Trip Report Oh Dopey!! - A two week Rundisney TR & VLOGS *Complete*

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUMANS!!!!!!

It’s time for my BRAND SPANKING NEW TRIP REPORT

Strap yourself in for a the LONG haul because we fit a whole LOT of DISNEY in and I can’t wait to share it all

First and formost let me introduce the cast

Mam and Dad

My sister Rachel

AND…… MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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[myhappyplace]

I hope you got the bread pudding at Raglan Road!!

 

[LisaBelle]

I just got caught up! Loving your TR!
This……….
YOU STILL GET LUNCH MAM!!!!

AND a muffin... FOR FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I don't even know what everyone else got in the end because I spent so long explaining this...


Your mom is cracking me up with not understanding the dining plan!
So much to comment on!
I was so mad when I realized that I was at the Poly for 5 days and never had a Lapu Lapu They always look so delicious in other people's TRs.
O'hana always looks so good, but you know how it is at Disney, too many restaurants and too little time.
My sister and I ran in the Princess 5k in February. I commend you, Rachel and your dad for doing the Dopey Challenge.
I loved my experience at the expo and running in the 5k. You did a great job of describing how things worked in the corrals. It is such and awesome feeling to see the fireworks at the starting line, watch the sun rise over World Showcase and to run across the finish line.
LOVE the Dopey jackets and your idea to have your picture taken in the jackets at each park is great. The running poses are great! Your "costumes" for the 5k were perfect. Love the flashlight on your dad's forehead. He looks like he is fun to be around.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[dancingtodisney]

The biggest downfall of this meal became apparent rather quickly... the service was incredibly SLOW! We waited AGES to place our orders. Our server had a large table that he was fussing over a lot and I guess we were a bit forgotten. We placed our orders though and tried to focus on the entertainment while we waited for our food.

Finally our food arrived (this is making me drool right now!) ​

Rachel went for the 'Keen Eye for the Shepherd's Pie'

I tried some and it was yummy, I would recommend it if you eat here!

Mam and Dad both went for the Lambo

And I went for the Bangers and Booz

The Guinness flavour was really nice with this dish and I don't really like Guinness!!

We waited again quite a while for our desert order to be taken and at this stage we were getting really restless. I'd purposely made a relatively early reservation so that we wouldn't be getting back too late ahead of our second early wake-up for the 10K tomorrow.

I still scoffed the desert when it arrived... naturally!

Rachel and I went for the meringue

While Dad opted for Ger's Bread & Butter Pudding which was SOOO GOOD!

And Mam went for the Wibbely Wobbely Healthy Wonder

Sorry for the terrible pic... but guess what???! IT WAS FREE!!! :woohoo:

FINALLY IT WAS TIME TO LEAVE!!!! I think we were close to 3hrs in total at this meal... SERIOUSLY?!

We made our way out towards the buses and I'm sure I'm not the only one to comment on how crazy the Disney Springs bus area got (prior to the new changes which I HOPE have sorted this out) but it was CHAOS!!!

We spotted our bus pulling our as we were walking up too... :guilty:

I decided to make the most of it and grab some photos:

We are so obviously fakin our happiness hahaha

AWKWARD POSING

And then these pros come along...

We hopped in line for our bus which was shared with Contemporary I think and we waited... and waited... and waited... There was a MASSIVE tailback of buses waiting to get into the pick up area but they all had to stop and there was this conductor guy that would speak to the driver and they'd each wait up to a 2/3mins before moving out. I was so exhausted now and totally relieved when an OKW west bus pulled up after about 30mins at the stop.

We got home laid out our outfits for the morning and turned in for the night...​

 

[dancingtodisney]

I hope you got the bread pudding at Raglan Road!!

It was so yummy! I want to go back again sometime as I think our experience was spoiled with the mix of slow service and tiredness so by the time desert came we were just over it!

I just got caught up! Loving your TR!
This……….
YOU STILL GET LUNCH MAM!!!!

