Tower of Terror 10 miler
So once I got back to my room, we all got into our costumes and made our way to the bus for the race! For this race they only had buses running from certain hotels, and the Grand was not one of them. However, the Poly was, so we took the walking path over to the Poly to grab the bus there. On our walk we found a photopass photographer! I guess he must have been there from the Spirit of Aloha show, but he was very happy to take some pics for us. So we got some pics in our costumes on the beach!
We got one of the first buses, and we arrived at the race very early. We ended up spending a lot of time just sitting around hanging out. The girls had brought some goldfish and I munched on some, which I later regretted - I didn't like how they felt in my tummy while I was running! Lesson learned. We also met up with some of the other girls running, most of which were part of our "Alice in Wonderland" theme!
Finally we checked our bag, used the port-o-potties, and made our way to the corrals (I was in E). The race started with fireworks, which is such a fun way to start a race!
It was a really great race for me. The weather was perfect. While the course may not have been as interesting as one that ran through the parks more, I enjoyed the nighttime atmosphere and they made it fun along the way. Such as this Twilight Zone themed section in the beginning:
There were maybe 10 character stops along the way, most of them villains. I stopped for 2: the Queen of Hearts (a must with my Alice costume!) and Dr. Facilier. Both times I waited maybe 3-4 minutes, so that got added on to my time, but the pics are very fun with characters you don't meet very often!
Here I am at mile 9: almost there!
Some "action shots":
I finished in 1 hour, 55 minutes, and 56 seconds. My goal was to be under 2 hours so it was a success! I had a pace of 11:36, which was much better than I was expecting, especially give that I stopped for characters twice! My best pace at home had been 11:34 and that was without any characters around, so I was pretty amazed and pleased with the turnout. I think a lot had to do with the absolutely perfect weather.
I got my medal, a water bottle, and my snack pack and made my way into Hollywood Studios to sit down and eat a little bit. HS was open until 3:30, and I finished around midnight, so it was time to enjoy the Villains Bash! I had no idea what to expect - I wasn't told what rides would be open, what characters there were, etc. (apparently the people/spectators that paid to get in were given a map with info. I wish they had that where the runners finished!). I found some characters over by the hat and waited to meet Cruella deVil. She was absolutely hilarious! Just really into her part. She was offended that I was a "good guy" and tried to cover me up in our pic!
Then I decided to try and find my friends that had come to watch and had gotten into HS at 10pm. This took a decent amount of time. I finally met up with the girls who didn't run, but by this time it was almost 1 and they were tired and ready to head out. Then the girls that finished after me were done, but a lot of them hadn't trained for the race at all and they were so tired and sore that they just wanted to head back to the room (lesson: training pays off, especially if you want to enjoy the parks after your run!). One girl and her husband were still ready to go, so we made our way over to Rockin Roller Coaster... where it was a 75 minute wait. It had been 15 minutes when I finished running, but by this time all of the runners were done and the park was really crowded. I kinda wish I had done some rides on my own instead of trying to find other people that were ultimately leaving anyway, but oh well. So we skipped RnRC and did Star Tours instead, which had a much shorter wait.
That was fun, and then we decided to wait to meet Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers. Ahead of us in line was an adorable baby dressed up as Darth Vader, and his interaction was hilarious. His dad was holding him and the baby kept trying to push all of the buttons on Darth Vader's costume. Everyone in line loved him and cheered for their interaction.
And then I got my picture!
By now it was almost 3 am and I was ready to head back to the room. I had a really good time with my one friend and her husband that stuck around, they were a lot of fun! Back in the room I re-heated my leftover pasta from dinner, ate that, and then went to bed. Adrenaline kept me up a little bit, but a little after 4:00 I was finally asleep. I was very excited to hit up food and wine the next day, but was not expecting what happened instead! (oooh, cliffhanger!).
And a selfie with the girl (icecoldpenguin) who created the hunt!
Good for you for going to eat alone, I'm going to check out the menu description of that pasta!
)
I'm glad you had a few friends that were willing and able to stay!
