Yet again, a 2am wake-up time to get out the door. One quick meet-up photo before setting off to the corral.
The plan was to run with Jacque and Robert, but I couldn't find them prior to going to the corral. But, based on prior experience, I knew they would both muscle their way through to the front of the corral before we made the march to the starting area. Yep... sure enough, they wound up a couple of rows ahead of me, despite arriving about 15-20 minutes after I did. No matter, I knew that I'd be able to easily catch them once we all started, so long as I didn't lose too much ground while the corral marched forward to its starting position.
Today's plan was to run the 10k with Jacque and Robert, and hit all of the photo stops. Expectation was that it would likely be in the vicinity of 1 hour to finish - a relatively leisurely pace.
Jacque and I got to Jessie just fast enough to grab a pic before Robert arrived.
However, unbeknownst to us at the time, Robert's foot started acting up for him during this next sprint to get to Atta. Jacque pulled together several of her running friends at the front of the line where we were to take a photo.
Since we couldn't see Robert on approach when we finished the first photo, I suggested going to the back of the line while we waited for him. Once he arrived, she grabbed a few more of her large group of friends for the next group photo.
As far as we knew, it was going to be a little while before we hit any more characters, so we pulled back a little on the pace. But, by this point, the lines were already getting fairly long. Oh well. The plan was to keep together and get the photos, not to hit a specific time, so there was not much concern about the fact that we surely weren't going to hit the planned hour.
Even though Figment is just a statue out front, they had a PhotoPass photographer. No character left behind!
By the time we got to the Boardwalk, with about 2 miles left to the run, the line was long enough that Robert was taking out his phone to post on one or two of the Dopey groups what the current lines were, and what the expected arrival times were for the Balloon Ladies at the respective mile markers, now that they had crossed the start line. It wasn't yet much of a concern for us, but the lines were certainly taking 10-15 minutes each now.
The line for Lumiere was surprisingly long. It was about 15 minutes that we were on line, basically going up and back along the median in France. Now the concern for the Balloon Ladies was starting to build for me.
And, as has happened with far too many of the photo stops, the line was arranged in a bass ackwards way, counter to the course. Trying to get to the side to the back of the line for Gepetto, I nearly killed myself/another runner with our crossed paths dealing with this stop. Oy! And, again, at least 10-15 minutes for the photo.
At the bottom of World Showcase, next to the gift shop that is past Mexico, we were lined up for Daisy. We wound up meeting up with several other people, but they didn't seem to understand the point of their being just one group photo -- they stayed back while the three of us went to meet Daisy. While waiting in line, Robert was doing the math trying to figure out how far away the Balloon Ladies were. While it was still a mild concern for me, I knew that we only had maybe 1 mile left -- easy to finish, and only one more character left. But the lady in front of us was immensely nervous about the Balloon Lady conversation and gave him what for about it.
We made our way to the backstage area once again, and found the line for Darkwing Duck. It was HUGE! I went to the CM at the back of the line and asked how long it would be from that point until getting the photo -- 25 minutes. Even though Robert and Jacque found some folks about halfway up in the line to jump in a photo with, at this point I had hit my nervous limit re: the Balloon Ladies. Even at 10-15 minutes, I didn't trust that they wouldn't catch us. And lately the sweepers have been brutal about the cutoff. I bid them adieu and good luck, and left this one character behind, making sure I actually finished within the time limit.
Typically you don't want to be looking at your watch when crossing the finish line of races, but this time around I purposely took a look at it, and made as "horrified" a look as I could muster, given the fact that this 10k took me a fair bit longer than I knew the half marathon the next day would be taking. It was about 2.5 hours, for a race I expected to finish in approximately 1 hour. Oy! Talk about mucking up some of my plans for later in the day. While I wasn't particularly annoyed about that finish time, I was rather upset that I couldn't get all of the post-race photos. In fact, I only managed to get one: with Chip and Dale. And it took 90 minutes to get!
I didn't have a huge amount of time at Universal's parks, since I needed to get back to the hotel before 4pm to get in my car to drive down and meet up with everyone for a 4:30 reservation at Sebastian's. This is one of the best deals ($35/person) for an all-you-care-to-eat dinner on Disney property. And sharing it with running friends (new and longer term) is all the better.
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