2 a.m. - again. Ugh! Back on the road again at about 2:40 a.m. Going with the same directions as the previous days, and shortly after my exit from Route 4, the lanes were blocked off and I was detoured from my previously successful route. Thankfully all the electronic signs were making sense... until the last one which, as I had interpreted it, had me turning down the road that leads to Swan & Dolphin hotels. This was most incorrect, and scared the heck out of me that I wasn't going to make it in time. Eventually, I wound up simply turning around and making my way back onto the road I had errantly turned off of, figuring that I merely misinterpreted which turn it was talking about. Sure enough, that's what the issue was. Phew! It only added about 5 minutes to my drive, but boatloads of anxiety. At least now I knew what to expect for the drive in for the marathon on Sunday.
The plan for today was to run with Laura at about 8 - 8.5 minutes/mile, while leaving no character behind. After dropping off my bag at gear check, meeting up by the bleacher was pretty simple.
Pretty quickly we made sure to take one last pit stop, drop her bag at gear check, and join the slow march out to the corrals. (While the corrals for the 5k and 10k are directly next to the runner's village, it's about a 1-mile walk to get to the corrals on Epcot Center Drive for the half marathon and marathon.)
As usual, we made our way as far forward as we could without being overly pushy. It's not like we were planning on winning the race and wanted to toe the line directly. We just wanted to make sure we could get ahead of the lines for the character stops.
We zoomed out as quickly as possible. The first character was maybe .25 miles away, and amazingly enough, I was the first person to stop for her, with Laura maybe 1-2 seconds behind -- everyone else was staying on the course.
Jacque wound up catching up to us by the time we stopped for Sally.
But then we were off again. Was Lumiere at the same location that Hercules was at yesterday?
Shortly afterward, we were in Magic Kingdom. Dang, that came fast!
We made our way around the back side of Tomorrowland and off towards Fantasyland. First up, the teacups. There was no evidence of any character photo stop there, so we kept flying along. Later that day, we found out that not only were the Tweedles there for photos, but they even wound op operating the ride for a little while. MK rides open during the half marathon? Unheard of! We would have GLADLY taken some time to get on the ride if it were running while we were there.
Then, continuing along, we make it past the carousel to run through the castle. Again, what we found out about later was that they wound operating the carousel for a little while. Good lord... two rides open in MK during the half, and we were too fast to take advantage of it? Ugh! Oh well.
For some reason, they decided not to add the Christmas lights onto the castle -- I guess they figured it wouldn't work well with the 50th anniversary color scheme? But, hello, you can barely see the castle, it's so poorly lit in their photo.
Thankfully, I know someone who was able to take the original and brighten up the castle. MUCH better! Thank you, Jeanne!
Interesting that the photo with Laura had some decent lighting showing up for the castle. Weird.
Strange to have this set up randomly -- no evidence of a PhotoPass photographer nor an eventual character. But, hey, how could we not pet the dalmatians and take a photo with them? Well, one at a time, anyway.
As we approached, I actually thought it might be a "real" stop, since I saw Remy and a chef. It was certainly obvious as we got closer that these were spectators. They were quite happy for us to stop for a selfie photo with them. No stuffies left behind!
Probably the biggest stuffie we were going to ever see.
You know the end is nigh when you hear, and then see, the Hallelujah choir! Great sound!
You tell me how anyone can run around some of these turns at full tilt and not actually imitate a plane.
Our official time? 1:55:03. This was more than 40 minutes faster than my 10k time of 2:38:36. Wow, was the previous day a slow slog! :-)
We got through with everything fast enough that we even managed to arrive a few minutes early for our breakfast reservation at Whispering Canyon (in Fort Wildneress Lodge). Our original table was in the middle of the wide-open area, but we spied the fireplace in a less cavernous area of the restaurant, and asked if we could have that table instead, with the thought of warming up a little faster. Thankfully they were able to accommodate us. Alas, the fireplace didn't throw off ANY heat, even when sitting directly next to it.
I had no idea about the antics for this restaurant. Laura insisted that she needed ketchup for some of her breakfast. So, we had to yell for it. "WE NEED KETCHUP!" Over came a family from another table, dropping off LOTS of ketchup bottles.
We had a few minutes to eat some of our food before we were pressed into service to dump all of the ketchup at another table all the way over there! "You didn't tell me there would be extra mileage after the race!"
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