AND a muffin... FOR FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I don't even know what everyone else got in the end because I spent so long explaining this...


Your mom is cracking me up with not understanding the dining plan!
So much to comment on!
I was so mad when I realized that I was at the Poly for 5 days and never had a Lapu Lapu They always look so delicious in other people's TRs.
O'hana always looks so good, but you know how it is at Disney, too many restaurants and too little time.
My sister and I ran in the Princess 5k in February. I commend you, Rachel and your dad for doing the Dopey Challenge.
I loved my experience at the expo and running in the 5k. You did a great job of describing how things worked in the corrals. It is such and awesome feeling to see the fireworks at the starting line, watch the sun rise over World Showcase and to run across the finish line.
LOVE the Dopey jackets and your idea to have your picture taken in the jackets at each park is great. The running poses are great! Your "costumes" for the 5k were perfect. Love the flashlight on your dad's forehead. He looks like he is fun to be around.
Thanks for sharing!

YAH thanks for reading!!!

Hahaha Mam is a hoot!

They are pretty nice but I actually prefer the taste of the backscratcher... I LOVE the novelty of the lapu lapu though!

There are always too many restaurants and it's easy to get into a habbit of repeating the same ones too! Disney problems haha

Oh fantastic congrats on the completing the 5k! Princess weekend looks like so much fun!

Running around the World Showcase is one of my big highlights of the whole Dopey experience, I loved it!

I love my jacket! Ye the pics turned out nice, it's a good keepsake for us!

Dad is hilarious, he's such a big kid like me and my sister and it's not often we really get to let loose together!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 8 – Walt Disney World 10k
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Friday 8th January 2016
Part 1 - Ready... Set.... GO!! ​

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We reluctantly got ourselves out of bed at the horrible time of 3.15am. I think I had about 4hrs sleep max so I really didn't feel great and had to practically slap my face to life!

Luckily we were well prepared and our flat selves were ready to go with no thinking necessary! I definitely recommend doing this for any running event with an early start

Note the disposable ponchos... they are about to become REALLY handy! The only thing not pictured is our mylar blankets from the day before as they were still in the car.

I had my usual peanut butter bagel and we made our way to the car for our short trip to Epcot. OKW was a great location for the races as it was so close to Epcot and we sailed to the carpark in 10mins.

We parked up and sat in the car for a little bit because.... it was raining!!!

I think I'm cursed with raining runs haha I had the Wine & Dine in 2014 which was a complete wash out, my first ever marathon was rainy and windy and now the 10k! Luckily we had our ponchos, they were such a good purchase as we could just dump them before the race start.

We got out of the car around 4.20am and made our way towards the staging area

We didn't hang around this time where the DJ was as they were just opening up the corals so we went straight ahead to Coral C

Perfect bad weather pre-race combo of poncho and myler blanket modeled by my sister!

I think there may have been a few jealous looks going our way haha

Also... we were right up the gate this time but after the disaster the day before that didn't mean we'd be at the front for our corals start by any means.

We chilled in the coral and waited for the start, it seemed to go quicker this day maybe because all the anticipation of the first race was over! Before I knew it Coral A was off!

Then it was time for our coral to move out. We took our mylar blankets off and I heard someone cry out to my Dad before he threw his in the bin, I turned back and there was a young girl shivering away in a tutu and tank top with nothing warm or waterproof and her mam had been calling to take the myler blanked before Dad chucked it... OOOOPS :headache:

Luckily I still had mine so I gave it to her and she was super grateful!

This time moving our towards the start was much better organised and before the gates were removed the front line of people were given the tape to hold. When the gates came away we all walked out into the shoot ready to head towards the start

AND this happened

I love this picture... it's one of those that takes me right back to the moment! The rain was still coming down but as we approached the start it was letting up a bit.

We took our ponchos off and got ready to go!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!

