Four Parks, One Dope: A 2015 Dopey Challenge Trip Report!

[Slogger]

Congratulations for completing the Dopey challenge. It was an amazing experience. I look forward to the rest of your trip report.

Great idea about the multiple alarms. I worried each day about oversleeping starting with getting up for the plane on Wednesday morning at 4 am, and each subsequent race day. I use my casio wristwatch that has 2 alarms during weekdays and one for weekends. I lost track of what day of the week it was and forgot that the half marathon was actually on a Saturday and never changed my alarm. I woke up Saturday morning with the feeling that I had overslept, looked at my watch and it was 3:35 AM!!! My wife was running the half with me and seemed more comfortable staying in the warm room than getting up but we made it to the bus stop at 4 am for the half.

Will try the multiple alarms next time.

 

[disneyhorselover]

At the risk of jinxing myself, I got "I Did It" shirts for the Dopey Challenge, the Goofy Challenge (running the half marathon and marathon on consecutive days - doing the Dopey Challenge automatically qualified me for this) and the marathon:

Overall I was pretty disappointed in the Dopey merchandise...maybe it's because I've never super loved Dopey as a character, but none of it really spoke to me beyond the SweatyBand and the I Did It shirt.

I loved the I Did It shirt!! I opted to save my wallet and not get one (I struggle to justify buying shirts when they already gave me 3), but I was surprised and impressed by the design-love how it was shoelaces!

I picked up my bibs pretty quickly (one bib for the 5K and 10K, the other for the half marathon and marathon), along with my race pins, which were given to me in a big envelope.

They also had shirt pick-up for Goofy and Dopey runners here, so that was nice. I got my 6 - yes, 6! - race shirts here. One short-sleeved, cotton, unisex-fit shirt for the 5K, and 5 long-sleeved tech shirts for the 10K, the half marathon, the marathon, the Goofy Challenge and the Dopey Challenge.

Love the park icon detail on the sleeves. That’s something 2014’s Wine & Dine shirt didn’t have...not sure why?

After being disappointed by the GSC and ToT pins, I didn't order one for Goofy-then I ended up loving it! All of the pins were super cute this year.

I agree with you about Goofy, but I otherwise love the shirts/sleeves.

Our first stop was the Christmas store, where I picked out an ornament to get personalized. This is the one thing I MUST do on every Disney trip. I picked it up Friday at the Boardwalk!

Courtney and Jess split this amazingness. I think it's the Cookie Bits sundae

The ornament idea is so cute!!!!


Also, that sundae. I'm drooling all over my keyboard.


I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the boardwalk christmas decorations!!!

 

[ZellyB]

I love all your Expo purchases!! That green Donald hoodie is adorable. I was pretty restrained at the expo and didn't buy any shirts. But I did get the items I really wanted to get so I was happy about that. Glad you got everything you wanted even if it took checking back on them. I heard that many of the items did end up selling out as the expo continued.

Your Christmas ornament is so pretty. I love it!

The hotel looks really pretty with the Christmas decorations and your room looks really nice. I love the view.

And what better way to close out the day than a viewing of Wishes? Looks like you had a nice evening in the park before your first race.

Good job on the overpacking though. We did the same and boy was I glad that we brought all the warmer clothing that we did. We had such a great trip, but if there is one thing I would have changed it would have been to have the weather be just a touch warmer after the races. I actually thought the running temps were perfect, but not so great for park time.

Excited to hear about the first race!!

 

[Biggie Smalls]

First of all, forgot to say earlier - LOVE your username.

The wake-ups freak me out more than the running does - I NEEDED all of those alarms!

Aww thanks! Came from me losing 120lbs this year and a cross over from what I call my three year old. Not that he has any resemblance to the late great rapper but more so that he is waaaay too big for his little britches. Haha

 

[mbwhitti]

So sad that I didn't know about the phone covers. I definitely would have gotten one. Think they'll have any leftover when I go back next month for PHM?

 

[Ariel484]

Congratulations for completing the Dopey challenge. It was an amazing experience. I look forward to the rest of your trip report.

Thank you so much! And congratulations to you too.

