Saturday started way too early. I love Disney races, but they start at 5:30am and Disney wants you on the shuttle from the hotels no later than 4am. So that means you wake up around 3:15/3:30 to catch the shuttle in time. It also means a lot of time standing around before the race. At least Disney does the pre-race entertainment well. There are 6 different photos ops with different Star Wars villains and an MC playing Star Wars clips and doing Star Wars trivia. We jumped in one of the shorter lines, which happened to be for Kylo Ren. While waiting, we all determined that Hiram was the only person that could answer any of the trivia and the rest of us were clueless. The pictures with Kylo Ren were incredibly awkward. These villains don't really interact well with us, so Hiram and I just semi stood next to him and you can tell we have no idea what to do. We all learned it is way easier to take pictures when you can put your arms around the character.
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| Smiling at 4:30am |
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| Benefits of PhotoPass...group photos that aren't selfies |
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| Hmmm how were we supposed to pose? We are already preparing for the next try in a few years. |
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| The Storm Troopers giving us a pep talk? |
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| Off to the corrals and the race start |
We all split once we hit the corrals as we all had different paces. Corey is definitely the fast one in the group and you can tell he is focused from his pictures. Jenny and I had the goal of having fun and maintaining a decent pace. Our goal was to smile for every camera. Hiram and Karen were playing it by ear to see how Karen was feeling (she was 5 months pregnant at the time of the race). I was excited to get this race started because it was my first 10k at Disney World and I was curious how it would compare to my past half marathons. In my past half marathons, each corral started with massive fireworks so I was disappointed to see the bare minimum fireworks to start each corral. I figured I would see if the half stacked up the following morning. The course is pretty boring for the first few miles. There are characters out there, but it is a lot of running on dark roads (more characters than the Disneyland 10k though). We finally entered Hollywood Studios behind Tower of Terror and ran through to the entrance of the park. Then we took the Boardwalk into the back of Epcot and ran through part of the World. Jenny and I ran the race really well and we even picked up the pace in Epcot since the music was going and we were excited to be in the park. We even stopped to get a picture with the COS players right before the end of the race. We finished in 1:07:40. Corey crushed his race and was waiting for us at the end. Ducky and Hiram had a little rougher race. The heat, humidity, and lack of sleep was rough for Ducky, but she made it work and they finished in one piece with energy for the next day. Amazingly Hiram is smiling in every single picture and loved it!
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| Corey was focused on his race |
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| And he did it! |
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| Despite running next to each other for every stop during both races, it was really hard to find a picture with both of us together. |
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| But they somehow managed ok shots of us individually (Jenny is right next to me in this picture) |
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| We just entered the World in Canada. |
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| I loved how it was still semi dark when we finished. |
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| Haha...that was definitely unexpected. |
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| We did it! |
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| Jenny was against holding the "I did it" sign. |
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| You will honestly notice that he smiles in every picture. |
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| 2 miles from the finish and huge smile. |
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| Entering the Boardwalk |
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| So close to being done |
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| They did it! |
Jenny and I joined Corey after the finish. I somehow had some energy so I convinced Jenny to join me in line to get a picture with BB-8. The line looked short but weaved at the front (which I didn't notice), but it was perfectly timed so that Hiram and Ducky were able to join the picture after they finished.
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| I love BB-8! |
Then it was back to the hotel to shower, relax, and get some food. We were running on a lack of sleep so the idea was to eat and hit the pool for naptime. We enjoyed pool time in the Cars themed area. I loved that they played cars themed music and it wasn't strictly Disney music, which was nice. I also took the time to explore the resort to see the different themed areas. I adored them, so of course I took a lot of pictures. Disney did a great job when they put this resort together.
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| Welcome to Radiator Spriings |
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| Such a great job theming. |
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| Our hotel room was inside the Wheel Well Hotel. |
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| It looked just as nice at night. |
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| Rafiki welcomes you into the Lion King area |
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| This was by far my favorite area (but I also love Lion King) |
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| Hakuna Matata, Hakuna Matata...it means no worries! |
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| There was even an elephant graveyard. |
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| Couldn't forget Scar. |
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| Zazu |
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| The entrance to the Little Mermaid area was a fork, but Ursala was the big attraction on the side. |
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| Sebastian was leading the dancing fish. |
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| King Triton was a nice sight opposite of Ursala |
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| And of course Ariel was fun to see. |
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| The Finding Nemo area was the main pool area. They did a great job. |
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| Squirt was hanging out on the playground area. |
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| And you can't forget the teacher |
After a relaxing day, we went to the Caribbean Beach Resort to enjoy dinner at Shutters. We enjoyed the dinner and found out that the restaurant was closing soon because of major construction at the resort. Glad I had a chance to try a new place before it closed.
We did a much better job of getting back to the hotel at a decent time so we could get to bed and get more sleep. Another 3am wakeup to get to the half marathon in the morning.
