Part One of the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend covered Jay’s last minute sign up for the Half Marathon at the Expo and my running of the Wine and Dine 10K. Now for the fun part, the grueling 13.1 mile race that Jay didn’t know he was running until two and a half days prior.
I have long said the hardest part of doing the Challenges, where you run the 10K on Saturday and the Half Marathon on Sunday, is getting up that early two days in a row. Thankfully the Half Marathon happened to fall on Day Light Savings Time so we gained an extra hour of sleep so the 2:20 a.m. alarm felt like a 3:20 a.m. alarm. It’s the little things in life.
Jay and I had attempted to figure out matching costumes we could piece together in time, but ultimately decided it wasn’t going to be worth the effort because it still wouldn’t be what we wanted. I busted out our Team Rocket shirts from the Color Run 5K. While not ideal, at least they would match. I gave Jay the Running Buddy I used the day before, and planned on wearing the new Running Belt I had just ordered. (My one complaint is that even at the smallest setting it’s too big for me. I’m going to get another one and give this one to Jay, it fits him perfectly!)
We left around 3:10 a.m. and arrived at Epcot just after four. This time I didn’t bother with going through the bag check, but security wanted to check the towel and space blanket I had for warmth. (At least I found the silly space blanket this time.) We jumped on the bus and this trip seemed to take twice as long as the one the previous day. They weren’t running the air or the heat, and it was just humid and stifling.
As soon as we got off the bus, we headed straight for the Start Corrals. Since we were in the last one, I wanted to make sure we were as close to the front of the corral as possible so we could hopefully get a few mini waves between us and the Balloon Ladies. (The Balloon Ladies are the unofficial timers of the RunDisney races. They are the last to start and run at exactly at a sixteen-minute mile. The sweepers tend to pick up anyone who falls behind them.) I’ve never been in the last corral before and it scared me. I dropped Jay off in the corral and went to use the bathroom, planning on letting him go after me. Good grief, I had never seen the line for the Port-a-Potties so long. I got in line just after 5 a.m. and they were on Corral B by the time I actually got to go. It was actually semi-hilarious listening to the announcers from the line, and during the national anthem, the only sound was the slamming of doors. I hurried back to my corral to find that it had shifted up, and Jay had obviously moved. I called him and asked him to hold his hat straight up in the air. Thankfully, I spotted him quickly and had to “pardon me, excuse me,” all the way through the crowd. There wasn’t time for him to go to the bathroom, and it wasn’t long before we were moving.
I missed this part, but apparently there was a conversation with one of the announcers with a newlywed in Corral A, whose wife was in Corral D. “She said it was fine! She didn’t want to slow me down!” “You’re new at this! That was a test and you failed!”
I don’t know who was more nervous, Jay or me. He kept saying, “You set the pace and I’ll follow you,” over and over again. My concern wasn’t actually his endurance, but how much longer his legs are than mine. This was not only Jay’s first Half marathon, but my first Half Marathon with another person. I have always run alone until the Color Run. Normally Jay just chases me around the course at the spectator points. I’m not used to having to accommodate for someone else, but my plan was the same as it always is: the harder you run at the start, the slower you can go later.
We crossed the Start Line at 6:10 a.m. I do my own version of run-walk intervals without a timer, and my “walk” is a power walk that’s almost as fast as some people’s run. Jay’s run is much faster than mine and I can’t hold a run as long as he can, but he can’t walk as fast as I can. It was a struggle through most of the course and I am determined to teach him to shorten his stride before we do one of these things again. Most distance runners take short steps, but his swallow the ground.
“I thought you were a treadmill runner before you met me!”
“I was!”
“HOW DO YOU DO TAKE THOSE STRIDES ON A TREADMILL!?”
“It’s easy if you set it fast enough!”
Well, that explains a lot. Currently the only use the treadmill really gets is when the cat sleeps on it.
Racing through Hollywood Studios.
The 10K course went past the first turn and then made a left down World Drive. The Half Marathon made the first turn and the marching band was in the same spot, but the course continued back towards Magic Kingdom to turn onto Bear Island Road. We had the pleasure of running past the Walt Disney World water treatment plant, but at least it was early enough in the day that the smell wasn’t too bad.