Great idea about the multiple alarms. I worried each day about oversleeping starting with getting up for the plane on Wednesday morning at 4 am, and each subsequent race day. I use my casio wristwatch that has 2 alarms during weekdays and one for weekends. I lost track of what day of the week it was and forgot that the half marathon was actually on a Saturday and never changed my alarm. I woke up Saturday morning with the feeling that I had overslept, looked at my watch and it was 3:35 AM!!! My wife was running the half with me and seemed more comfortable staying in the warm room than getting up but we made it to the bus stop at 4 am for the half.

Will try the multiple alarms next time.

OH MY GOSH! I am so glad you didn't oversleep and miss the half!

I have nightmares leading up to the race weekends (not as many this year, thankfully) where I oversleep, so I do NOT take changes with the alarms, that's for sure!

I loved the I Did It shirt!! I opted to save my wallet and not get one (I struggle to justify buying shirts when they already gave me 3), but I was surprised and impressed by the design-love how it was shoelaces!

Hmm, you sound like a much more responsible spender than I am...

I didn't love the shoelace thing at first but it's definitely grown on my - really very clever, I think!

After being disappointed by the GSC and ToT pins, I didn't order one for Goofy-then I ended up loving it! All of the pins were super cute this year.

Yes! Were you able to get one at the expo? I forget if they were selling those ones.

I agree with you about Goofy, but I otherwise love the shirts/sleeves.

Me too! I especially love the color of the Goofy shirt, even if the Goof doesn't pop. That shirt will be great for outdoor running, there's not way cars can miss us in that one!

The ornament idea is so cute!!!!

One of my friends saw that as an "example ornament," if you will, in the Christmas store during the 2014 Glass Slipper Challenge, except it was on the Cindy one. Here's mine (I did the 5K that weekend):

So these personalized ear ornaments are my new go-to when it comes to my once-a-trip Christmas ornament.

Also, that sundae. I'm drooling all over my keyboard.

RIGHT?! I had a bite and it was soooo delicious. And that picture I took was when it was already half-eaten, but it looks like it was barely touched! That thing was HUGE (and pricey at $14 or something like that!!).

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the boardwalk christmas decorations!!!

Me too! It was a little surprising to see them still up when I checked in but I love the Boardwalk and I love Christmas...so I was not complaining!

I love all your Expo purchases!! That green Donald hoodie is adorable. I was pretty restrained at the expo and didn't buy any shirts. But I did get the items I really wanted to get so I was happy about that. Glad you got everything you wanted even if it took checking back on them. I heard that many of the items did end up selling out as the expo continued.

I love, love, love the Donald hoodie. My favorite expo purchase for sure! I'm glad you got what you wanted too, the merchandise rush is really pretty crazy!

Your Christmas ornament is so pretty. I love it!

Thanks! I am really happy with how it turned out!

The hotel looks really pretty with the Christmas decorations and your room looks really nice. I love the view.

I really love the Boardwalk at Christmas. One of my and Will's earlier trips to WDW (2009) was over Thanksgiving and that was my first time seeing everything decked out for the holidays...and we stayed at the Boardwalk then as well, so that place holds a lot of memories for us!

And what better way to close out the day than a viewing of Wishes? Looks like you had a nice evening in the park before your first race.

Yeah it was pretty relaxed! Probably a little too much time on my feet...you know how that is.

Good job on the overpacking though. We did the same and boy was I glad that we brought all the warmer clothing that we did. We had such a great trip, but if there is one thing I would have changed it would have been to have the weather be just a touch warmer after the races. I actually thought the running temps were perfect, but not so great for park time.

OVERPACKERS UNITE!!

Honestly...I think the weather made a HUGE difference in how I handled the races this year vs. how I handled 2013. You remember - the year where every race was under a heat advisory?! I'm totally with you that it was too chilly for park touring, but for the races it was pretty much perfect for me.

Excited to hear about the first race!!

Aww thanks! Came from me losing 120lbs this year and a cross over from what I call my three year old. Not that he has any resemblance to the late great rapper but more so that he is waaaay too big for his little britches. Haha

I love this entire comment. Wow, congrats on the weight loss! That is amazing!!

So sad that I didn't know about the phone covers. I definitely would have gotten one. Think they'll have any leftover when I go back next month for PHM?

That stinks. I'm not sure why they didn't advertise them more? If not for Twitter I never would have known.

