Saturday, November 10, around 6:00 pm, we divided (and therefore conquered) the boys to spend the night with their grandmas as we set off for a quick pasta dinner and then to catch the bus to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex for our first ever half marathon!
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| Jon's mom snapped this right before we took off. We're carrying the bags Disney so brilliantly allowed us to check. They took the bags from the race start to the finish line so people could clean up a little bit before the after party. |
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| Excited and nervous at the pre-race party |
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| Pre-race posers |
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| The flat, FUN course: through three of the four parks. Wasn't bored once and loved it. Didn't even take the earbuds. |
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Official starting line is up there with the lights and 14,000 other runners. Blurry cell photo due to movement and nighttime. Look at all the other runners taking start photos! Funny. There was amazing, blaring music.
And there were starting fireworks. |
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| Characters and other interesting distractions were strategically placed at about every mile. Ah, the conundrum: sacrifice pace by waiting in a short line for a character photo or two? For me? YES. Jon, not so much. |
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| No way was I passing up a photo op with this guy. |
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| Hollywood Studios lights. Only a few miles left at this beautiful point! |
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| Jon was amazing. |
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| Out of 14,000 folks, I happened to pass by two of Jon's band parents who were taking photos of each other on the Hollywood Studios backlot around mile 10. We knew they were running the race and we had been talking about it for months, but I was amazed to see them DURING! I snapped their photo and then they returned the favor here. :) |
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Jon had the presence of mind to stop for a finisher photo as soon as he crossed the line.
I missed this opportunity as I stumbled to the food and drink table instead. |
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| Jon's stats. He finished in an amazing 2:12. |
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| Did it! Here I am crossing the finish line. I smiled during the entire last mile. |
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| My stats. I finished in 2:47 with the three photo stops. |
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| I am crossing the line here on the far left under Mickey's foot. |
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This is our only post-race photo, taken as soon as I finished,
met up with Jon at the after party, and changed into dry clothes.
We "partied" in Epcot to the best of our tuckered-out ability 'til 4 am. |
Early Sunday morning, after minimal sleep, we were up to retrieve the kids and the fam and head up the road after quite an adventure. We will definitely run a future Disney race - it was just too much fun. We loved it.