Just past the first mile marker we saw Tinkerbell and a Fairy Friend. No idea who it was, I didn’t stop long enough to look. Just before mile two was a group of people and a camel wearing a fez. Not a real camel. I would have stopped if it had been. I couldn’t see them well enough to get any more detail, and I thought they were just random themed commentators like they sometimes have on the course. Spoiler alert, I was wrong but I wouldn’t learn that for another fifteen or so hours at the Post Race Party. Right before the third mile marker was Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa, and I asked Jay if he wanted to stop. I’ve met them both before, but he’s only met Jack and he loves Barbossa. He said to keep going.
Apparently, I shouldn’t have told him about the Balloon Ladies. He wanted to stop but was too worried about time to do so.
We hit the 5K marker and I stared at my Fitbit waiting for the text to come in. My mouth almost dropped open. Somehow, we were averaging thirteen-minute miles. That’s just about the fastest I’ve ever gone in a race. I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep it up however, and we dropped to a walk until we reached Animal Kingdom. Even then we didn’t start running until we made it out of backstage and into the park itself. We passed King Louie from the Jungle Book and kept going, then Rafiki followed by the dancers from Festival of the Lion King. Jay couldn’t believe I didn’t want to stop for them, and I would have if the singers had been out, but it was only the stilt walkers and a couple of the dancers.
The next portion of the course was a first for RunDisney as it turned out of Africa and took us into Pandora: The World of Avatar. I’ve been a handful of times now, but it has yet to get less impressive. Lots of people were stopping for photos, and I realized a lot of them were seeing it for the first time. That’s one of the things I forget about a lot during these races, I know every inch of these parks, but for a lot of these people it’s something they seldom get to experience. They had one of the drummers out instead of the usual trio, but it was still awesome. The course turned back towards the Tree of Life and then towards Dinoland U.S.A. We made a pit stop so Jay could use the restroom, and I insisted he use one in the parks because they’re so much easier than the Port-a-Potties. I waited for him and seized the opportunity to switch my eggs on Pokémon Go. Then we headed out towards the Animal Kingdom parking lot and Mile Marker Six. There was a whole slew of cheering volunteers stretching to the roadway and the 10K marker. I pointed the marker out to Jay and asked him if he could hold a fast run that far. He said yes so we took off. We hit the 10K with a pace of 15:36 per mile, much slower but we were basically half way there! There was another water stop just after that and more members of the Hogwarts Running Club with their “I’m not at the wrong park!” signs.
Then began the long, boring stretch of road between Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. It’s about three miles with next to nothing in them. Just after the 8 Mile Marker was the food station, and it broke my heart. It’s usually the Cliff Bar gel packs, and this year it was jelly beans. I was so looking forward to the gel pack! Jay seemed happy enough with the jelly beans and I just kept going sadly. I guess I’ll buy my own for the next race.
Near the ninth mile marker were the penguins from Mary Poppins. They’re common on RunDisney courses, but Jay had never seen them before so we stopped. Their line was probably only five minutes long and they were so excited! It was hilarious because the character attendant was switching penguins, so there were four out at once and one of the ones that was leaving stopped to fuss over a Bert and Mary Poppins in line behind us. The character attendant stopped halfway back to the RV with this sort of, “Wait, I lost a penguin.” look on his face. It was our turn and we posed super quick, just relying on Photopass since I get all the downloads anyway.
Then we kept going and made our way to the Death Turn. This is where the course began to repeat and I was essentially looking at doing the second part of the 10K again. The Green Army Man was once again at the top of the hill barking orders. All that mattered to me was that meant I should see another repeat once we got to Hollywood Studios.
I managed to coax Jay into running down the hill. He had pretty much reached the point where all he wanted to do was walk. We hit the backstage water stop behind Tower of Terror and then climbed the hill to the Fantasmic amphitheater. Jay stopped off to use the restroom again, and I headed down the hill to see if a certain Lucky Rabbit was there again.
