My 9 year old daughter and I ran in the 5K this morning at Wide World of Sports. My wife is running in the ToT 10 miler tonight, but we can't quite make the distance, so we did this morning's race.
Caught the bus from Old Key West around 6am. I highly recommend staying at a race resort for the ToT weekend events. The line of cars trying to get in the parking lot as our bus zoomed by was quite long. Using the bus also gave us quite a bit of time before we had to get in our corral.
Once in the corral (we were in Corral E, 5th out of 6) it was pretty crowded in there.
As the race got closer, we found our way to one of the corral fences and could almost see the pre-race show at the starting line.
They had two DJs doing a bit of Country Boy schtick to get things going and to make sure everyone followed the 'stay on the path' rules, the headless horseman visited (and threatened). Sadly, there was no threat about staying to the right when walking and to the left when running (more on that to come).
The race began with Corral A at 7:30am, but we didn't get up to the starting line until about 7:50am.
Once the race started, we found that despite the constant reminders, most people didn't seem to understand the whole stay to the right when slower thing. We were doing interval running - generally 1:1, 30 second intervals. At home, that has been yielding us about 12:30 per mile. We knew this would be slower because we would be visiting characters and the humidity would slow us down a bit, but we actually found the people to slow us down even more! A lot of folks were walking 3-4 people across and the path didn't really allow for that. Add to that, the folks from corral F who were trying to do 8-9 minute miles trying to weave and zoom through, and there was a lot of insane traffic.
Along the way, there were spots to get some pitcures. First was a Lion King display with a huge elephant skull with Scar lying atop. The second spot was a character greet with the Big Bad Wolf.
After that, there were spots with the lion from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Captain Hook, Brer Bear, and two undertakers from the Haunted Mansion. We didn't actually stop at any of those because the lines were quite long and they weren't characters that DD was all that interested in meeting with! There were two 'official' water stops along with way, packed with volunteers who handed out small cups of water. Also, there were a number of coolers with paper cups - most likely added to the race route because of the heat and humidity. By race's end, the temperature was getting above 80 with humidity around 75-80%. Lots of sweating!
While our intervals didn't quite stay consistent (due to the crowds and exhaustion), we did continue to do 1:1 or sometimes a bit less. We did get back to a good pace by the end and even with the visits, managed about 14:30 per mile.
Post-race, we got a bottle of Powerade, a fresh banana, and a snack box with pita chips, graham crackers, a packet of hummus, a protein bar, and almond pops. After a short walking cool down, we sat and enjoyed before heading back to OKW.
This was my daughter's first 5K and she did love it, but is now ready for an afternoon nap - that's a good thing seeing as we will be at Hollywood Studios tonight until likely 3 or 4am. DW will be doing the 10-miler and is likely going to be between 11 and 12 minute miles, so from 10pm-12am, we will be enjoying the Villains Party alone and then we will do everything again with my wife (pending her energy post race).
Overall, I think the event was well done by Disney and enjoyable for us. Could there have been a few more character stops along the route, certainly...but, I'm not going to complain - a run around our neighborhood doesn't have any characters!
Caught the bus from Old Key West around 6am. I highly recommend staying at a race resort for the ToT weekend events. The line of cars trying to get in the parking lot as our bus zoomed by was quite long. Using the bus also gave us quite a bit of time before we had to get in our corral.
Once in the corral (we were in Corral E, 5th out of 6) it was pretty crowded in there.
As the race got closer, we found our way to one of the corral fences and could almost see the pre-race show at the starting line.
They had two DJs doing a bit of Country Boy schtick to get things going and to make sure everyone followed the 'stay on the path' rules, the headless horseman visited (and threatened). Sadly, there was no threat about staying to the right when walking and to the left when running (more on that to come).
The race began with Corral A at 7:30am, but we didn't get up to the starting line until about 7:50am.
Once the race started, we found that despite the constant reminders, most people didn't seem to understand the whole stay to the right when slower thing. We were doing interval running - generally 1:1, 30 second intervals. At home, that has been yielding us about 12:30 per mile. We knew this would be slower because we would be visiting characters and the humidity would slow us down a bit, but we actually found the people to slow us down even more! A lot of folks were walking 3-4 people across and the path didn't really allow for that. Add to that, the folks from corral F who were trying to do 8-9 minute miles trying to weave and zoom through, and there was a lot of insane traffic.
Along the way, there were spots to get some pitcures. First was a Lion King display with a huge elephant skull with Scar lying atop. The second spot was a character greet with the Big Bad Wolf.
After that, there were spots with the lion from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Captain Hook, Brer Bear, and two undertakers from the Haunted Mansion. We didn't actually stop at any of those because the lines were quite long and they weren't characters that DD was all that interested in meeting with! There were two 'official' water stops along with way, packed with volunteers who handed out small cups of water. Also, there were a number of coolers with paper cups - most likely added to the race route because of the heat and humidity. By race's end, the temperature was getting above 80 with humidity around 75-80%. Lots of sweating!
While our intervals didn't quite stay consistent (due to the crowds and exhaustion), we did continue to do 1:1 or sometimes a bit less. We did get back to a good pace by the end and even with the visits, managed about 14:30 per mile.
Post-race, we got a bottle of Powerade, a fresh banana, and a snack box with pita chips, graham crackers, a packet of hummus, a protein bar, and almond pops. After a short walking cool down, we sat and enjoyed before heading back to OKW.
This was my daughter's first 5K and she did love it, but is now ready for an afternoon nap - that's a good thing seeing as we will be at Hollywood Studios tonight until likely 3 or 4am. DW will be doing the 10-miler and is likely going to be between 11 and 12 minute miles, so from 10pm-12am, we will be enjoying the Villains Party alone and then we will do everything again with my wife (pending her energy post race).
Overall, I think the event was well done by Disney and enjoyable for us. Could there have been a few more character stops along the route, certainly...but, I'm not going to complain - a run around our neighborhood doesn't have any characters!