I had woken up again around 2:45 a.m. and grabbed my energy drink as I got dressed. According to my phone’s weather app, it was slightly warmer that morning than the previous morning. While I was happy to see that, I knew once we got out to the starting line area it would be really cold. As I was getting ready I got a text from Mara telling me that she was up and would be heading over to my hotel to meet me shortly. We were planning to get onto the bus by 3:30 a.m. to head over to Epcot and the starting line area. 
She arrived at the hotel at 3:15 a.m. I went down to meet her and give her some pins for her bib. I had brought a running outfit that had a Thor shirt and a small red cape. Mara was wearing her Captain America pullover. We had decided to represent Marvel in this race. We had also grabbed a couple of old Disney Costume jackets from the Cast Connection that we bought for a dollar. We figured that these jackets plus the space blanket from the race yesterday would help keep us warm as we waited for the race to start. When we got off the bus to walk over to the starting line, I thought we would be plenty warm. Unfortunately the wait for our start was long enough that we started to get pretty cold.We got in line to meet Minnie since she is the race’s symbolic leader. The line was short and moved really quickly. If you want to meet characters, I recommend getting to the race start area as early as possible. As we waited to meet Minnie the lines got really long. After getting our picture taken, we walked over to an area that would shield us from the wind and allow us to stay warm.
We waited until about 5:00 a.m. to walk over to the corrals. Mara’s bib said Corral C but my bib said Corral E. I can’t figure out how they came up with that position for me. We asked the staff at Corral C if we could get in together since we were running together. We were turned away and told that if we wanted to run together, we would have to be in the later corral. This meant we would have to stand in the cold that much longer. Plus we would have to weave in and out of the walkers that would be starting before us. Since there wasn’t anything we could do about it we headed over to Corral E to wait for our start.
Like the 5K race the gun went off right on time at 5:30 a.m. But since Mara and I were in Corral E, we did not get up to the starting line until a few minutes after 6:00 a.m. Finally at 6:10 am. the fireworks went off and we were off and running. The initial part of the route took us out westbound Epcot Center Parking Road. As we approached a bridge we noticed a person standing up there lit up brightly. I thought it might be an animatronic figure. As we got closer, we saw that it was a live Mary Poppins waving and encouraging all of the runners as they crossed under her bridge. It was a really cool way to start the race as Mary Poppins was one of my favorite movies when I was a child. Who’s kidding, I still love it.
As we passed the 1 mile marker, the road started to narrow. The reason for the narrowing was so we could make a u-turn onto Epcot Center Dr. West heading back eastward towards Epcot. Right at the turn they had Wreck it Ralph and Vanellope. This was poorly planned because a lot of runners wanted to do a meet and greet with the characters and the other runners were trying to make the narrow turn. This made it difficult to make the turn. No matter, we waved to Ralph and Vanellope as we ran by and headed back eastward.
We were really enjoying the run as we had finally warmed up enough to shed the last throw away layer. We dropped the old costume jackets into the trash bin next to the water stop. The nice part about this part of the route is that the road is very wide which allows runners to run on the left and the walkers to be on the right. It made it so much easier for us to keep running. We passed Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers as we got closer to the 3 mile mark.
We passed the 3 mile marker and the road narrowed again as we made a sharp right turn on to Backstage Lane. This was the turn we needed to make to take us backstage. The next mile was exactly the same part of the World Showcase I had run yesterday. As we rounded the lagoon, Mara and I stopped to get a picture at the same spot I had taken a photo at during the 5K. Then after a short bathroom break in a real bathroom, we started to run again.
Unfortunately Mara’s right knee was starting to hurt. So we stopped and I helped her stretch her quad which relieved the pain. We were off again. We turned left and headed over to the Boardwalk. We were feeling really good and taking it easy. We had decided not to stop and do any character meet and greets during this race. But we did see Apu from Aladdin and Jiminy Cricket as we ran. If you want to meet characters not normally out in the parks these races will allow you to do just that.
The loudspeakers warned us to be careful on the boardwalk because the boards could be slippery. Luckily they were not slippery at all. As we approached the ESPN Club, we saw football Goofy. The line was huge. The cool thing about this part of the race was that there were ChEAR Squad families rooting us on which was so much fun. Mara even saw a friend of hers as we approached the Big River Grill. This seemed to give us a good boost of energy to power us to the finish.
As we approached the turn that would take us to the Swan & Dolphin Resort, we turned right to head back toward Epcot past the Yacht Club Resort. As we got to the bridge over the water I saw a runner with a Grateful Dead running shirt. I greeted him (as I love the Grateful Dead too) by saying, “what a long strange trip we’re on”. He laughed and shook my hand. As I left I told him, “At least we’re not going down the road feeling bad.” I wished him a good race and we headed on. We crossed back into Epcot at the backstage area of England. At this point we only had about ¾ of a mile to go.
While we were feeling good, Mara’s knee kept giving her trouble. We stopped to let her stretch. We wanted to make sure she didn’t sustain and injury that would prevent her from running the half marathon the next day. I had told myself that I didn’t care about my time in these races. It was about just finishing all 4 races. I just wanted to have this time with Mara and enjoy the fact that I got to run with her the first time she conquered the 10K distance.
We crossed by Spaceship Earth and after a quick photo headed to the finish line. We finally made the turn where we could see the finish line. It was so much fun to run past the cheering families as we got to the finish line. I grabbed Mara’s hand and raised it above our heads as we crossed the finish line. We both had huge grins on our face as we collected our space blankets and medals.
I enjoyed this race a lot more than the 5K. That is probably due in part to having been able to share it with my daughter. But it was also because the route was really nice. I think that I could have run it a lot faster if I didn’t have over 39 miles of running ahead. No matter, Mara had set a PR in her 10K and now has a base time to try and improve in future races.
We headed back to the hotel to shower and rest up. The third race of the Dopey Challenge – the Half Marathon – was up next. The Half was going to allow me to not only run with Mara but also my friend Sara Wilkins. The best thing about that is that they would surely slow me down and not allow me to go out too fast. Our plan was to run the race using the Galloway run/walk method. I was half way done with the Dopey Challenge but had only covered 19% of the mileage. I wasn’t sure how the next two races would go, but felt like I was right where I hoped to be after running the 5K and 10K races.
Jan 22 – 5.20 miles (44:37, 8:35 pace) – Speed Work
Jan 24 – 6.30 miles (55:38, 8:50 pace) – Tempo Run
Jan 25 – 5.10 miles (46:19, 9:05 pace)
Jan 26 – 7.10 miles (1:05:59, 9:17 pace)
Jan 27 – 7.20 miles (1:05:45, 9:16 pace)
Total Miles: 30.90 miles
2019 Total Miles: 112.66 miles
1 comment:
Very interesting description of the course. It seems as if the first two races had some g;itches by the organizers, I hope they asked for comments from the participants. The tension is building to see how the half-marathon goes.
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