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Ready... Set.... GO!! ​

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I hate running in the rain! My second half marathon was on the Antietam Battlefield which is extremely hilly. It rained the entire race and the wind blew constantly. It was also about 38 degrees. AWFUL!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 8 – Walt Disney World 10K

Friday 8th January 2016
Part 2 – Walt Disney World 10K Course

And we were OFF!!! There were lots of people running with ponchos on and I found the noise they were making quite amusing!

I don't think I've talked too much about our race strategy but for the most part we were on 5:1 run/walk intervals. We did however also walk at every water station and also stop in line for characters. We would skip a walk break if it really close to either.

The first mile was rather boring but passed by pretty quick so soon enough we are at our first marker

The only thing that was annoying me about the weather was my memories of Wine&Dine 2014 and the quite obvious lack of characters that were able to stay out. Sure enough we ran out of the car park area and on towards the overpass and our first two character stops were just empty shells as we ran past. This part of the course is really not very exciting so that was a shame.

I kept thinking to myself that the best part of the course was still ahead and hopefully the rain would stop!

Mile Marker 2 (so difficult with the light!!)

We continued running along following our intervals and the rain had started to let up... YAH!

I believe it was around mile marker 3 that we spotted Chip and Dale again in the same place as yesterday and with a rather long queue as it was the first stop for most so we decided to skip...

We did however stop at the marker

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[dancingtodisney]

Next it was into the park!​

Good morning Epcot

Such a rush coming into the World Showcase again, all of the lights were on too which made it even more pretty!

Dad stopped for a quick bathroom break so we took a selfie while we waited.

We got a good professional photo as we were running around the World Showcase, I think the photos/photographers were a bit light from this race due to the weather but we were really keeping an eye out for them and managed to get some nice shots!

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Mile 4 was just before the American pavilion, we stopped for a pic, I realise you can't see us very well but it's still proof we were there! AND you can take your picture in front of the mile markers FOR FREE so I knew Mam would appreciate it!

We carried on running around the showcase and posing like pros!

I missed out on this one

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you'll notice in my photos that my number is a bit crumpled. All of these photos are from my Dad's account so luckily Marathonfoto allowed us to have all photos on all three accounts otherwise I never would have seen these. If you are getting the photo package make sure you keep your number visible!

Before we went out to the boardwalk Dad ran on ahead with the plan that he would get in line for the next character stop and we would join him shortly after (Dad’s proper speedy without us lot haha)

We caught up with him a few mins later at a Monsters Inc character stop with Mike and Sully and just as we made it up to Dad the girl from earlier that we’d given the mylar blanket to joined her Mam who was waiting in line just in front of my Dad. We chatted while we waited in line and they were really nice, the young girl was giving out about the rain and the cold but we were having a laugh about too so it passed the time.

Just as we get to towards the very front of the queue this random guy pulls in off the course and says ‘Do you mind if I go ahead of you I want to get a good time?’

Em…. WHAT?! Like we’re all just standing here waiting for the fun of it and our times don’t matter?! Ok so maybe I was having fun but that’s not the point, why should he not have to wait like everyone else?! What about the people behind us that had been waiting, maybe some of them were also conscious of their time too!!

Our faces must have said it all because I don’t remember anyone actually saying anything but he took the hint and ran off… So strange…

The people in line behind us were all so shocked at this guy!

Anyway… we made it to the top of the queue and got some nice photos before dashing off again

I love Sullys face in this like 'WHAT are these crazy people doing out running in the rain!'

Running around the boardwalk was fun! There were lots of people out in front of the hotels cheering us on despite the bad weather!

Again my Dad ran on ahead to the next character stop to get in line while myself and Rachel kept a steady pace. I was conscious of keeping my legs in the best condition possible for the two days to come..

We continued with our splits as we ran back towards Epcot and our next mile marker

Right after we completed our lap around the resorts it was time for our next character stop which was the fairy godmother. Again the same mother and daughter were beside us in line and we chatted some more, while in line there was a swap out and the replacement was tweedle dee and tweedle dum, I didn’t mind as either was a brand new meet and greet for us!