Here's the tweet...unfortunately it looks like those cases won't be around for much longer. Which I think is dumb, because they were just stored in the printer and printed out on demand (I had to go back 30 minutes later to pick it up). So it's not like they'd be sitting there taking up shelf space, ya know?? Maybe they will have new Princess Half options??

 

[Ariel484]

Day 2: Thursday, January 8, 2015

2015 Walt Disney World Family Fun Run 5K! Arriving

Longest name for a race ever!

Overall, I slept pretty well. I know I woke up a couple of times - one of them following some weird dream that I can't remember - but in general, a decent night of sleep. I woke up pretty easily with my 4:30AM alarm.

Unfortunately, a warm front had not moved in overnight. Boooooooo!

Oh well, it wasn't like I was going to die or anything. Hopefully. I layered up the best I could, made some coffee, and headed out of the room.

I was in the lobby at about 5AM...and that's when I actually took a good look at the Marathon Weekend transportation sign. The section that said the buses run until 5:30 in the Event Guide is what I'd chosen to look at...what I'd missed was that runners needed to actually be ON the buses by 5. And it was definitely a little after 5!!

Seriously, better than coffee as far as waking me up. I got my last little shakeout run in by sprinting to the convention area of the resort, dumping coffee on myself along the way. A bus was waiting for me, thankfully, so it worked out (and I wasn't the last person on the bus, so maybe I'm not the only one that has poor reading comprehension)...but really, if I'd missed the 5K - and my Dopey medal - because I misread the sign and wanted to get a few extra minutes of sleep...it wouldn't have been pretty! And I know they cut the buses...when my friends and I were going to spectate the Princess Half in 2014 we tried to get a bus about 10 minutes after whatever the "all runners must be on a bus" time was and were out of luck.

Once the bus filled, we headed to the starting area. I ate a bagel with peanut butter that I'd brought from home on the way. All throughout Wednesday I kept forgetting about the races, but now that I was here on the bus I was starting to get pretty excited!

The drive was short - we got dropped off and I made my way through bag check (similar to the park entrances - there's a security screening line and a "no bags" line). I took this picture at about 5:25AM...you can see the poor volunteer shivering behind this sign.

Everyone was as bundled up as they could get. Later I heard that people had figured out that one of the big massage tents was open that morning, so everyone was huddled inside for warmth. Wish someone had clued me in! Overall it wasn't as horrible as I expected, but that wind was no joke...it was easy to quickly get cold in these high 30s/low 40s temperatures while just standing around without a winter coat. I found myself really considering staying in the porta-potty during my one stop of the morning longer than usual, just because it was warm in there (and didn't smell at all yet since it was just Day 1!). Despite being cold, I was so thrilled to be there. WOO!!

This is a stage where the DJ was set up. In this area (the Staging Area, I guess they call it) there are various tents (Information, Medical, Runner Relations, Merchandise, etc.) and non-runners are allowed here. There was also a food truck and a small cart selling things like coffee, granola bars, fruit, etc.

Directly behind where I was standing in this picture was a big ol' bank of porta-potties. ADVICE! when doing a race at Disney, don't stop at the first porta-potty you see in the staging area - there are more if you walk further, and the lines will almost surely be shorter. Right after bag screening there was one lone porta-potty with a line of 20 or so people...I kept walking and found 4-6 rows of maybe 20 porta-potties apiece with zero lines. Super.

It wasn't long before we were called to the starting corrals. Since I was a Dopey runner, I had 2 corral assignments for the weekend - Corral B (somehow) for the 5K and 10K, and Corral I for the half marathon and marathon. This morning there were 6 corrals, and we were told that there would be 8-10 minutes between each corral's start. So for the poor folks in Corral F, that meant almost an extra hour of waiting around to begin their race. I was so, so happy to be in Corral B!

OH. Note to any future Challenge runners...this is something I forgot to mention in the expo post - when I picked up my bibs, I got two that I was going to need to wear for the entire weekend, and only one set of safety pins. Next time, I am definitely bringing extra safety pins!!

The walk to the corrals was really slow, even though we didn't have far to go. They were funneling us in through a narrow path and here they were checking bibs to make sure that only runners were passing through beyond this point. I think they underestimated how long this would really take since by the time I made it through, it was almost time for A to start - in fact, I saw quite a few people jogging into the A corral just before the official start of the race. I didn't mind - I was surrounded by people on all sides, so I was shielded from the wind!