I was so happy when I saw those ears! I jumped in line figuring Jay would come join me. His line was about ten minutes long, compared to the probable twenty-five I had seen during the 10K. The previous day his backdrop had been the prop of a train and now it was a plane. I’m not familiar enough with Oswald cartoons to know if either is significant. A moment later I got a text from Jay that said he was in line for Oswald, and I looked behind me to see him about four people back. I laughed at him, “I’m up here, goof ball!” He joined me, and in no time at all it was our turn to see Oswald. I wasn’t taking any chances this time and we took pictures on both my phone and the Photopass camera. I wanted to hug him so bad, but I was soaked with sweat and didn’t want to do that to him.
We left Oswald and entered the park beside Tower to see several Bellhops taking photos and guests coming out of the gift shop. I checked my watch and realized Extra Magic Hours were going on, and the rides were operating. It took a little bit of prodding but I managed to get Jay to run through the park so our Photopass photos would turn out great. No one wants to see you walking in photos!
Genie was the only repeat character in a different spot. He was backstage at Hollywood Studios, but we pressed on, passing the long lines of guests waiting for the park to officially open.
We made our way through the tight areas of the Boardwalk where a DJ under the bridge was playing music so loud we had to cover our ears. By Atlantic City Dance Hall, they once again had the strange Italian women that were supposed to be a vineyard of some sort. I made Jay stop for a photo there because I thought it was hilarious. (Jay was born and raised in San Vito, Italy, for those who are unaware.) He found it much less funny than I did, and called it offensive afterwards. Admittedly, all I could think was about those Halloween memes about “I’m a culture, not a costume.” I don’t think I would have found it funny at all if it had been anything but Italians.
We rounded the corner heading to Epcot and I promised Jay, “We enter World Showcase between the U.K. and Canada and we go left and straight to the front of the park!”
No, Chelsea, that’s not what you do. He glared at me as we made a right and found ourselves running the length of World Showcase. They had a ton of characters out here, but they were all ones scheduled for the party. We passed Remy and Emile in France, Dopey in Germany, and Mushu in China. I’ve met them all before, and Jay just wanted to be done.
Here we have a happy Chelsea and a Jay questioning his life choices.
We made it to Spaceship Earth and Jay wanted to stop in for the restroom again, since he’d been drinking two to three cups of Powerade or Water at each water stop.
“We’re like a minute and a half from the Finish Line. Can you wait?”
“Oh really?”
“Soon as we go around this corner, there’s going to be a Gospel Choir and the thirteenth mile marker.”
Well, there was a marching band instead of the Gospel Choir but there was the marker for Mile Thirteen! We came around the bend and could see the Finish Line.
“I’m going to go when we hit the straight away. Are you good?”
“Go, I’ll follow.”
I tore off for the Finish Line, running as hard as I could. There weren’t any characters waiting to pose with you, like there were on the Princess Half, so I just booked it. He must have kept up with me, because by the time I stopped and looked back, he was across the Finish Line too, but according to the runner tracking, I was a full four seconds ahead of him.
We made our way to the medals and once again, they were handing them out instead of presenting them. I resisted the urge to huff, and we put them around our own necks. We continued down to the cooling towels, snack boxes and water bottles. For some reason, we kept getting handed drinks and wound up with three waters and two Powerades. I told Jay we’d have to split up so I could get my Challenge medal and he would have to just wait for me. At least that medal was presented correctly and the volunteer put it around my neck.
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]It was a long, slow shuffle out of the reunion area to the characters, where we got in line for Mickey and Minnie. Everyone else was a five-minute wait, but of course, they were half an hour. I didn’t care. We spent most of our time in line watching Goofy, who was dancing his heart out next to them since he didn’t have many people. We wound up going to meet him afterwards because he had so much energy. [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
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I was literally bouncing while we were in line, trying to keep my legs loose, and Jay was just staring at me.
“How do you have so much energy?”
“You slowed me down just enough to not use it all!”
It’s true. It was one of my slowest times ever for a Half Marathon, and Jay honestly saved me from being a total wreck the rest of the day, because I never pushed myself to my limit.
Mickey and Minnie were super proud of us, but Goofy was the real hit.
We headed back to the car and headed home so we could try to rest up for the Post Race Party that will be featured in Part 3, where I finally encounter the famed Adventurers Club!
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