WDW Day 4 - Race DAY!!!

Race day finally arrived! I snapped out of my slumber when the alarm went off at 3am and was totally stoked to have 7 hours of sleep under my belt. More than in the last 4 days combined! Unfortunately I was the only one that racked out that night and my companions were still pretty tired, but they got their tutus and tiaras and got ready to rally. Here we are waiting in a long line of runners to catch the bus from Kidani to the race start at about 3:50 am...

We got onto the second bus that came and met some really nice girls from Tennessee.

 Once we got off the bus we just followed the crowd. In our final race instructions it said it was about a 20 minute walk from the buses to the race start and I was like "NAH! Not for awesome walkers like us!" but seriously we walked for like 13.1 miles to get to the start so I think we should really get credit for a full marathon. On the way I took this picture of about a gajillion people waiting to use the porta potties on the way to the starting line and lightened it up so you could get an idea of the pre-race crowds:

  

On the way to the corrals we met this gentleman. He was all blinged out and clearly in touch with his inner princess:

Finally we found Corral B and even had a few minutes for a pre-race stretch. At this point someone came up and said "Are you Melissa?" It was this really fun lady named Julie that I had met on the Dis boards. She actually recognized our shirts from one of my posts. Amazingly this happened 4 more times to us during the day and someone even ID'd Kellee and Ivana from our youtube video! They were like "You're from Croatia and you're from Australia..." Incredible!

  

We watched from a distance as the Wheelchair division took off and then A Corral. Then it was our turn! Here's a tiny video clip of the Race Start. The first miles flew by. Each mile marker looked like a giant storybook and each one was different.

We ran in the dark for the first 30 minutes or so but there was still so much incredible energy all around us and plenty of cheering on-lookers.

Before we knew it we were entering the Magic Kingdom area:

Right after that we met this guy. He was dressed as Rapunzel from "Tangled" and he even had her little green Gecko pet sewn onto his shoulder. What a riot!

Somewhere between the Magic Kingdom entry arch and the TTC the sun came up. By the time we ran into the MK it was morning. We stopped in front of the castle for a quick pic:

 

Then we ran through Tomorrowland, and trumpeters hailed our successful passageway through the castle. Onto frontierland where we ran past my favorite ride and then left the MK through a backstage area. Running behind the scenes was almost as cool as running through the park!

Then we had a long run back toward Epcot. We ran past the Grand Floridian, and a whole bunch of characters. Of course when we saw the princes, we had to stop for a photo. Woah, easy there Tarzan, gettin' a little "Up close and personal" don't you think?

Then finally up in the distance we saw Spaceship Earth. I actually got sad knowing our race was almost over... I didn't want to stop!

We ran up and over some big bridges, and then we were in Epcot! The first thing we saw was Phineas and Ferb - our Kid's favorite so we had to stop AGAIN!

Then we ran around a corner, past the Gospel Choir (which was so awesome It made me want to stop like 200m from the finish line...) and we were there! We crossed the finish line, got sprinkled with pixie dust and then received our medals. Here's Ivana getting hers:

And Zoe:

Lots of people have asked "what's your time?" and seriously I'll tell you after the Gyonju half April 9th. The Princess race is NOT about time. We stopped for so many photos, to talk to incredible people, to listen to drummers, and to just soak in the amazing atmosphere. I am so glad I signed up for a second race so I could get an "official" half marathon time and have all the time in the world to smell the roses on this race. We enjoyed each and every second. How many people can say that about their first half marathon? We actually finished in 2:40 but we were still in the top 1/3rd even with all our goofing off. You can see how many more medals were still waiting to find their runners!

After the race we found Jo! Pretty amazing in a crowd of 17,000 runners plus all their friends and family!

Here is a COOL VIDEO that shows some of the race highlights. We grabbed our snacks and took a few more pictures and then headed back to Kidani. It turns our there were some war wounds amongst the ranks. Zoe had a huge piece of skin missing on the side of her foot:

And Kellee had a massive blood blister on the end of her toe. I was amazed because neither one of them said a thing about their feet the entire race! Those are 2 tough chicas!!

We headed immediately for the pool and spent the next few hours soaking in the sun and relaxing. It felt so good!

We ordered lunch at the pool-side bar and got these amazing bento-boxes. Mine was tandoori chicken in Naan bread with 2 salads and a mango pudding. YUM!!! Nothing beats sitting on the savannah overlook poolside with a lunch like this. I'll re-live this meal again and again over the next few months.

After 4 blissful hours at the pool we headed back to the room. I met this awesome animal guide from South Africa while we were waiting for our meal and saw her again as we went back into Kidani. She knew everything about the Savannah animals and was so nice! I hope I see her again in Nov.

In the late afternoon Kellee decided to chill, Zoe and Karen wanted to hit a mall, and Karen and I wanted to go to Downtown Disney so we all went off in different directions. On the way out I took a bunch of shots of the savannah. What a beautiful place to hang out!

First time I saw some wildebeests:

And some cool horned beasts I don't know the name of:

Karen and I had a blast in DD. I forgot to take pictures. We went to the World of Disney, a HUUUUGE Disney store with everything you could ever want a mouse on, the Lego store, and Goofy's candy company where we got the kids some treats and I got Jeff the biggest Mickey cookie you have ever seen. Wish I had taken a picture of it! When we came back the sun was setting and I took this great picture of Kidani in the twilight as we came off the bus:

Our ADR that night was for BOMA so we headed over to Jambo house, the other part of Animal Kingdom Lodge. The lobby of Jambo is AMAZING!!

Buffets are sooo dangerous, so I had saved this restaurant for our post-race day on purpose. Everything is so good that you need to have run a half-marathon in the morning just to attempt to stay calorie neutral for the day! This is just my dessert plate! Zebra domes......YUM!