Once I made it into B, I had some poor, unsuspecting kid take a picture of me in my finery for the morning.

The hoodie (from college) and the pajama pants (from Target - one wash and suddenly they were way too short on me! Booooo) were my throwaway clothes. Under those I had my skirt, leggings, a running hoodie and a short-sleeved top. Around this time I think Corral A was being walked to the start (they roll out tape to walk people up, similar to what they do at rope drop in the parks).

Continued In Next Post

 

[Ariel484]

2015 Walt Disney World Family Fun Run 5K! Mile 1

This morning, the National Anthem was played by a trumpet player from the Main Street Philharmonic - cool! The wheelchair racers started first, followed by A at 6:15. This year I did something I do not normally do for Disney races - I bought the photos! I actually look decent in some of them and there was a Dopey package available, so the price was not TOO insane. I mean, still crazy overall, but whatever...

So here's a pro picture of the start of the 5K!

Those of us in B were walked to the start soon after.

At some point in here, I took off my Mickey PJ pants and hoodie, and placed them carefully on one of the fences on either side of the corrals. They had definitely served me well that morning (having the hood was KEY), but I knew once I started running I would warm up and the temperature wouldn't bother me so much. And I would much rather be a little colder while running than a little warmer.

Eventually Corral B got to start at 6:23AM...3-2-1-GOOOOO!!!

We took off and once I got warmed up, I felt pretty good. I had been tapering for the marathon (scaling back the weekly mileage) for the past 3 weeks or so, and now that I was here, I just felt really...bouncy and awesome.

However, the first mile of this course is BORING. So boring! I had my watch set up to beep at me during certain intervals (so that I'd run 4 minutes and walk 1 minute), but I pretty much ignored it for most of the race. Especially during this first mile - it's all parking lot. I was also, for the first time ever in a Disney race, really concerned about my time.

In the pre-race materials, the instructions specifically stated that Dopey Challenge runners needed to maintain a 16:00/mile pace through all 4 races to get the challenge medals. This wording was a little stricter than what I'd seen in the past, so that, along with them taking our pictures at the expo, made me think that they were going to be paying more attention to the timing of things from now on (for the record - I am fully in favor of this. Sorry, not sorry! ). In particular, the wording said we'd need to go to the Dopey Challenge tent after each race, where our time and picture would be verified. Then we'd get a bracelet stating we'd completed that race and could go on to the next step.

This was my 4th 5K race at Disney, and I knew from experience that the character lines would be pretty long. They are VERY long for the 5K races compared to the longer races. Since it was a shorter distance, if I stood in a long line it would be harder to make up that distance and get back under pace...so that was my concern that morning. I knew, realistically, I could probably stop for just one character picture. I'm pretty picky when it comes to who I stop for - they either have to be 1. rare, 2. someone I have never met before, 3. in a special outfit, or 4. a sentimental favorite (I pretty much can never pass up a photo with Mickey, for example). Important considerations this morning!
ETA: as disneyhorselover pointed out, if there's a character with basically no line...well then why not stop?! So I guess that's rule 5!

But in the meantime, I could cheese it up for the on-course cameras! Look at those rosy cheeks from the cold!

This is an awful picture, but it's a screen near the security booth on the backside of Test Track, welcoming us to Epcot!

Mile Marker 1 - cutest mile markers ever! The first mile took me about 11 minutes. Banking some time! I think Flik was out meeting somewhere in here, but I've met him before so I passed him up per (2) above. Gotta stick to the rules!

Continued in Next Post

 

[Ariel484]

2015 Walt Disney World Family Fun Run 5K! Mile 2

Good morning, Epcot!

We entered Epcot in between Mexico and Norway. Nothing too crazy as far as course crowding this morning, so that was nice (maybe because I was in Corral B?).

The first character I saw was Norwegian Daisy...pretty big line so I passed her up. I'd seen a report from last year's 5K where someone met Remy and Emile in France, so that was the character meet I was really hoping to see this morning.

Here's a pro picture of what Daisy was wearing. Some day I need to stop for her in this outfit.

The first water stop was somewhere in here, but I don't think I took any water. I was feeling pretty comfortable at this point though, temperature-wise! So that was good.

Pinocchio was out in Italy...and then I saw IT. The character meet I was going to stop for!!!

