March 11, 2015 – Storybook Erin

Welcome to part 2 of my WDW Marathon Weekend Recaps!!

In case you missed part one, here’s a link! WDW Marathon Weekend – Kids Races & Expo

Now, onto the WDW Half Marathon Recap!!!

The night before the race we had a dinner at Chef Mickey’s, and spent some time organizing our outfits and getting ready. I was pretty nervous, but I was in good company. My husband also had a little bit of nerves to deal with. I hadn’t really thought about the distance we were going to be running over the next two days, I was just focused on finishing.

The alarm went off bright and early at 2:40 a.m., and suddenly… our daughter began to cry. Not a simple sleepy whimper, but .. like actual giant tears. My husband and I took turns getting ready and holding her, trying to soothe her tears – but her diaper had leaked so we had to get her cleaned up and back into some dry clothes. As you can imagine, she was NOT impressed.

My husband takes over the diaper duty while I go grab a bottle of milk, hoping a little milk will save the day (nope, I was wrong). About the time I was going to grab milk my Mother in Law knocked on our door and offered to take her. So, while little lady was screaming we continued to get ready for Part 1 of the Goofy Challenge.

Oh, is it here that I should mention I was well aware of my pregnancy as Braxton Hicks joined the party?

goodness – what a morning!

I drank some water, took some deep breathes and we made it out the door and loaded onto the bus around 3:15 a.m.

Still dealing with nerves and Braxton Hicks my husband and I took some photos and skipped out on the meet ups with various RunDisney fan groups. Around 4:20 we started the long walk to the corrals, and there we sat for about 2 hours until our turn to start.

I had packed a pair of old sweats to wear until the start and then toss, but it was SO cold that I ended up wearing them the entire race. – This was new for me, I’ve NEVER in my life run in sweats, in fact… I even had on two layers of shirts and I never once felt the desire to take one off. 40’s is much colder than I’m used too..

In the corral there was a LOT of complaining around me. People whining about the weather, and whining about the announcers, and this and that and … basically everything. So, I put on my headphones and got myself into “the zone”.

So, around 6:30 a.m. it was finally our turn to start and I was ready! I popped out my headphones to soak in the fireworks, and then…we were off.

My fingers were FROZEN. It was so bad I looked around on the ground for a pair of gloves. I couldn’t believe how cold I was – even though we were running!!! Anyway…

Since I was 25 weeks pregnant, it was a big deal to keep myself fed, hydrated and my heart rate stable. It’s important to remember that whatever your heart rate is, the baby’s is faster. So, with that in mind I’d trained with a 1:00 / 1:00 ratio of running and walking. It was how I trained and I was ready to go all 39.3 miles that way. Determined to finish!

The first 5 miles seemed to fly by! I was surprised because our time didn’t indicate that at all. I blame the long lines for the porta-potties.

**Sigh** Preggo Problems, always have to pee…

We approached Cinderella’s Castle and were greeted by Elsa, Anna and Kristoff. I was hoping this would be our chance to actually RUN through the castle… but… nope. Every single person decided to STOP and WALK SLOWLY through the castle and down the ramp.

*Tear*

It was so annoying.

We were finally able to get running again and I still felt pretty strong.

The next miles were also a blur, I was focused on my 1:00/ 1:00 run-walk so I don’t really remember much about it. When we approached Epcot my heart began to leap for joy.

We were almost done with Part 1 of the goofy challenge, and did NOT get swept by the “balloon ladies”

Since we were IN the park and not going to be swept, we stopped to say hey to our good friends Phinea’s and Ferb, Of course we asked “Whatcha doin’??” snapped a photo and continued on our way.