We're Home

Hello everyone!  After a wonderful week at Disney World, we arrived home last night.  Now I have to catch up on all those fun chores before going back to work and school tomorrow.  But before I focus on that, I have to recap our awesome week with 7 on Sunday:

1.  The Tower of Terror 10-Miler with hubby was AWESOME!!  You can read my recap of this race in the previous two posts.  We both loved it and can't wait to do more Disney races!

2.  The time with my family at the "happiest place on earth" was such a blessing.  This was our third family trip to Disney World, and with our son getting ready to turn 16, I realize it may likely be our last.  Each visit was different, with the kids at different ages and having different interests, but the family time and memories made are priceless.

3.  Staying at Disney's Art of Animation Resort was fabulous!  With the kids getting older, we knew we needed a little more space than the room we had at Caribbean Beach last time we visited.  When I found the family suites at Art of Animation, it looked like it was just the thing for us.  We stayed in the Finding Nemo section, and we had a master bedroom for hubby and I with our own bathroom, and there was a second room with a pull-out sofa, table with 4 chairs that also easily became another bed, a second bathroom, and a kitchenette, which had a fridge, sink, and microwave.  The entire resort was full of art from Finding Nemo, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Cars.  It was gorgeous, and really met the needs of our family.

4.  I continued my training plan, despite being on vacation!  I had a long run of 7 miles, a 45 minute run and a 40 minute run on the plan this past week, and I used the Tower of Terror race as my long run, but also completed my two other runs on the wonderful running path at our resort.  It was a little over a mile and surrounded a small lake that was between our resort and the Pop Century resort.  It was a well-lit path and I saw many runners taking advantage of it.  

5.  I ate and ate (and drank a little).  The last time we went to Disney was pre-running, pre-healthy living, and we had the Disney Dining Plan.  When hubby made these reservations well over a year ago, he got that plan again.  Suffice it to say, we have agreed that the Dining Plan encourages you to eat way too much.  The food was delicious, and I feel like I did a good job pushing my plate away before I overate, but I hated wasting food too.  Also, we were there during Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival, but really didn't get to try anything because we had the dining plan.  Next time, we will not get the dining plan, and will undoubtedly eat a whole lot less.  We did enjoy champagne in Italy while enjoying a beautiful afternoon, though!

6.  A continuation of the food thing, I weighed in this morning only up 2 pounds from when we left, which I consider a huge miracle.  I am getting serious with my training for my December 29 Half Marathon, so I am also getting serious with fueling my body in a healthy way, especially since we are close to the dreaded holiday time when treats and big meals can derail a healthy lifestyle.  I have a goal to weigh 130 pounds by Christmas, which is completely doable.  As I mentioned before, I'm going to steer away from special diets or gimmicks and just focus on healthy foods and portion sizes.  And as this skywriting that we saw over Epcot said, I have to trust.

7.  Finally, I'm going to try to spread out that happy Disney magic, so it's not just something we do every few years.  I have a very stressful job, and sometimes raising two teenagers can be scary as well, but I'm going to try to enjoy each day, despite those stresses, and not just wait until I'm on vacation.  My son remarked to me last night that he had never seen me look so happy as when we were at Disney.  I need to work on spreading that happiness in my life past the one week every few years.  

P.S.  In case you haven't noticed, today is now Monday.  I was waiting to import some pictures from the camera before I finalized the post.  Hope you're having a great week!

Disney Tower of Terror 10-Miler Race Recap - Part 2

In my last post, I told all about the trip to Disney and of course, the race expo!

When I left off, hubby and I were napping in preparation for our first night and Disney race.

We planned to leave the hotel around 7:30 (we are staying at Art of Animation Resort, which is just a few minutes from Wide World of Sports where the race shuttles were).  The pre-race info said to be on the bus by 8:00 to be at your corral by 9:15.  This seemed crazy for a race that didn't start until 10, but I had read about the "hurry up and wait" pre-race activities at other Disney races.

