Tri-ing Life and More

I have lived in Northern Virginia for almost 8 years and I finally visited Luray Caverns. I have seen the commercials for years and even visited Luray several times for triathlons, but never had the time to stop. One of my closest friends got married in Luray in April and I took the opportunity to use my Saturday morning before her amazing wedding to visit Luray Caverns.

A year ago I got my DSLR camera and I have been trying to learn how to use it since. My friend, Hilary, and I both got Nikon D3300 before our trip to Italy last year, but neither of us really knew what we were doing. We tried figuring things out in Italy, but mostly I kept my camera on auto.

I have been interested in running the wine country half marathon for years. Every year since its beginning, I have had something in conflict to prevent me from racing it. This year at the Rock n' Roll expo, Melissa and I came upon their booth and we were intrigued. Neither of us had anything planned for that date, so we decided to sign up. We registered as the Wino Women and had to convince 4 others to join our team for $10 off. Luckily we were able to convince Jen, Sherri, and Hilary to join the team. Melissa's friend was also planning on racing and happily joined our team.

Sunday: There is no way to prepare your body for two 3am wakeup calls in a row. I trained for running two races in a row, but the mornings hurt more than anything. Luckily we all went to bed earlier so we had a little more sleep. We were up and on the shuttle around 3:30 to get to the race. It really is amazing how you start smiling once you get off the bus though. The MC is showing Star Wars clips and people are surprisingly happy at 4am. We decided to get in line for pictures with Jabba since it was the shortest. We finished in time to hit the bathroom and head to the corrals. We all split into different corrals again. Waiting in the corrals is when I actually start to get tired again. You are waiting for the start with nothing to do.

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.

Our Star Wars fun continued into April where the whole group went to Disney World to take on the Dark Side Challenge. Hiram was super excited about returning to Disney and all the fun we would have and the rest of us happily went with him. We were excited to enjoy different parts of Disney and have Hiram and Karen run their first half marathon. We again packed the weekend with parks and races. Friday: Friday morning we caught the earliest flight to Orlando and took the Magical Express to our hotel. I was so excited to see Art of Animation. I have been to Disney so often that I love being able to enjoy something new. Since there were 5 of us, we decided to stay in a family suite with a Cars theme. It was a little smaller than we expected, but we survived. One of the beds pulled down from the wall and my bed was a sofa couch, but at least their were two bathrooms. The resort was incredible. The theming was done so well and we all loved it. The themed areas included Cars, Lion Kin...

Those who know me know that I love Disney. There is just something magical about that place and it keeps bringing me back. So when my friend said that he would like to run a half marathon, I instantly thought of the Star Wars race since he is a Star Wars fan. What better way to run your first half marathon than surrounded by Star Wars characters and music. It actually didn't take any convincing since he said yes almost instantly. Once he was in, we had to convince the rest of the crew to run it too. Jenny was in and she dragged Corey along without giving him a chance to say no. Karen was game for giving it a try despite never seeing a Star Wars movie. We sadly couldn't convince Jo to run with us again. I think we scared her away at the Princess half two years ago and she will probably never run a half again (sorry Jo!). The next decision was if we wanted to complete the Kessel Challenge. Disney has several cross country challenges to compete in the themed half marathons in D...