Time for some posing!


This was a really fun interaction and as the queue wasn't too bad we had a bit of a laugh with the characters as they posed with us

I remember really enjoying this last section, I had been sort of trying to ignore the fact that I had this nervous feeling in my stomach every time I thought about completing these four days, my injury problems during the year sat in the back of my mind and I was afraid that I could be starting to struggle by the end of the 10k. I was relieved that I felt fine, I felt comfortable and not at all pressured as I’d made myself keep my pace steady and easy.

Oh hey there Mr. Camera Man!

We came across our final character stop with absolutely no wait!

And before we knew it we were heading out towards the park exit! From leaving the Monsters Inc character stop the rest of the course seemed to fly by..

Look how happy we are!!

We came around towards the finisher shoot and hit our last mile marker

Just a little more to go! Coming around that last bend and spotting the finish line is such a great feeling

Think Dad was caught mid arm raise here

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[dancingtodisney]

And we did it!!!

Check out Rachel trying to steal my limelight!

And just like that it was over!

We collected our medals, grabbed another myler blanket and headed over to get our photo taken

We were given snack boxes again and this time they were offering some extras so we got two each! FOR FREE!! ​

 

[dancingtodisney]

We made our way back to the resort to have a shower and freshen up

It felt so good to have a hot shower after all that rain!

I put my 10k race shirt on and took a selfie with my medal

I LOVE the Minnie medal and shirt! So cute!


We had fastpasses and a lunch reservation at MK so we caught the bus over. First on our to do list was to meet Minnie, it was her race day after all!

It was really quiet in the meet and greet so we got lots of photos! Minnie was really excited to see herself on our shirts…

Running poses!!

Daisy was excited for us too and we told her that we would be running Donalds Half Marathon tomorrow and that it was twice as long! She was very impressed!

Here she is giving us some encouragement

When we came out of the meet and greet there was a CM that was FULL OF LIFE like super excited that he had people to talk to and he was holding a GIANT Stitch. He stopped us and somehow we ended up trying to walk across this white line on the floor backwards with the giant Stitch on our back… So so random but pretty funny!

Here we are posing with Stitch… we also had to dance with Stitch and got stickers!

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[dancingtodisney]

Day 8 – Walt Disney World 10K

Friday 8th January 2016
Part 3 – GIANT STITCH!

We had lunch reservations at BOG so we strolled in that direction. There were lots of people wearing their shirts and medals and we got lots of congratulations and smiles from other runners.


We hadn’t pre-ordered our lunch as I wasn’t sure how it would work with our dining plan however the queue seemed just as long for those who had. We waited first just outside the door for a short while, the CM managing the line was in good spirits!

And then queued inside alongside the knights… I love how they randomly sneeze and stuff as your queuing!

Hmmmm which cupcake to go for?!

As we were placing our order I explained to the CM that we were on the dining plan and so we had desert included (FOR FREE) and she was punching our orders away and didn’t really seem to be listening. Mam was looking a bit anxious now as she ordered and I could tell she was questioning the system, was the CM going to give us lunch AND desert FOR FREE!??

Something went wrong anyway and the cupcakes ended up not being on our receipt and so she said we needed to notify the CM that brought our lunch… a bit odd but we went and found a table. It was really crowded and there was literally no free tables!! We waited in the library for a few mins for other guests to finish up and then grabbed a table.


We again waited quite a long time for our lunch, I really felt today like they had overbooked this lunch, the service was slow and there were always people looking for a table.

Our food arrived and we explained about the cupcakes. The CM didn’t understand why they hadn’t been ordered for us and went off to see what she could do.

I went for my usual croque monsieur as did Rachel

Dad got the carved turkey sandwich

And Mam went for the Tuna Nicoise Salad…

I also got soup which I must have forgotten to photograph, most likely because I demolished it! The potato and leek soup at BOG is always really good! Dad tried the french onion soup and Rachel got the potato and leek as well.

