So I ended up having three days off before the race, not what I wanted but it was whatever. On Friday, I headed to the expo about noonish. Got a little lost trying to find where to park, so the parking cms let me turn left instead of making me turn right to go the correct way. Once I was parked, I headed to the expo center. I got a little side tracked because as I entered, I had to use the restrooms that were at champion stadium, I just had to peek at it. I then headed to the expo center. Wowzers! I wasn't expecting a ton of people. I immediately headed to the back to get my bib and pin. Then I headed over to the side to my shirt and bag. I had put all my stuff in the bag and slung around myself. I proceeded to check out the booths. I looked at sparkle skirts, very cute! I checked out the medals for this year for all of the races. Then I had to take a picture with the countdown timer.
I also found this at the expo and thought "hey that's what I'll be doing tomorrow".
I then checked out the official race gear, it was nice but didn't have the funds to spend too much. I didn't intend on spending anything at all. I worried about my phone, id, debit card and car keys while racing. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them until I found these new age fanny packs. The one I got was a little bit more then I wanted to spend but it was worth it. They sales ladies were right, I didn't notice it at all during the race! After I got that I headed home to rest. I took a picture of everything together.
Saturday came up quickly. I slept as late as possible and stayed home to rest. I started stretching a couple hours before I left for the race. I then got ready then headed out for the race at about 5 or 6 pm. I left an hour early in case traffic was bad and good thing I left early. I got a pretty good parking spot at Espn. I got there a few minutes before the first bus out to the starting line. I had met some lovely people on the bus and talked a little about being a cm and gave them some fun facts about Disney. This one lady had her ringtone set and we all were like what?!?! Her ringtone was Frozone asking his wife where his super suit is then we found it out it was a pair. The husband got his phone out and played his part. It was his wife asking why he needed his super suit. Best couples ringtone ever!!! Once we got to the starting area, that's when the party began. I decided to join a line for one of the back drops then I proceeded to see what other ones they had and took a few more pictures. The dj was awesome!! He's one of the ones that actually dances on the stage while he was djs. I believe he was one of the djs for Monsters University Homecoming this past summer. What a blast it was!
Here are the pictures:
After a few dances with the dj, I decided to head back towards the port-o-johns to do one last restroom stop before the race and headed to my corral, there were only a few in the corral. Then hour had approached when the race would begin and my nerves were restless since this was my first race ever. It was really cool with a dj entertaining us until we got to the start line. The fireworks and special effects were very cool. I started off strong by running the first 1/4 to 1/2 mile then we got a bendy part and I started to speed walk. I found this very nice group of ladies to keep up with for the race and that made it more enjoyable as we past the mile markers. I thought about stopping and getting shuttled to the finish area but I kept going as I passed mile markers. Before I knew it, there it was, the finish line! I had done it. I had walked/ran 10 miles into the Twilight Zone. Boy did I feel terrible at the end. I was hungry but they provided plenty of post race snacks and drinks. I reached the top by Fantasmic!, used the restrooms since the last my pre-race use. Then I found a place to sit, then got my picture taken with the support group I found.
Once I thought I was ready to move because I didn't want to throw up since a lot of that had been going on post race. (Poor showkeeping and showreadiness!) I took my post race picture with my medal and headed down into the park. I didn't get very far before I started seeing some familiar cast members and headed towards Tower to see what the wait time was. It was 45 minutes, I decided to go home because I had to be at work at 10 am and didn't get home until 3 am or so. Must say, I got no traffic on the way home and got to see Cinderella castle lit up with the Christmas lights and boy was it pretty!
Results:
5k Split: 52:08
10k Split: 1:48:07
Net time: 3:00:34
It was a great race! I am planning on doing it every year from now on to improve my time each year.