It was Chip and Dale in Japan, and they were dressed as...ninjas, I guess? Either way, they were in costumes I had never seen before, so I hopped in the giant, giant line.







IT. DID NOT. MOVE.

I have a Garmin running watch that I wear for my races, and it has a feature where it tells me my average pace so that I know for sure that I am staying under Disney's 16:00/mile requirement. As I stood there, I watched the pace creep up.

Normally these race picture lines move very, very quickly...this one was not. Once my pace got up to 14:30ish, I called it quits. Another feature of this watch is that I can see how long I have been stopped in one place, so I can say for sure that I was in this line for 4 minutes (which felt like an eternity at the time) with absolutely no movement. And at this point I was almost halfway done with the race, so making up any more lost time would have involved Olympic-level sprinting on my part. Not really, but ya know. There were still 25-30 people in front of me, and if I lost my Dopey medal because of this one picture...I'd have a breakdown. So I headed up front and grabbed a quick, crappy picture so I could whine to all of you.

Up here, I realized what was making the line go so slowly. Not only was there just one CM manning the runners' cameras (normally there are two), but he was doing it incredibly, incredibly slowly. I feel awful saying that, because I so appreciate anyone that volunteers their time to get up so early to do this for us runners...but this wasn't great.

I kept going and eventually made it to France...no Remy and Emile. Marie was out.

More cheesin' for the cameras, even though I was pretty bummed about the characters this morning!

Mile Marker 2 was near the International Gateway. So my second mile was a 15-minute one with nothing to show for it! Woof. (Get it? Because of Pluto? Hahaha...haha..ha?)

Continued In Next Post

 

[Ariel484]

2015 Walt Disney World Family Fun Run 5K! The Finish!

We briefly went backstage and passed the second and last water stop. Again, I don't think I used it at all. I did try to thank the volunteers as much as possible...I mean, it was cold, but at least I was running. I can't imagine how hard it was to just stand there in those temperatures for a few hours or so.

We headed back into Epcot near the UK/Canada. The sun was just starting to come up.

I saw the last character line of the race here - Canadian Donald. I didn't get a good picture, but he was dressed like a lumberjack. His line was big, and at this point I knew this was it for this race - no character pictures for me this morning.

We closed out the World Showcase loop and headed into Future World.

The race was almost over, and now I knew for sure that I had plenty of time banked, so I decided to stop for some pictures along the last half-mile or so.

Voila!

Cannot get enough of the sun coming up in Epcot!

We exited the park and found Mile Marker 3.

And the finish line! By now it was almost 7:30.

Heyooooo. Not a bad finish line picture! Just me and a couple other Dopes.

Normally this race is not chip-timed (as in, there are no official results recorded), but Dopey runners do get the race chipped, so I have an official finish time recorded. For the 5K, it was 41:11, a 13:15/mile pace. Actually a Disney 5K PR for me! Woot. Per my watch, I'd weaved a bit and added 0.11 miles to my overall distance.

Time for that Pluto bling!

Temperature at the finish line was a whopping 38 degrees. With a real feel temperature of 30 degrees! Yikes.

The volunteers directed us through the finisher chute and to the snack box/drink area. I added one thing to my packing list this year that I found SO helpful as the weekend went on. For each race, I brought a plastic bag and tucked it into my skirt pocket. runDisney gives you so much stuff at the end of a race - bottle of water, bottle of Powerade, snack box, banana, and sometimes other things (pouches of applesauce, granola bars, etc.) - but nothing to carry it in! Having a bag made juggling all of that much more manageable.

As I was collecting my stuff, I heard someone talking about my shirt behind me. Turns out she thought I was a nurse due to the picture on the back...which she thought was a needle. I was actually representing Mulan:

Sword and warrior outfit on the back? White orchids on the front? Anyone? Ah well.

They had the runners continue to funnel through and made sure to tell the Dopey runners to go to the Dopey tent...where they did nothing. No one checked times, no one gave out wristbands, no one compared pictures...mass confusion. Everyone was asking volunteers multiple times what needed to be done. We were told they'd check stuff tomorrow. Ooooookay. I didn't love this - now that I was here and actually doing the thing, I wanted confirmation that my time had recorded. Ugh.

