The Half Marathon – Mouseketeers!
Another early morning was upon us and Keels was up and practically done getting ready before I was even out of bed. Go girl! This costume was pretty simple and I didn’t have to carry anything in my hands so I was happy. I got ready and went to make a Nuun and realized I didn’t have any water. I grabbed some waffles and a Nuun tablet to bring with me to the pre-race stuff so I figured I would be good. Well, I wasn’t. I get to the meet up and I am just grumpy. (I am going to blame the fact that I didn’t bring shots for before the Half Marathon…) I go to the gear check and they wanted to change how they were labeling the bags and the person in front of me was still putting things in their bag instead of taking care of that in line. I was just all kinds of not happy. I was trying to find water and I couldn’t. So I get back to the meet up and I am just complaining so much. But then
@roxymama says hi to me and I said hi back and gave her a hug but it definitely wasn’t the meetup I had planned (Roxy you looked super cute BTW!). What I had realized was that I was pretty dehydrated and feeling real terrible and I had to go run a Half Marathon. More than anything I was just pissed off at myself. We finally make way towards the corrals which are like a mile away and Ryan points out they had some water. THANK THE HEAVENS. I grabbed a few cups and chugged. I felt better immediately but knew it wasn’t gonna be enough. Bonus: I didn’t bring any fuel with me. I am really terrible at being a runner sometimes. So anyway, off to the corrals….
You know what’s super fun? GROUP COSTUMES! You know what’s really hard? Getting everyone together for a group photo (there was supposed to be 12 in this group, I think!). Ah well. We all looked cute wherever we were!
We get to the Corrals and make a pit stop at the porta potties. Then I head to Corral D with Bree where we find
@mrsg00fy and
@Princess KP. Teetz was back in Corral F, I think, and figured that he would just catch up with us at some point like he did during the 10k (spoiler, that never happened). We stayed towards the back of the Corral. No real reason to push up to the front. And then we were off!
Bree and I were running together again and she set up a pace to stick to on her Garmin. Still trying not to ruin our legs for the Marathon. Also being real picky about which Characters we wanted to stop for. I had a great time just reading the group chat out loud to Bree as we were running. We passed by one of the first Character stops and it was Lightning McQueen from Cars. Standing right next to him was a guy that looked JUST LIKE Owen Wilson and I was like “OMG I thought they had Owen Wilson out at that stop!!!” We laughed as the guy ran by us wearing the suit from Dumb and Dumber with his friend.
Wonder if the top hats lasted the whole race...
We kept pushing on straight to Magic Kingdom. This was going to be my first time running in MK at all and I was ready for that flood of emotion that I know so well as you run down Main Street (from doing DL races).
What I didn’t realize was that from this gate to MK was like 2.5 miles… But right in the middle was Angela (AKA One/Consuela) there at the TTC screaming her damn head off for me and Bree!!! Kudos to that woman because it was early and I didn’t even want to be there. And then finally we made it to a park! It was around this time that I noticed how awesome our costumes were because everyone kept cheering for us BY NAME! “GO JENNA! GO BREE!!” These are definitely my new favorite race costumes. I need that kind of encouragement all the time. That happened all the way down Main Street USA while I cried taking it all in and looking at that perfect Castle. Y’all running down Main Street is just magical. I didn’t take any pictures while I was running there because it would ruin the moment for sure, but I took this after we went through it.
Once we were in the Park we starting determining who we wanted to stop for. White Rabbit had no line, so he was an easy choice. (Bonus: I am always late…)
Then I was collecting all the Goofy pictures, so of course had to stop for him.
My mom asked if we coordinated outfits...
Then it was time to go through the Castle and we took a Castle picture in case we didn’t get one during the Marathon.
And finally we stopped for Woody & Bullseye. This was probably the longest line we waited in so far.
We left MK and headed on to the Highway…. We were still feeling pretty good at this point. Group Chat was being hilarious #SevenChipmunks. We were just going along until the next Character stop which was Travel Daisy & Donald.
I remember seeing a guy with a sign that said “FREE COLD BEER… at the finish” and we heckled him because homie, I have to PAY for that beer. I don’t know what kind of establishment you think Disney runs but…. Then it was just more highway. And more highway. And the sun coming up. And the off ramp. And for some reason Bree and I got really quiet…. I knew I needed food and was just ready for this to be done, but Bree was smart and ate fuel every 3 miles. Haha. So we FINALLY get to the turn into Epcot and I SEE IT. A BOX. A BOX OF KRISPY KREME DONUTS. A kind sir holding a box of everything I needed right that second, so I bolt over. Bree looks back and is like “What are you doing?” And I yelled “DONUTS!!!” And she turns around and grabs one too. Bless up, Donut Man. So I am feeling better and knew we were in the home stretch. I am pretty sure I sped up a lot too in that last mile or so… But I was happy, it was almost done, I had a donut, life was great! We stopped for just Horace as Clarabelle was just going on break and the line was short.
We run through Epcot and to the finish and DONE! Smiles all around!
Best Running Buddy Ever! <3
And then for the first time in my runDisney career: I HAD A PARKING LOT BEER!!!!!!!!!
Three races down, one to go!
22.4 miles done, 26.2 to go!
.
