JAFAR!
I thought the set up for this photo was pretty cool.
That was it for the villains for us and although I did enjoy have a few stops and it helped break this stretch up I was still disappointed that there wasn’t a group shot.
We starting running again and passed mile 11 at the start of the ‘back’ part of the out and back lol
We were getting close to Animal Kingdom now! When we spoke about this race I said one thing I really wanted to do was ride Expedition Everest. We thought we would arrive just before opening and therefor have to wait a bit but because I’d had such a rough start it was looking like we’d be there about 9.10am! Mini little rant here, Disney knows that it’s a ‘thing’ for runners to ride Everest why not just open it early on this one morning for runners only? Even 8.30am would mean a lot more people got to add it to their marathon experience and I know for me when I was telling people back home that you can ride a roller-coaster halfway through that was a massive selling point.
Anyway… back to our run! We saw the welcome sign and I was so happy to getting into our next park…
There were some animals around here that you could pet and stuff but we didn't stop and I obviously decided it wasn't worth photographing!
We passed mile marker 12 just before running into AK, we entered out near safari but not passing the entrance to that ride and joining the path towards Everest. The park was open so there were lots of guests watching us run past. We made it to Everest and saw the wait time was posted at 15mins. I’d read from previous reports that runners were allowed to use the fastpass queue but that was not happening this morning. Again this was pretty annoying, 15mins is a long time to wait for a ride when you’re in the middle of a marathon and it would increase the risk of us getting swept later on if any of us were struggling and we had to slow our pace.
I REALLY wanted to ride so we hopped in line. The line was constantly moving which made it less painful and I’d say it was around 10mins before we were boarding. There were lots of runners interspersed between the regular park guests.
It was so weird getting to sit down! We took off and OMG the breeze we felt as our car moved off was amazing! It was one of my favourite roller-coaster experiences and I’ll always remember it….
We don’t seem to have been snapped by any of the official photographers in AK although I do have a random picture of someone who is not me in AK.
After the ride on Everest it was a little difficult to get back in the rhythm of our intervals and I could feel my knee was going to continue to cause me trouble. We ran towards Dinoland and by mile marker 13 which is pretty much half way!
The course then went out of the park (through a backstage exit) and here we experienced some congestion but not for very long. We came out into the carpark and the course was restricted to a pathway despite there being lots of space outside the walkway so anyone that was running moved out onto the road and just ran along there bypassing the walkers, we did this for a while until we reached a CM that was instructing people back onto the path. It seemed silly where the space was available to have not extended the course out although I understand the CM instructing us back onto the official path for safety reasons.
There was a big support area as we passed by the entrance to AK which was great, all that cheering does really encourage you! I was trying not to think about my knee or the fact that I had another half marathon to run!! EEEEEEEEEK!
Wow the AK car park is MASSIVE! It definitely seems a lot bigger when you are running it as appose to driving in!
Finally we came to the end of the car park section and past mile marker 14. This is when I can switch to countdown mode. Just over 12miles to go! Once I have less miles to go that already completed it’s countdown time!
I was dreading this next section of the course though, 3miles along the BORING Osceola Parkway (a section of course I’ve completed before in the Wine & Dine) followed by 3miles of Wide World of Sports which I’d heard was another dull part of the course… YUCK!
I was struggling with my knee but trying hard to keep our intervals up, we’d lost a LOT of time in AK and I wanted to keep our comfortable cushion between us and the dreaded balloon ladies.
We passed the grave diggers and I stopped for a quick photo (I was in no shape to lay on the ground!)
We passed mile 15 (11miles to go) and I was still hurting but pushing through, I knew there was a first aid section coming up and I’d warned Dad and Rachel that I planned to stop.
About half a mile later we hit the aid station, I had to take my compression socks off and tend to a bleeding toe with some plasters and I also slathered on the biofreeze on my knee. Due to the pain I decided I would also take a Tylenol. This was a bit risky for me as I’ve felt very unwell in the past on Tylenol but I was hurting! I drank some water and we walked through the water stop right after the aid station.
We got back into running again and I waited for the effects of the painkiller to kick in. By mile 16 I was still feeling rough but managing to keep up relatively good intervals. We were at the section now where there were runners on the opposite side of the road coming out of WWOS (so over 4miles ahead of us) and just like I’d read before the commentator was screaming about only 4miles to go… GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! SHUT UP!
We carried on and took a right turn towards WWOS and it was about this point when I started feeling so much better! The painkillers had kicked in and it was like a fog of pain had lifted and I was actually enjoying running again! YAH! We hit mile 17 and shortly after turned into WWOS which meant finally I could stop looking at all those runners across the road with envy!
We came into WWOS and we wanted a bathroom break but the first set of real bathrooms we came across had a line so we kept running past.
This section is a bit of a jumbled blur to me now but I’ll try my best! We hit our first character and it was none other than the big cheese!!
Love this photo, Mickey is adorable in his soccer outfit
We continued with our intervals and at one point Dad went to the bathrooms and me and Rachel ran on. I remember chatting to Rachel at this point and saying how good I felt. I was really enjoying this stretch of the course because I finally felt OK!
We made it onto the track and I was so excited to see our next Character
Goofy!!! Twice in one race AND he’s my favourite!! YAH!
Professional photo
His football outfit is so cool!
We passed mile marker 18 and continued running, we were sticking with our intervals well at this point. I do understand why people get frustrated running through WWOS, it kinda seems a bit like you’re running around in circles, like we could see parts of the course up ahead thinking we were almost at them and then it would be ages before we actually made it to that section if that makes sense!
Next up was Donald Duck
Not to be outdone Donald was in baseball gear, I think it’s cool how they all represented different sports.
Finally we came across Chip and Dale, how adorable!
Professional photo
We had very little waiting time for all of these characters, I think Mickey was the only one with an actually wait the others we pretty much went straight up to for a picture.
I ate a banana sometime in WWOS but don’t remember where I picked it up.. it looked something like this
We passed mile marker 19… only 7.2miles to go!
We then made it into the stadium for the big lap around, it was quite cool and were looking up on the big screen at the runners going past
There was a big water and fuel stop after the stadium and we stocked up on some gels and fluids, we also had a bathroom stop in some portaloos because the real toilets all had lines in WWOS.
I was still feeling pretty good, the last 4miles had kind of sailed by and all the character stops had really got us buzzing!
We came out into the carpark area and ran out onto the main road past mile marker 20. The other side of the course which was just over 3miles behind us was now being swept!! They were also taking down the mile marker signs so we saw them take down mile marker 17. We had seen some runners going into WWOS so they were really in danger of getting swept from the course.
We weren’t too worried, 3miles by 16min mile was still 48mins of a cushion and if we were moving through the course quicker than 16min mile we were going to be constantly widening that gap. We came back out onto Osceola Parkway for a short stretch, I was now thinking ahead to our next park… Hollywood Studios!
I was trying really hard to think about our next park because I could feel myself starting to fade again and HARD…. My knee pain was coming back and my body was just DONE. We got to the first aid stand and I again through some biofreeze on. We passed mile marker 21 and took a right turn onto Word Drive.
This stretch was tough… there was no longer anything to keep me entertained and suddenly those final 5miles seemed like SO FAR to make my body run. I was the one struggling, Dad and Rachel were doing a lot better although still obviously tired. We made it through our intervals though and our pace was still decent. We passed mile marker 22 and continued running towards the overpass for Hollywood Studios.