Unfortunately and I’m assuming it’s related to the long delay but Rachel’s French fries arrived stone cold. I got the attention of the same CM after quite a while as she was very busy and asked for fresh chips and again asked about the cupcakes.

We got replacement chips about 10mins later and polished off our food (running makes me hungry) and waited for our desert….. and waited….. and waited… We asked a different CM after giving up hope on the first and I ended up having to go back out to the ordering screen to process an order for the cupcakes as they weren’t on our receipt and then finally we got these bad boys

I’m really sad to say that I was so unimpressed with this lunch… It makes me sad because lunch at BOG has been one of my best memories of the past two trips. I remember the first time we went which was back when you had to queue to in and it was such an experience, the CM’s were so in character and told us that it was the masters castle and he knew where all his guests sat. The food was always delicious and even though at lunch it was busy you could always find a seat. I was really sad that my parents weren’t getting to experience the same special atmosphere and they both said there weren’t that impressed with lunch. I actually omitted BOG originally from our plans for our trip next month but I do now have a lunch reservation and I’m hoping that if we go it’ll restore my faith. Has anyone else noticed a change or do you think maybe we were just unlucky this day?


​

 

[dancingtodisney]

I also just want to add that even despite my complaints from dinner last night and lunch today we were still having such a fun and amazing time. I hold all my Disney experiences in such high regard that I guess I expect a lot but we are not the type of family to let small things like this really impact on our trip. Also I think having our early starts and the pressure of the runs hanging over us made anything that involved extra waiting around or less sleep far more significant. ​

​

Anyway..... on with show!​

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Due to the delay with lunch we were just outside of our fastpass window for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (more than 15mins outside) but we decided to chance it and head over anyway. I explained to the CM that we got held up at lunch and he was happy to let us ride. Mam sat this one out, probably a sensible decision after a big lunch!​

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Again when I’ve checked my photos I don’t seem to have this ride photo either… Make sure you check your ride photos are coming through while you’re still in the parks!​

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I love this ride so much! I always sing along in the mine!​

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Next up our fastpass window had opened to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel. Cinderella was very interested in our medals and was telling us how she prefers to travel by horse and carriage.​

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This Cinderella had really good chat! I find Cinderella usually doesn't have as much to say as some of the other princesses!​

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Seriously... how happy do my parents look?!​

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Next was Rapunzel...​

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She was not as chatty as Cinderella but did congratulate us on our race​

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We came out and I checked the wait times on my phone, Under the Sea had a 15min wait so we went there next...​

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After that we walked around to futureworld and got on Space Mountain while Mam waited outside, the weather had cleared up by now!​

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Our rocket was arriving soon..​

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Ready to launch​

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No ride photo again... boo :sad:​

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We hopped on the people move next​

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I was sat beside Mam and started winding her up saying 'please don't be mad Mam but this is a roller coaster!!' Rachel joined in too, we are so evil ​

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We decided that was enough park time today, we started walking towards the exit and stopped on Main Street for some photos​

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The CM was really good and was getting us to do some poses​

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And the all important shot​

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We got the monorail back to the car and then drove back to the expo, we had yet to purchase our voucher for the official photographs for our runs so we picked up to order our photos with when we were back home. The expo was really quiet at this time (about 4pm) and it was a quick process!​

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[dancingtodisney]

Day 8 – Walt Disney World 10K

Friday 8th January 2016
Part 4 – Kona Cafe


Dinner this evening was at Kona Café which was a first for all of us! I’ve great things about Kona so I excited to try it but I was also super tired and praying that we wouldn’t be out really late again.


We drove to the Polynesian and made our way inside

We checked in and were a bit worried that we might be left waiting quite a while as there was a lot of people waiting outside but luckily it was 10mins max and we were called to be seated.