Hubby and I got up from our nap about 6:30 and got dressed for the race.  That pasta I ate for lunch/dinner was not digesting, and I had this terrible feeling in my stomach.  We got dressed and my daughter snapped this picture before we left.

This was my first race "costume."  I didn't go all out, but I was worried about wearing too much that might annoy me on a 10 mile race, especially given the heat.

We headed out and saw immediately that traffic was terrible.  What was a 5 minute drive earlier that afternoon turned out to be a 20 minute drive that evening.  I will say that Disney does crowd control right.  There were a zillion volunteers helping to make things run smoothly.  The traffic kept moving, thanks to the direction from many volunteers, and we had the car parked and were on a bus by 7:57.  I will also say that they had plenty of buses, and we didn't have to wait at all.

The pre-race area was so much fun.  There was a DJ and they were playing fun music (there was even the Thriller dance) and they had plenty of port-a-potties.  Hubby and I stopped by those right away, and then sat down in the parking lot to wait.  We both had a bottle of Nuun, and I tried eating the Kashi bar I usually eat for breakfast, hoping that might quiet my stomach.  (By now my headache was gone, but my stomach took over.)

Despite the upset stomach, it was a blast sitting and watching all the runners and costumes.  

Again, the race volunteers and support was phenomenal.  They had tables with cups of water at the start, and plenty of port-a-potties.  About 9, I decided I wanted to make one more stop, so hubby and I headed that way.  He was in corral A, and just as we got into the line, a volunteer called for corrals A and B, so he headed over there.  I was in corral H, so I had plenty of time for one last bathroom stop.

I headed over to my corral, and was very impressed with the organization. We went into a holding area, and volunteers were checking bibs to make sure runners were in the right corrals.  We waited for a while, and then started the walk toward the start line.  At 9:55, we heard the National Anthem, and then the wheelchair start.

There were speakers along the way so even though we couldn't see the starting line, we could hear everything.  They started the corrals about 2 minutes apart, so we still had a good little wait until we started.  The whole time I was mentally preparing to run.  I kept telling myself I was not going to ruin my first Disney race by getting sick.

I got a picture of the fireworks at the start for corral G.

Then it was our turn.  Most everyone in my corral was doing a run/walk combo, and there were plenty of people.  I did really have to pay attention to the people in front of me, and there was a lot of passing walkers when I was running, so I had to weave in and out sometimes.

There was a lot of fun stuff on the course, including characters, music, and volunteers just cheering everyone on.  I was a little nervous about finishing in a decent time and avoiding the sweepers, so I only stopped for one character picture along the way, because that was the only line that wasn't huge.

Stitch!  It was a lot of fun to get at least one photo.  In hindsight, I could have stopped for a few more and been fine, so I'll know for next time.

In the last mile, I saw hubby with the spectators cheering as I made my way through Disney Hollywood Studios.  He had of course finished well ahead of me!

My stomach never really felt great during the race, but I just kept going and pretty soon, I was at the finish line!

The medal is fabulous!

Again, I can't say enough about how much fun this race was.  And Disney really knows how to do a race!  The volunteers and support were amazing.  

After the race, hubby found me and he wanted to get some food.  I wish I had felt better, because I would have loved to share some food with him and hang out at the party.  Surprisingly, I wasn't as tired as I thought I'd be.

After he ate some ice cream and a pretzel, we headed back to the shuttles.  There were a lot of people heading out as well, but the waiting time was very minimal, and before we knew it, we were back at our car at Wide World of Sports and driving back to our hotel.

The next day, hubby and I both wore our race shirts to Hollywood Studios and got lots of comments from the cast members about the race.  We saw others with their shirts (and some with medals too) and it was fun kind of being in a special club of people who had braved the Tower of Terror 10-Miler!

So for the rest of the week, we'll be doing a lot of walking through the parks, and I still plan on getting up early for my Tuesday and Thursday runs.

Have a great week!

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...