Jo joined us for dinner, and we all agreed that it had been a great day. I can't wait to do another Disney race and I'm so glad I signed up for the DL half in Sept, but I know it won't be as awesome as the Princess without my girls to run it with.

Here is a LINK to some race pics and our finish line video. The official clock in all the pics and videos corresponds to the wheelchair division start time so we started about 10 minutes after them.

WDW Day 3 - A very tired crew at Animal Kingdom....

On Saturday we got up in the morning and we were one tired crew. For the past 3 nights we had gone to bed exhausted feeling SURE that sleep would come the second our heads hit the pillow, and then we would lie there for HOURS tossing and turning and freaking out. Then we'd fall asleep around 3 am only to wake up at 5 or 6. We had several group reunions on the balcony where we would hang out and look at the animals in the middle of the night. "You still awake too huh? Bummer...." Saturday was the low-point for this as we knew we had a 1/2 marathon to run the next day and all of us were wondering how we were going to do that with 6 hours of sleep in the last 4 days. But we were at DISNEY, and being exhausted at Disney is still better than being well-rested home right? So there was nothing to do but soldier on and tell that exhaustion that there was just no room for it in our schedule. Off to Animal Kingdom! We got there for rope-drop and met up with Kellee's Sister-in-law Jo. Here's Mickey and Pals opening up the Animal Kingdom:

 

We snagged our Everest FP's (which we actually used!) and then headed to the Safari's. On the way we stopped to take in a view of the Tree of Life:

 

When Karen got accosted by King Louie! He snuck up behind her and gave her a wild Monkey snuggle. We were all in hysterics!

 Ballu was with him and they stopped and interacted with us for a good 5 minutes. One of my fav points of the day was goofing off with Louie. I got this awesome new "Disco Yeti" T-shirt that shows the Yeti doing a dance pose with a disco ball. The Shirt says "Fix me". It's hilarous. You can see it if you click on the pic of Karen and I on Everest. So I thought I would get mad props for my shirt in AK park, but Louie was the ONLY one who "got it" and he pointed to it and was laughing and doing all this pantomime about it like "I know right? What's up with THAT?" I loved him!

 

After that we finally got our group shot with the Tree and then we kept heading to the Safaris.

 On the way we passed some fabulous African performers who were generating an awesome vibe for all the people heading to the Safari line:

 The Safari's were amazing as always. Love this attraction first thing in the morning as all the animals were out and we got great views. I took a million pics but I won't bore you with all of them. Here are my 3 favs. I like this one because you can see another Safari vehicle in the background:

 Ankole cattle and some Tommies:

 The Lioness out sunning herself on the rocks:

After that we headed to Everest but then saw that Kali River Rapids only had a 5 minute wait so we hopped on! I sat with Ivana, and Kellee and Jo sat 180 across from us. We figured we had a 50/50 chance of soakage! Meanwhile Karen and Zoe were waiting for us on the shore. They did NOT want to get wet!

The story had a wet ending for the 2 Aussies! They got fully immersed when a giant wave went right over the backs of their seats. The looks on their faces when it happened was priceless. They were SOAKED!!!

 After that we had 10 minutes until the Festival of the Lion King so we had to head in that direction. We took a picture of the forbidden mountain and told the Yeti that he would have to wait just a little bit longer to meet us:

 Festival of the Lion King was awesome. I always forget parts of this and I am always amazed by the energy and gusto of the cast. It's easy to forget that they perform this 7+ times a day. They really give it their all and it seems like each performance is their first:

 

Finally it was time to head to Everest. We had just enough time before a lunch meet-up that we had planned. This is one of those attractions where I get a little sad using FP as I feel like I am missing out on an awesome queue line!

 

Watch out Yeti, we're comin' to get ya!

 

Jo took this great picture from the top of the ride:

 

 Auuuuggghh! Curse you Disco Yeti!

 

 At noon we had promised to meet Meegan, a reporter with Runner's World Magazine. She wanted to interview Zoe, Karen and Kellee about their running experiences and how they decided to do the Princess. I guess she was trying to interview people from other nations that had foreign versions of "Runners World". Ivana and I just interviewed each other....

 Our hopefully soon to be famous friends! If the photographer got a good picture of them on race day, they'll make the magazine for sure. How awesome would that be?

 

It seems like AK is the park that I always have to leave early. It's OK though... I'm coming back in Nov 2011 and I have 2 days allocated for AK park. I WILL see the Nemo show, and I WILL spend some time in Dinoland and I WILL ride the train up to Rafiki's!! Someday.... 

But this was not that day. I had promised the girl's some shopping and there was no way I was going to sacrifice ANY time out of our Epcot day on Monday so AK got the knife. We headed out to the Premium Outlets. No pictures of this but believe me we did some DAMAGE!! Thank God I came with one suitcase that had 2 more suitcases stuffed inside it!

When we got back we were really pooped and we were all worried about getting enough sleep to physically do the race the next day. The original plan was to go to Narcoosee's for our 7:10 ADR and watch WISHES again over dessert but we just couldn't rally. We talked Sanaa into taking us in at 6 pm and had another awesome meal there. We hung out at the Savannah overlook while they got our table for us.

 Zoe even snagged this pic of all 4 Giraffes together! I was bummed about missing Narcoosee's but like I said, I do get to come back later this year so I feel very lucky. It's just one more thing to add to my Disney "to do" list. Poor Jeff.... thank God for DVC... the more I plan trips and go to Disney, the longer that list gets!

 We were in bed by 8:15 and I was lucky enough to actually fall right to sleep. Our alarms were set for 3am... Princess half, here we come!