Disney Tower of Terror 10-Miler Race Recap - Part 1

Hello from Disney World!  We are currently in day 3 of our week's vacation at Disney.  Everyone else is asleep, even though hubby gave us all the warning that we had to be up early so we didn't have a huge wait for a bus to Magic Kingdom this morning.  Well, since he's still asleep too, I figure we're good.

On Saturday evening, hubby and I ran our first Disney race - the Tower of Terror 10-Miler.  We had actually made vacation plans to come here over a year ago, and then earlier this year, I saw that this race would actually coincide with our trip.  So I registered us both as a Valentine's Day present.  

My big worry was timing.  We left home late Friday afternoon (we have about a 12 hour drive from home to Disney) and planned to drive most of that Friday night, leaving about 3 hours for Saturday morning.  I worried that we were cutting it close with getting to the expo Saturday, and that we would be really exhausted from driving, and that would affect our race.

We stopped driving Friday night about midnight our time (1:00 am local time) and were up and back on the road by 8 (9am local time).  The drive Saturday morning was full of anticipation.  My daughter loves to stop at the Florida Welcome Center for her orange juice.

We finally arrived at Disney about 12:45.

We decided to stop by the expo first and then head over to the hotel.   By this time though, I was getting a really bad headache.  We planned to get "lunch" after we checked in, but time was just dragging on, and in hindsight, I should have at least been drinking water or Nuun, but I know I was not fueling properly for this night race.

The kiddos had no desire to go to the expo, so they waited while hubby and I went in.  Despite the headache, it was a real thrill stepping inside the Wide World of Sports Complex.  We picked up our bibs and shirts, and quickly realized the shirts were enormous!  (as opposed to last week's Women's Half, where the shirts were tiny!)  I got a medium in both shirts, and the Women's Half shirt barely fits, and truthfully its too small to fit comfortably and flatter.  This shirt was huge on both hubby and I.  We were told there were red bins we could swap them out at, but they didn't have any smalls available, and told us they might release some in about an hour.  I convinced hubby that we should go check into our hotel and come back.  Before we did, he bought some blue lightup shoelaces, and we headed back to the car.  

We checked in at the hotel, got the kids settled, and headed back to the expo.  My headache was getting worse by the minute, and hubby was what we call "hangry."  I grabbed some Dr. Pepper and Tylenol to combat the headache, and headed back to the shirt exchange where we found a huge line of people to exchange shirts to get either small or extra small.

The expo volunteers were very nice and helpful, and explained that at 3pm, they would probably release some of those sizes.  So I held our place in line for about 15 minutes while hubby went to buy more light up gear.  He returned with two neon yellow light up arm bands, and after about 5 minutes, they released the shirts and the line moved very quickly.  Hubby was much happier with his size small, though after I tried mine on, I realized an extra small would have actually fit better, but with my head still pounding, I didn't want to face another line.

I am disappointed that I felt so bad I had no desire to shop, and I missed out on getting anything cool to remember my first Disney race.  

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed the kids, and went to the counter service restaurant there for "lunch," which was, by now, 1/2 lunch and 1/2 dinner.  I got some pasta and ate about 1/2 of it.  Later I would find that this was probably not my best decision.

We headed back to the room, and hubby and I took a nap in preparation for our first Disney race, and first night race...

To be continued...