Our waitress was lovely! We told her that we were on the dining plan and she recommended a drink for us to get with our meal… FOR FREE! I believe it was the All-Natural Lemonade but it came out looking like a cocktail which was impressive and it was really delicious!


First up was the Sweet Bread and Macadamia nut butter which really doesn’t look like much but O…M…G it was delicious

We ended up getting seconds when our waitress saw how quickly we had demolished it, we of course justified it as ‘carb loading’ for our run the next day haha

Our drinks (we all went for the lemonade)

I’d heard good things about the steak so that’s what I ordered and Dad went for the same

Rachel wanted sushi so ordered the California Luau Roll

The food was really nice and our whole dining experience was just so more relaxing and enjoyable tonight which is exactly what you want when you’ve got to run a half marathon the next morning.

For desert I went for the Crème Brulee (I might have eaten some before I remember to take photos)

Rachel and Dad opted for the Kilauea Torte

And Mam chose the Chocolate Fondue

All were delicious but we were pretty full up and even with help from the rest of us the fondue went unfinished.

The waitress then brought us over what I believe were coconut macaroons, they were nice if maybe a little dry but we were so full up I think we only managed a couple

Fed and watered we went back to the car and drove back to our room. We got ourselves ready for the next morning, laying out our outfits and setting our alarms for stupid o’clock.

​

 

[LisaBelle]

Sorry that your BOG lunch was disappointing this trip, especially since it was the first time for your Mam & Dad. I've only had lunch there once and it was awesome! Hopefully your experience on your next trip will be better.
Your dinner from Kona looks amazing! I've only had breakfast there, but may have to change that on my next trip .
I'm still in awe of you running three races! Looking forward to hearing about the half marathon.

 

[FlaggNL]

Thanks for the updates!!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 – Walt Disney World Half Marathon​

Saturday 9th January 2016​

Part 1 – RUNNERS... ARE YOU READY?!​

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Morning came faster than I would have liked! I felt quite groggy getting up and could feel the tiredness of the last few days. Luckily my legs were feeling good which is obviously a massive plus.​

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We got ourselves up and followed what had become our usual routine of getting dressed, making a bagel with peanut butter and heading out to the car.​

I usually run with my running belt which has two 8oz water bottle but for the 5k and 10k I’d just worn my fitbelt and I decided to do the same again today, the water stops are so frequent I never felt like I needed additional fluid. This turned out to be a great decision!


We arrived at Epcot just after 4am and parked up. There was a lot more traffic this morning due to the higher volume of people attending but it was still super quick and easy to drive. We got out and took our usual myler blanket, we didn’t take the ponchos as the weather was clear and we weren’t particularly cold.​

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I also had a plastic bag with some nutrition supplies that we would be eating or packing in our belts for the run.​

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Then we saw this

A CRAZY line for bag check to get through to the staging area. There were CM’s letting guests know that if they didn’t have a bag or a running belt with a ZIP that they could come through the no bag entry. So we quickly popped back to the car dropped off the plastic bag and took just what we needed in our belts and hands (flipbelts have no zips) and skipped what was at least a 20min queue to get in. This was another handy thing about the car!​

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We came through to the staging area and knowing that the corals would be a bit of a walk away we decided to head straight there. For the 5k and 10k we had our starting corals just off the staging area and it took 5mins max to get there, for the half and the full you have to walk around and around to Epcot Centre Drive I believe.​

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As we passed through what I think was the bag check area the Green Army Man was giving us some words of encourage/abuse!

We went to the loos on the other side which didn’t have much of a wait and then followed the signs and CM’s directions out towards our Coral.​

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These guys were practically begging people to stop for a photo and I felt bad so we stopped haha

We made it to our Coral, for the half and full my Dad and I had managed to scrape into coral H because we ran a race in London together in late September, Rachel had run back in Dublin in August at a slightly slower time so her coral was I. You are permitted to drop down a coral so of course me and Dad went to I with Rachel.

Today felt like a much bigger deal. The whole set up was bigger and more extravagant and this made me more nervous!