And with that, it was time to blow this popsicle stand. There were characters meets in the finish area (Dopey and Pluto) but the lines were long and now that I didn't have the extra layer from this morning, I was chilly. Back to the resort!

Continued in Next Post

 

[ZellyB]

Aww thanks! Came from me losing 120lbs this year and a cross over from what I call my three year old. Not that he has any resemblance to the late great rapper but more so that he is waaaay too big for his little britches. Haha

That's amazing!! Congratulations!!!

 

[rteetz]

Great Job! While I was there I kept hearing about how cold it was that morning from other runners. I hope to run the Dopey sometime in the near future.

 

[ursalita]

Joining in to read about this mean feat!

 

[ZellyB]

Woohoo on the 5K finish!! Love those little 5K medals. Those temperatures were not fun that morning for you guys. I was looking at the weather reports as we were flying in and was not jealous of all that time standing around. Like you said, for running, it's actually pretty good temps, but not standing in a corral for an hour. Brrrrr! And excellent point about all the poor volunteers. Not fun at all.

I'm bummed for you on the character stops. I can't believe they only had one person manning the cameras. With the 5K there are fewer opportunities for character pictures, I would think they would have made sure to have enough people to help with pictures...and that they were efficient about it. Sorry especially that you didn't get Chip and Dale as ninjas. They look so cute in those outfits.

I also thought the directions about pace and then the check-in process after for Goofy and Dopey runners was very confusing. We asked three different people after finishing the half if we needed a bracelet or a picture or something. They all said no that we were good, but it was really distressing to me and I worried that somehow we were going to miss out. We talked to several other runners who felt the same, so I eventually just left feeling like if we were screwed then so were a lot of other people.

One race down and three to go. Can't wait to hear more!!!

 

[RnbwSktles]

Great 5k recap! I was one of those people that discovered the heated Massage tent. It a was a life-saver during the 5k and 10k!

I was also worried that we needed to be under the 16min pace, so I was too nervous to stop for photos. I was with my brother who wasn't really into that anyway. Since this was my first time running after completely stopping 2 weeks earlier due to leg pains, I wanted to take it easy anyway. There was no way I could take it easy AND do photos. Next time!

I had wanted to purchase the Dopey photo package as well, but I'm not really happy with the photos. There is not one single photo of my brother or me from the 5k . I checked all of the unidentified finish photos, but not the miscellaneous ones yet. It's a daunting task

 

[Ariel484]

Great Job! While I was there I kept hearing about how cold it was that morning from other runners. I hope to run the Dopey sometime in the near future.

Thanks! Yes, it WAS cold! I don't think anyone was really ready for it.

You should totally do the Dopey Challenge at some point!

Joining in to read about this mean feat!

Yay! Thanks!

Woohoo on the 5K finish!! Love those little 5K medals. Those temperatures were not fun that morning for you guys. I was looking at the weather reports as we were flying in and was not jealous of all that time standing around. Like you said, for running, it's actually pretty good temps, but not standing in a corral for an hour. Brrrrr! And excellent point about all the poor volunteers. Not fun at all.

They always do a really good job with the 5K stuff...it's just so cute.

You summed it up perfectly - for running, fine. For standing around, not the best.

I'm bummed for you on the character stops. I can't believe they only had one person manning the cameras. With the 5K there are fewer opportunities for character pictures, I would think they would have made sure to have enough people to help with pictures...and that they were efficient about it. Sorry especially that you didn't get Chip and Dale as ninjas. They look so cute in those outfits.

Me too! I couldn't believe that! I'm still a little sad about missing Chip and Dale.

I also thought the directions about pace and then the check-in process after for Goofy and Dopey runners was very confusing. We asked three different people after finishing the half if we needed a bracelet or a picture or something. They all said no that we were good, but it was really distressing to me and I worried that somehow we were going to miss out. We talked to several other runners who felt the same, so I eventually just left feeling like if we were screwed then so were a lot of other people.

Really though...after reading about it in the program I, like you, found myself really wanting *official* confirmation that I was on track and that things were picking up correctly, ya know?

One race down and three to go. Can't wait to hear more!!!

Woohoo!!

Great 5k recap! I was one of those people that discovered the heated Massage tent. It a was a life-saver during the 5k and 10k!

...and you didn't tell me about it the morning of the 5K because???

