I found out the Wine and Dine switched from a really cool nighttime race, to a daytime race. With that came a sharp decline in the number of people interested in running the event. Not only were bibs still available in September, they were still selling bibs the day before the event at the expo.
Another selling point for me was that in-between the race in September and the race in November I already planned to run the Perfect 10 Miler and the Trenton 10k, so at least I wouldn't have to run any long distance runs without water stops. Don and I ended up running 8.8 miles in honor of Honey Bunny's 88 years.
There were a couple of other thoughts. We had nothing planned that weekend. I thought about signing up for a couple of races for that weekend, but I hadn't. My parents were free to taxi Ashley. We had no plans on the calendar -- a rare weekend. And perhaps the most compelling reason of all, we could spend time with Don's former mentor's widow Linda and her family. In 2016 Don drove down to say good-bye to Linda's husband Andy as he was dying from cancer. This gave us an "excuse" to see her -- not that we should need an excuse.
Plus the medal is gorgeous!
We briefly looked into flying down and renting a car, but decided to drive down after work, go to the expo, run the race, and drive home.
Don worked up the stats after we came home:
Driving 35 hours (18 down, 17 back)
Sleeping 9 hours (1 1/2 Saturday morning, 6 Saturday night, 1 1/2 at a rest stop on the way home -- to be honest, I slept more in the car)
Racing 3 1/2 hours
Racing related 5 1/2 hours (2 1/2 before the race, 1 post race, 2 at the expo)
More than a bit crazy.
The expo was fun. I left with lights for my sneakers -- I've been wanting a way to see at night and the Night Runner 270 should fit that bill. I've only tried them once during a Girls on the Run practice, so I need to try them on a real run before making an official endorsement. I wanted a Sparkle Skirt but did not find any I wanted to spend that much money on.I was disappointed I could not find a single piece of Chateau to Castle merchandise, even though they had plenty in France. At the very least they should have had leftovers to sell. I later learned only 100 people did the "chateau" part first. I saw someone on Twitter complaining about the lack of Coast to Coast merchandise, at least they had something. We had to explain the Castle to Chateau challenge to the manager at the RunDisney booth.
After swinging through Downtown Disney, I mean Disney Marketplace, I mean Disney Village, I mean Disney Springs, we hung out with Linda, Amy, and CJ celebrating Amy's birthday. It was nice having a relaxing night to catch up. Also nice was that we gained an hour of sleep that night, and went to bed at a decent time. Though with the alarm set for 2:30 AM (in anticipation of leaving Linda's by 3 AM for a 5:30 AM start -- she only lives 10 minutes away, but Disney said you had to be at the start by 4 AM if you wanted a bus from the finish line to the start line).
I wore a skirt I have been dreaming about since last year's Perfect 10-Miler when I caught a glimpse of someone else wearing a similar skirt. It is made up of ill-fitting race shirts. Rebekah finished it in time for me to debut it in Florida.
Don wore his Disneyland Paris Demi Marathon shirt and boring shorts. We were there super early, so we stood in a half an hour line to have a picture taken with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. There wasn't much else to do at that hour. The corrals were not even open yet. Then we stood on line seemingly just as long for the port-o-pots. Don was assigned Corral C, but stepped back to Corral E to run with me (it is based on anticipated finish times).
Each corral was subdivided by three. Each corral had a fireworks start -- a much bigger display than the wimpy ones we had in Paris. I did miss my Techno Europe hosts. Don didn't care either way.
Finally we were off.
The course felt long. It was well over a mile before we saw our first characters (Tinkerbell and friends). It was still dark by that point. All that waiting and the picture is overexposed. We passed Pirates, then paused for a picture with King Louie from "Jungle Book." By then the sun was out, just to give you a sense for how long it was between characters.We did not enter our first theme park until around Mile 5, but we did pass the sewer and trash treatment plants.
Our time in Animal Kingdom took us through Avatar -- their new section. We paused to look around since we don't have plans to return to Walt Disney World anytime soon.
