana and Papa's house. Seriously. We dropped Kenzie off at school and then Will got onto me because I was driving the wrong way to get to Nana's house (I was making a Target run) and he was ready to go with or without Sissy at that point. But I digress...
The other thing about Disney races is that they totally have it figured out how to try to make people buy their stuff. They hold an expo during the race weekend and this is the only way you can pick up your bib. Also, unlike the majority of other races, you can only pick up your own. That was a bit difficult for us. See, Steven has been out at Cocoa almost all week working long hours with someone from Denver that flew in specifically to take care of some things with him and took up all of his time this week (as in he had worked more than his full allotment of weekly hours by midday Thursday but he still had to work a full... plus some... day on Friday). So, he was extremely busy and unable to get away. Our initial plan had been to go down to the expo on Friday after dropping Kenzie off at school but we knew that he would have to work a full day on Friday so when he was able to get off on time on Thursday we decided to meet down at the expo. This was our first expo experience. I admit... I was worried. I have heard about how crowded they are and I knew I would be alone with the kids there for a period of time so I wasn't sure how it would go. Turns out that it wasn't bad at all! Steven was about 20 minutes behind me so I went in and walked right up to pick up my bib then we stood around and waited for Steven to make it there so he could get his bib. The kids just ran around in the open area and tackled each other. Whatever works. The floor was soft and sort of bouncy. Steven walked right up and picked up his bib with no issues either. There wasn't any line at all. The 10k shirts were at the expo area next door so we walked over there and picked those up. I ended up trading mine for a size two sizes bigger. When they handed me the one I would usually wear (the size I have a lot of other race shirts in) I just stood there confused. The guy giving them out said that was a common reaction as the women's shirts seemed fairly small this year for some reason. Luckily, they had one two sizes up so I was able to switch for that. It's a bit bigger than I might usually wear but beggars can't be choosers I just wanted to be able to wear it. We then wandered through the expo. We both really wanted car magnets but we just couldn't bring ourselves to spend that kind of money for a 10k magnet. Half marathon? Sure. But 10k? The price was sort of steep. We ended up not getting out of there until about 7 so we stopped for dinner on the way home so the kids wouldn't be up too much longer than necessary.
Like I said earlier, Friday we dropped the kids off with Nana. Well, I met her at Pizza Hut halfway between our houses. Unfortunately, Steven couldn't get out of work on time to meet us but he was home by the time I got home without the kids. We knew we would have a super early wake up time the next morning so we were in bed around 8:30. I think we were both asleep within 15 minutes. We have been going non-stop lately and the early bedtime ended up not being a problem. We were worried we would be laying awake for hours. Or sleep for an hour or two and then be up for a few hours. Alarms were set for 2:45am. It's always a bit upsetting when you set an alarm and you phone alerts you to the time you have before the alarm goes off... and it doesn't seem nearly long enough.
Turns out that I woke up at 2:41am so I just got up and started getting ready. Steven woke up with his alarm 4 minutes later and we were out of the house about 15 minutes after that. Not too bad of a turn around. We had everything laid out the night before though and were ready to go.
We made it down to Disney at about 3:45am. The drive was nice and easy with no one else on the road. Not sure why no one else was out. ;) We had to park at Epcot because that was the finish line but we started the race in the parking lot at Ticket and Transportation (Magic Kingdom) so we had to be bused over to that area. It was an easy enough process. Once over there we walked around some and took a few pictures before finding our corral. When we registered we both put that we run between a 12-13 minute mile. Technically, we can both now run faster but at the time it's about what we were averaging and also this is Disney... we knew we would like to stop for pictures periodically which would slow us down some. So, we were put into Corral D. Usually there are more corrals apparently but they lessened the number and then we were sent in waves. We stood in our corral for a while which was the worst part. Standing around before getting ready to run is not my favorite. My back tends to hurt if I stand in one place for too long which isn't a good combo when you are about to take on 6 miles of running.
Eventually though, it was time to send off the first runners and then a wave would follow every 3 minutes with two waves in each corral. So, we only had to wait about 20 minutes before it was our turn since we were in wave 1 of our corral. Plus, once waves started going, we all sort of started moving to line up. The anticipation was killer. Steven and I talked about the race last week and decided that we wanted to try to stay together for this race. That's a big deal for us. We don't usually do that but we knew that this race wasn't one about setting any new records or anything. It's more for the experience so we wanted to be together. I admit, as we got closer to race day, I became nervous. Steven is seriously faster than me. The difference in us is that eventually my stamina (my slower pace helps me maintain it longer, I think) takes over and I can finish a race not far behind him. But, we decided to do whatever it took to be together.