There was entertainment from the announcers to keep us distracted and there was a big screen so we knew what was going on. We sat on the floor, had the last bit of our nutrition and waited. Before we were ready to start!

We had a lot more corals to wait for this time but it seemed to move rather quickly.

We inched closer and closer to the front

RUNNERS… ARE YOU READY???!


3……..2………1…….GO!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Here we go! The Walt Disney World Half Marathon 2016!

We set off with our usual intervals skipping the first walk break. I could already feel the difference with the huge increase in numbers on the course but we had the whole road to run on so we weren’t cramped and could easily pull off to the side for our walk breaks. There were lots of runners around us using the run/walk method but I was surprised to see so many people walking. We caught up with Coral I walkers relatively quickly. I’ve absolutely no problem with people walking but I was a little concerned about course congestion when we got closer to the Magic Kingdom.


First mile done

Followed by our first picture stop (there was only one group in front of us for this picture)

The second mile went by without anything notable, we continued with our intervals and I was feeling OK.

As we continued running I started getting excited about the Magic Kingdom, I had never run in the Magic Kingdom before and so I was really excited to get there and see the Castle! We some came across the parking booths and stopped for a quick photo as it was wide enough to not be in the way of those running.

I knew from the course map that we still had quite a way to go before park time BUT I was hoping for a good character spot and from previous trip reports I was keeping my fingers crossed for a Nightmare Before Christmas stop. We could see something up in the distance so Dad ran on ahead to get in line.

Just before the character stop we passed mile marker 3

I could hear the music in the distance…. THIS IS HALLOWEEN, THIS IS HALLOWEEN!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!


We reached Dad and I could see who was meeting… it wasn’t Jack and Sally but it was the next best thing!

Shameless posing!

My phone

Professional Photo

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[dancingtodisney]

After our pic we got back on the road and resumed our intervals. We lost quite a bit of a time with that stop and I also noticed that we now had a lot more walkers around us and the congestion was making it hard for us to keep our pace on our running intervals. I’m sad to say that we experienced a lot of bad runners etiquette with people walking side by side stretching 6-7 people across and causing runners to have to swerve around them. There was a lot of shouts of ‘walkers on the right’ or ‘walkers to the side’ from frustrated runners. ​

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We made it to mile 4

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Going by the clock on the mile marker that was an 18minute mile!!! OOOOPS!​

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We were now at the ticket and transport centre and getting even closer to the Magic Kingdom!! I was so excited to get there! We wanted to knock out a ‘normal’ mile for us which would be about 11mins if we didn’t make any additional stops. My legs were nice and warm and I was wanting to get to that pace but we just struggled really bad with the congestion. We went under an overpass and back up as we followed the route towards the Contemporary hotel. There was a section where we just couldn’t run at all and had to walk as the path narrowed and there was just no way past.​

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We made it to mile 5… and what can we spot in the background?! SPACE MOUNTAIN!!!​

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We continued to run/walk/dodge the crowds and came around into the side entrance towards Main Street USA… I was feeling tots emosh :sad:​

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All of a sudden it was happening, we were running up main street EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK​

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We pulled off to the side to get a quick selfie and then went over to use the toilets by carousel of progress.​

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As you can see it wasn't that dark out anymore and it was super misty so not the best shots of the castle! Hopefully tomorrow it would be better...​

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We ran around to future world and towards New Fantasyland, I know we ran past a couple of a character opportunities before we came across one we knew we were going to stop for​

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I LOVE TANGLED!! It was cool to have a rare meet as well.