That fun seemed to be over about as quickly as it began. We were back to the parking lot by 7:15. We could see people entering Animal Kingdom, presumably for breakfast. For the next three miles (or so, seemed longer) we ran through the parking lot and along the highway. We did see the Country Jamboree Bears -- it is rare by this point in our lives we find new characters to take a picture with, so we stopped to pose with them, and also with the penguins from Mary Poppins just because.
It did help mentally to see there were a lot of people behind us. I'm not competitive by nature, but this meant that the Balloon Ladies were far behind us and we had a really good shot at finishing before them and earning the bonus medal.Finally around the 10 mile mark we entered Hollywood Studios, which is slated to get a new name one of these days.
We waited much too long for the Genie to return from his break. We were told it would be a minute, but was closer to 5. Had we realized, we would have kept on running. By that point, though, I knew we were way off from our Disneyland Paris pace.
I had been warned about just how narrow the section between Hollywood Studios and EPCOT is. This was one of the wider stretches. I had no idea how close those two parks are located. At this least this stretch was far more scenic than the other non-park stretches.We were already past the 11 mile mark. I knew the EPCOT section was about a mile. That's how close they are to each other.
EPCOT was the most fun. Having the last stretch in the park makes up for the earlier boring parts in parking lots. Well, almost. While running through the parking lots I was reminiscing about Paris and how their course took us through the town near Disney, through the hotels (which are an easy stroll to the theme parks), and back stage -- but really cool back stage where we saw parade floats and firetrucks instead of a sewage treatment plant. This is likely to be our last WDW run race.
Finally around the 12 mile mark we were in EPCOT. There were lots of characters. Lots of cast members holding flags. Lots of PhotoPass stops. And, because I am slow, lots of guests entering the park.
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| Made me think of Peggy Sue |
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| Finally entering EPCOT |
My skirt was a bit hit in France.
May as well stop for another photo. I like to get a castle photo with each Disney race, but this time we did not go through the Magic Kingdom. Now that Mickey's Hat is gone, not sure what the iconic pose is in Hollywood Studios. Does anyone have any ideas on that one?
We finished as we started -- together.
Time to find our medals!
Our bracelets entitled us to the Castle to Chateau medal -- or as I keep calling it the Chateau to Castle medal since we ran in France first. These medals were only allowed to be handed out by the team leader. She is the one who told us only 100 people were doing this. Don thinks I got the last one since he didn't see any others in her hand. There was a problem with medals running out in Paris, so I would not have been surprised if there was a shortage here, too. Fortunately we both left with one.
The walk to the car felt really long. My leg had cramped up around mile 12.7 (in Germany). I stretched it and finished strong.
Another thought -- the mile markers all declared the time, which was both good and bad. When the time was around a 12-minute mile I thought "we are flying." Conversely when it was a 19-minute mile I spent much time trying to calculate where time was lost (how many pictures did we stop for? how many characters did we see? what else slowed us down) and impacted my mental ability to relax and enjoy. At no point did we see the Balloon Ladies, and that was our real goal.
We posed for a last picture and headed to the car to clean up, eat, and drive home. First, though, we had to go through the gift shop because it is Disney. Yes, vendors in the finish area.
A picture of the three medals together:
Love the one from Disneyland Paris and the Castle to Chateau. I think the Wine and Dine one is the worst Disney medal I have ever seen.
Another big change this year was the famous post party. When the race was held at night, you were greeted near the finish line with the drink of your choice. Instead we were told to return at 10 PM for the post party. By 10 PM we were halfway to New Jersey. Bummer. They did give us a $15 voucher to make up for it.
Another big change this year was the famous post party. When the race was held at night, you were greeted near the finish line with the drink of your choice. Instead we were told to return at 10 PM for the post party. By 10 PM we were halfway to New Jersey. Bummer. They did give us a $15 voucher to make up for it.
Fortunately the drive home, though long, was uneventful and we arrived in time to pick up Ashley from my parents' house and take her to school. The bed never looked so good.
Later we learned a Brazilian woman came in first overall -- she beat every man, which rarely if ever happens in major races. We also learned a man died near the finish line.
Kenny the Pirate loved the medals more than we did. Must admit seeing the challenge medal on his blog puts it in a whole new light.
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