Before we knew it, we were sent off with fireworks and a lot of cheering. We started with a steady run at the beginning. We chatted most of the way too which is a new thing for both of us. We probably could have run a bit harder and not talked, but we enjoyed each other's company. About a mile in, Steven remarked that this might be the most time we have spent together in weeks at one time. He might be right. Our initial goal was to run the first mile. Then we would reassess how we felt. I haven't run a steady mile in a while since I usually do intervals but earlier this week I went out and did a steady 1.25 or so to make sure I could do it. Steven always tries to run the first mile or so and we knew he could do it. We had it figured that if we could make it a mile or so without slowing, then we would separate ourselves farther from being swept. The first half of the course (give or take) was out on roads so although there were some random movie clips along the way and a few characters that we didn't want to wait in line for, there wasn't much to look at. In light of that, and because my slower pace was slowing Steven some and he was speeding me up a bit, we ended up running the first 2 miles with no issues. At that point, we decided to walk some. We took a few walk breaks throughout the rest of the race but they were never too long and we would start running again. We hit the 5k split on an on ramp. Our split was around 37 minutes which isn't too shabby. Steven has been faster but this was my fastest 5k in a race to date. We even impressed ourselves by running up the ramp. We were sure that this was the point that we would walk. We did walk some though it was more because the strange angle of it as it was a turn around ramp made my knee hurt some. Shortly after the ramp we took a right turn into the back of Hollywood Studios. We were able to enter from the backstage area near Tower of Terror and run down the road from Tower of Terror to the exit. It was pretty cool to be in the park without anyone else... other than the other runners. We started hitting all the Disney photographers at that point so we were having a good time trying to get a good picture. Not like we will buy them but it gave us something else to do. I think we both hit a bit of a second wind coming through Hollywood Studios and we ran a lot of the way though.
Then it was time to take the walkway to Boardwalk. This was the one part of the race that we weren't fans of. It is a very narrow area and there are a lot of people. Even sending everyone out in waves doesn't fix the issue of too many people at once in some areas. Eventually we made it to Boardwalk. We came in near the Swan Hotel and ran over the boardwalk itself all the way to the entrance to Epcot by the World Showcase. Running over the boardwalk was loud and creaky. All I could think was that I hoped it was reinforced well underneath because we were certainly all pounding the boardwalk as we went over it. We continued to run/walk but didn't follow any specific intervals. We were both tiring some but we knew we were almost there. We hit the five mile marker in Boardwalk so we knew that by the time we entered Epcot, we would be almost done.
We were both hoping for another push when we hit Epcot and while we really enjoyed running through part of the World Showcase and by the ball, we were both tired. We weren't feeling nearly as great as we were coming through Studios but we were still okay. We stopped to take a selfie with the Mile 6 marker because we knew it was the home stretch after that.
We exited the park into the parking lot and could see the finish up ahead. Once we made the turn into the chute, we ran the final tenth of a mile or so in and officially finished our first 10k!!! And we did it together. I was proud of us for staying together.
We picked up our race snacks, waters, and bananas before taking a few pictures and sitting down to take a break for a few minutes (and call to check on the kids since we knew everyone would be up at that point).
Our times to start were pretty good. We got progressively slower and our final mile was our slowest. This was partially because we stopped a few times to take pictures and partially because we were tired but we finished in 1:21:33! Steven placed 4870 and I was 4872 out of 10892. (Yeah... the crazy part of that is that we have someone in between us and we have exactly the same finish time.) Not too shabby for our first 10k and for stopping frequently towards the end to take some pictures.
It was so much fun! The price on Disney races is steep but you pay for a lot of experience. No one does a race quite like Disney. We had some concerns about getting swept. We saw quite a few parade buses hanging around on our route but we were quite far ahead of them and never even had a concern once we were over about the first mile. The 16:00 min/mile pace starts from the last person to cross the start line so we were perfectly fine. Knowing that let us enjoy it more. We will definitely do another Disney race one of these days. Maybe not super soon but one day, we will return... and we might even take on a half. Yeah. You read that right. When we finished the 10k, we actually both said we think we could do the half with some more training. Our return to RunDisney one of these days might be a half. Eek.
Now that we have finished our first Disney race, we are talking more about what our upcoming plans are. Initially I had big plans to run the Princess 10k next year... but we have been looking at our finances and, like I mentioned, Disney races are steep. They are not budget friendly. So, our plans have changed some. We definitely plan to register Kenzie for the Princess Kids' Race next year (and sign ups as passholders are next week) but we aren't going to do any others ourselves soon. Instead, we are talking about trying to register for the Track Shack Fanatics series. It is only slightly more money than a Disney 10k but you get 6 races that range in distance from a 5k to a 10k. There are 3 5ks, a 4 mile (the Run 4 Love), a 5 mile (the U Can Finish), and a 10k. So, we are strongly considering that. The only bad thing is that you register for all of them at once and we worry some about something coming up but we are still wanting to consider it because it would be most of our races for the entire next season. We also talked last year about doing the 5k through Sea World in December so that could be a possibility as an add on. We plan to sit down and figure all the dates out to see how it would work in the next couple of weeks but hopefully we will be becoming Fanatics.
I can't reiterate how much fun this race was though. Afterwards we came home and took showers then went out to check out some TV's since we need to replace ours after the lightning. Then we headed back to Disney for the afternoon. We managed to snag FP for Mine Train which we have been wanting to ride for 2 years now. It was fun. We also did Pirates. We did determine though that Disney is no where near as fun without the kids. Running through it was an entirely different experience but as far as going to see everything and ride some rides, we enjoyed our time together and had fun but it is certainly more fun with the kids. We just like to see their little eyes light up over everything no matter how many times they have seen it. =)
The rest of our weekend is going to be catching up on the sleep we missed. We have church in the morning and we have plans to meet Nana to get the kids in early afternoon. Then we will probably head down to buy a TV since we didn't do it today. It's been a fun weekend and I'm so glad that we decided to do this race. It was almost a year in the making but worth every sore calf, achy hamstring, shin splint, side stitch, and whatever else was thrown our way.
Until next time... May the Force be with you...
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