We were then coming around towards the back of the castle... the big moment of running through the castle was getting closer! ​

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There we frozen characters cheering us on right before we ran through and a photopass photographer off to the side to get a picture so we did that first​

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You can kinda see behind our heads that the crowds pilling through the castle were pretty thick and so there wasn't really going be any 'running' happening, more of a shuffle!​

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When we came through we spotted the photographers in front of the castle and pulled over for a shot. The runners come out and over to the left of this picture towards Adventureland​

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We went for the glory shot​

(Dad's face!)​

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We got back on course and jogged towards our next character stop​

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 – Walt Disney World Half Marathon​

Saturday 9th January 2016
Part 3 – Half Marathon Course (2)

We continued running into Adventureland, I think we passed a Tiana meet and greet and then came across Woody, the line wasn’t too long so we stopped for a photo

Mile marker 6

I was super excited to be running in the Magic Kingdom, I know I’ve said that so many times but it just felt so surreal! We ran out into a backstage area, I think we exited just past Splash Mountain. The next character stop was a big one and we knew we wanted this picture!


The line was pretty long so again we lost quite a bit of time but I think it was worth it!

We got back on course, there was a water stop right after the Peter Pan characters so we walked through and I fueled up with my cliff blocks and then started running again. The congestion got really bad again though so we were forced to do a lot more walking that we wanted. I found the two worst parts of the course were coming up to the Magic Kingdom and after you left Magic Kingdom which is frustrating because you really take it easy in the Magic Kingdom itself because you’re stopping for pictures and just taking it in and we wanted to run either side of that to keep our time down. Don’t get me wrong I really didn’t care about the finishing time but I did care about how long I spend on my feet and how my energy I lost trying to weave around. My Dad was probably the most frustrated by this and although we had prepared him for lots of character stops and really not caring too much about time we didn’t expect the congestion to prevent us from running so much.


Mile maker 7 (over 20min mile!!!)

We continued to do our best to run when we could but it really just wasn’t happening… I don’t mean to make this so negative but I was so nervous already about having the marathon the next day and wondering how my body was going to hold up that this was starting to make me really anxious. During this mile I just said to Dad and Rachel that I couldn’t continue trying to run and weave past people, it was taking too much energy and we could end up tripping up and getting injured.

We walked like the majority of people around us until eventually we got to a wider road. There was a character stop just as the path opened out, by this point I was now feeling stiff so we got in line and stretched out a bit.


HOW CUTE IS DONALD??!!!

That Mickey golf cart is SO ADORABLE!

You can see the road we were running on in the background, anyone that was still trying to run was out on the grass.


Mile Marker 8 (yep… that’s another 20min mile)

Now… after this mile marker we got some running space, we got back into our intervals (skipping the first walk break to get warm again) and we got through the next mile in just over 13mins

Mile Marker 9

This stretch is not very memorable, I know we were on the road back down to Epcot and I remember having space to run and there being a few water stops but no characters as far as I remember. We came up onto the overpass exit for Epcot around our next marker.


Mile Marker 10 (12min mile – that’s more like it)

And then someone we HAD to stop for as we climbed up that overpass


SIR YES SIR

That hill KILLED ME! My legs were still feeling stiff after all the walking and we’d now been out on the course a lot longer than planned. We took it easy and I stopped at one point to stretch again.


Mile Marker 11

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[dancingtodisney]

We kept our intervals us as best we could and Dad was great at this point just keeping us motivated. We clocked another decent mile and made it to our next marker ​

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Mile Marker 12 (a nice runner took our photo)​

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This mile marker meant that we were almost at Epcot AND the finish line! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!​

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We continued running and made it into the park for our final stretch… now I was happy to take it easy, we were almost done AND there was some final character fun to have!​

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First up… Scrooge McDuck with no line!​

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There was literally nobody waiting for this photo so we got quite a few!​

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We ran past Spaceship Earth and up towards the fountains and then looped back on ourselves and right at that loop I spotted an AWESOME character!​

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VACATION GENIE!!!!!​

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Again there was no wait so we got plenty of snaps​

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How cool is he??!!​

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I LOVE Aladdin (side note my sister got me tickets to go see the new Aladdin show in the West End in London this month… eeeeeek!) so this was a great stop and such a fun way to finish out our run​

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We got a few good pics running through Epcot as well​

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