I was also worried that we needed to be under the 16min pace, so I was too nervous to stop for photos. I was with my brother who wasn't really into that anyway. Since this was my first time running after completely stopping 2 weeks earlier due to leg pains, I wanted to take it easy anyway. There was no way I could take it easy AND do photos. Next time!

Yeah, I complain about not getting the photos, but finishing and (I thought at the time) keeping the 16:00/mile pace was really the most important thing. I'm glad you were able to get through even with the leg issues.

I had wanted to purchase the Dopey photo package as well, but I'm not really happy with the photos. There is not one single photo of my brother or me from the 5k . I checked all of the unidentified finish photos, but not the miscellaneous ones yet. It's a daunting task

UGH! That stinks that there aren't any 5K photos of you guys! A lot of my photos are good but my 10K ones are pretty terrible...

I didn't even try to look through the unidentified ones. That would be a full-time job!

 

[disneyhorselover]

I was able to get a goofy pin at the expo, so it all worked out!

So glad you made the bus-I was getting stressed out for you just reading about that mistake!

I was thinking of all those 5k runners that cold morning...mostly thinking, wow, I'm glad I'm not there!
But seriously...that sucks. Standing around in the cold is the worst, especially when you aren't fully prepared for it-and who is prepared to be that cold in Florida? Glad you took the time to thank the volunteers...I did the same during the half and I thought they looked cold then, which was nothing compared to Thursday.

I had the same complaint about the pace requirements for the challenges. They have never enforced the 16/min pace as long as you finish ahead of the sweepers, correct? It sounds like the it was the same this year, but the pre race info made it about as clear as mud. It stressed me out for sure-I've never even thought twice about time in disney races, but this time we were careful that our character stops didn't slow our time down too much!

How disappointing that the character lines were so slow and so long....but Daisy, Chip and Dale all look adorable in those outfits! Also, my theory on stopping is very much the same as yours, haha, but I'll also stop for anyone with a super short line even if I've gotten them in previous races/park visits...I just can't resist!

Love that Pluto medal-he is just the cutest!

 

[cajunfan]

Can't wait to read the rest of your report!

Lynn

 

[Miffy2003]

It was so very cold that morning! All the runners in my C corral were huddled together for warmth!! I felt so bad for those in F

The lines for characters were simply too long, which was such a shame as I love them in their cute national outfits!!

 

[Ariel484]

I was able to get a goofy pin at the expo, so it all worked out!

Oh good!!

So glad you made the bus-I was getting stressed out for you just reading about that mistake!

I know!! I couldn't believe I did that! I did NOT make that mistake again, thats for sure!

I was thinking of all those 5k runners that cold morning...mostly thinking, wow, I'm glad I'm not there!
But seriously...that sucks. Standing around in the cold is the worst, especially when you aren't fully prepared for it-and who is prepared to be that cold in Florida? Glad you took the time to thank the volunteers...I did the same during the half and I thought they looked cold then, which was nothing compared to Thursday. [/quote[
And the volunteers were always so energetic and cheerful, even in those conditions! So grateful for them!

I had the same complaint about the pace requirements for the challenges. They have never enforced the 16/min pace as long as you finish ahead of the sweepers, correct? It sounds like the it was the same this year, but the pre race info made it about as clear as mud. It stressed me out for sure-I've never even thought twice about time in disney races, but this time we were careful that our character stops didn't slow our time down too much!

As far as I know, they have never enforced it, like you said. The program this year definitely worded it differently compared to past years! I'm with you guys...it mostly affected how I approached the character stops.

How disappointing that the character lines were so slow and so long....but Daisy, Chip and Dale all look adorable in those outfits! Also, my theory on stopping is very much the same as yours, haha, but I'll also stop for anyone with a super short line even if I've gotten them in previous races/park visits...I just can't resist!

Oh right! I should amend my rules...I DO stop if there is zero line for a character sometimes. Because why not??

Love that Pluto medal-he is just the cutest!

I totally agree!

Can't wait to read the rest of your report!

Lynn

Thanks for following along!

It was so very cold that morning! All the runners in my C corral were huddled together for warmth!! I felt so bad for those in F [/quote[
Yay for teamwork in Corral C!!

The lines for characters were simply too long, which was such a shame as I love them in their cute national outfits!!

I agree on all counts!