lurkernj
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2008
We were up by 5:30 on this morning. The race was at 7am, and we had to be on a bus by 6a.
It was just Brian, Chuck and I. Matt didn’t want to participate and was planning to sleep in. Nanny and Pop were coming to spectate. We were very quick in getting ready, and were at the bus stop by 5:45. A bus came immediately. As I mentioned previously, there are separate buses for this event. They are very nice charter buses. They were extremely efficient. But I was a little grossed out thinking of all the sweaty people who will be sitting in these seats after the race while the fabric just absorbs the moisture and stink.
So we got to the race and got on line for a pic with farmer Mickey. The line was crazy. He seemed to be the only character around, unless I was missing something. We made it pretty close to the front before they shut the line down to go line up in our corals. Too bad, it was a pretty cute background.
It was CRAZY humid this morning and you can see the fog in the background of some of the photos. Love this pic.
Here's our fans, how cute are they?
I think Chuck and I were in Coral E, Brian was in B. Brian was bent out of shape that he wasn’t in A. There were some really small kids in A, but I’m assuming not everyone is honest about their times. He was complaining afterward how many slowpokes he had to try to get around while trying to run and it took forever to finally have some space where he didn’t have to walk.
Anyways, I decided I’d stay with Chuck for the first half so we could get some character photos together along the way. He did really well during this race. I had mentioned previously that he was a runner, and has actually run a marathon years ago, and quite a few races with Brian and his cross country friends. But, he had a pretty bad stroke two years ago, and now he doesn’t have full use of his ankle muscle on his right side and when he tries to run, his foot will drag a little. He’s actually pretty lucky this is the only debilitating physical disability he has, but he gets pretty upset that this was once something he loved to do and now can’t.
Since the ground was pretty wet, the trail was pretty mushy leaving the ground really soft, so when his foot dragged, the ground moved with him. So, he was able to run (slowly, but still) quite a bit of the way. I ended up staying with him the whole race, but the characters were so lame we didn’t get any pics except at the end.
I guess I was hoping for some of the Fab 5 in costumes, or some villains since it’s the Halloween race, but what we saw was the Country bears in one location, and brer fox (I think that’s who it was, unless it was the big bad wolf), in another location.
That was really disappointing, I thought they’d have more stuff along the way. I think there was a deserted pirate ship with no characters, and some bats/bugs hanging from some branches somewhere else.
At the end when we were coming down the track, the grave diggers were there, so we stopped for them.
Apparently Chuck crossed the finish line a step before me, so now I have to keep listening about how he beat me. I guess if it makes him feel better.
When we finished, they gave us these cute medallions, and a Gatorade and snack box with a protein bar, banana, and a few other things I can’t remember since I didn’t eat any of it.
Then we had Nanny take a couple of pics and we left.
This part was stupid. There was a really long line to go up the stairs to leave. We waited over 10 minutes just in this line to go up the steps. People were cutting and others were getting irate. Not sure if there was another way out, but it wasn’t obvious if there was. Maybe on the other side.
So, overall, I don’t think I’d do this again. I do love the medallion and the t-shirt, and even the bib, but it was really early, it was hot/humid, the on course entertainment was blah, and just not worth losing valuable sleep and/or park time over. Combined with losing an hour and a half for the packet pickup the day before, it’s just not worth it to me.
We got back to our room around 9:30, took some showers, and headed out to Animal kingdom.
It was just Brian, Chuck and I. Matt didn’t want to participate and was planning to sleep in. Nanny and Pop were coming to spectate. We were very quick in getting ready, and were at the bus stop by 5:45. A bus came immediately. As I mentioned previously, there are separate buses for this event. They are very nice charter buses. They were extremely efficient. But I was a little grossed out thinking of all the sweaty people who will be sitting in these seats after the race while the fabric just absorbs the moisture and stink.
So we got to the race and got on line for a pic with farmer Mickey. The line was crazy. He seemed to be the only character around, unless I was missing something. We made it pretty close to the front before they shut the line down to go line up in our corals. Too bad, it was a pretty cute background.
It was CRAZY humid this morning and you can see the fog in the background of some of the photos. Love this pic.
Here's our fans, how cute are they?
I think Chuck and I were in Coral E, Brian was in B. Brian was bent out of shape that he wasn’t in A. There were some really small kids in A, but I’m assuming not everyone is honest about their times. He was complaining afterward how many slowpokes he had to try to get around while trying to run and it took forever to finally have some space where he didn’t have to walk.
Anyways, I decided I’d stay with Chuck for the first half so we could get some character photos together along the way. He did really well during this race. I had mentioned previously that he was a runner, and has actually run a marathon years ago, and quite a few races with Brian and his cross country friends. But, he had a pretty bad stroke two years ago, and now he doesn’t have full use of his ankle muscle on his right side and when he tries to run, his foot will drag a little. He’s actually pretty lucky this is the only debilitating physical disability he has, but he gets pretty upset that this was once something he loved to do and now can’t.
Since the ground was pretty wet, the trail was pretty mushy leaving the ground really soft, so when his foot dragged, the ground moved with him. So, he was able to run (slowly, but still) quite a bit of the way. I ended up staying with him the whole race, but the characters were so lame we didn’t get any pics except at the end.
I guess I was hoping for some of the Fab 5 in costumes, or some villains since it’s the Halloween race, but what we saw was the Country bears in one location, and brer fox (I think that’s who it was, unless it was the big bad wolf), in another location.
That was really disappointing, I thought they’d have more stuff along the way. I think there was a deserted pirate ship with no characters, and some bats/bugs hanging from some branches somewhere else.
At the end when we were coming down the track, the grave diggers were there, so we stopped for them.
Apparently Chuck crossed the finish line a step before me, so now I have to keep listening about how he beat me. I guess if it makes him feel better.
When we finished, they gave us these cute medallions, and a Gatorade and snack box with a protein bar, banana, and a few other things I can’t remember since I didn’t eat any of it.
Then we had Nanny take a couple of pics and we left.
This part was stupid. There was a really long line to go up the stairs to leave. We waited over 10 minutes just in this line to go up the steps. People were cutting and others were getting irate. Not sure if there was another way out, but it wasn’t obvious if there was. Maybe on the other side.
So, overall, I don’t think I’d do this again. I do love the medallion and the t-shirt, and even the bib, but it was really early, it was hot/humid, the on course entertainment was blah, and just not worth losing valuable sleep and/or park time over. Combined with losing an hour and a half for the packet pickup the day before, it’s just not worth it to me.
We got back to our room around 9:30, took some showers, and headed out to Animal kingdom.