Massive race weekend recap coming. I might come back to this post a couple of times today and add/edit things or organize my thoughts in a more coherent manner.
TLDR: I did it! I completed my goal of completing the Goofy Challenge, didn't get swept (obviously), got my mostly-dark sky picture despite stupidly stopping for a pic with the rabbit by the teacups on Saturday, AND found someone in a FB group with an extra spirit jersey after I was too late to get one from the expo on Wednesday. Check, check, and check.
Tuesday night: coached 4th grade basketball practice, drove home and DH had the car running for us to leave. Drove 4 hours down to Detroit, and crashed at the hotel for the night. We got there at around 10pm, and were sleeping by 11. Up and hauling alllllll of our luggage (3 carry ons, 3 backpacks, 2 checked bags, a carseat, and a stroller) to the lobby to get on our shuttle at 2:30 in the morning. Yay for 3 hours of sleep!
Wednesday: flight from Detroit to Orlando. Non-stop, which was a good call because getting all our
crap THINGS, moved was a chore and a half. Picked up our Visitor Toll Pass, grabbed our luggage, and hauled all of the things out to the rental car garage. DH insisted we get a bigger vehicle because he was anticipating how much stuff we would have and he was correct. We needed ALL of the space. Stopped and grabbed lunch because we were starving at that point, and headed directly to the expo. DH was not prepared for what that was like. And DD was not excited to go from being in a carseat on a plane, to a carseat in a car, to being strapped to my back for 4 hours. So she screamed in my ear for 90min before falling asleep. And of course this was while we were shuffling our way through the expo queue. I missed out on getting pics with the giant distance numbers (because there was a screaming baby on my back) and we didn't have time to go back because we had a Sanaa reservation for 3pm.
Sanaa was delicious and did not disappoint. We blew through the bread service in record time. I don't know that we've ever finished it before, but that day we did. From there it was off to OKW to unload everything at the room and make a grocery run. We figured we would have time to do that and squeeze in a trip to DS to look at the animation drawings and order the ones we wanted for the weekend. But then I became navigationally challenged. In my planning I had found a nearby
Walmart and Costco that were also very close to each other, which was going to make grocery pick up quick and easy. So when we got in the car, I found the walmart with the matching road name. And we started driving. And kept driving. And driving. And driving. And it was rush hour, so I used that as a justification for why it was taking so long. When we finally go there, DH went in to grab a couple of things we hadn't put in the pick-up order and I attempted to get them to bring our order out. The phone number to call for them to bring out your order went straight to voicemail, which was full. It was extremely disorganized and inefficient. And after 15 or 20min and them coming around to ALL OF THE CARS EXCEPT OURS to ask for an order name/number they came over to get our info. And that's when we found out we were at the wrong Walmart. Of course we were. So we drove to the nearest Costco, which was even FURTHER away from our resort and picked up the things we needed there and then found the CORRECT Walmart. The best part? I was only like 10min from our resort. So my dumdum move cost us well over an hour in driving/waiting. Did I mention we were running on 3 hours of sleep? Yeah. We were all in great moods. Trip to DS was out the window at that point because DH had to get up at 2am the next morning for the 5k. I help DH get
everything for his race ready (bib pinned to his shirt, all of his other stuff together in one spot) so he doesn't have to find it in the dark in the morning. We are absolutely exhausted. Tried to maintain hydration with nuun and lots of water. Florida is a lot warmer than Michigan.
Thursday: DH's alarm for 2am doesn't go off and he sat up in bed swearing at 3am when he realized what time it was.
So now I'm awake. He drove himself to his race because our room at OKW is 0.75mi from the Hospitality House and I'd seen a lot of conflicting info about an internal shuttle bus and whether it was worth waiting around for. Once he got back and showered/changed we grabbed the first bus to MK for ETPE. DD had THE BEST TIME there. Meeting Mickey was her absolute highlight. We did spring for G+ because long lines and a 2yo do not mix. It made me miss FP+ because I feel like that system was a lot easier to work with. We left at around 11 to change our clothes, eat an early lunch, and made a quick trip over to DS to get those drawings ordered. I started to really notice the glaring lack of mugs and stuffed animals in all of the shops. Then it was back to MK to soak it all in. We had an early dinner reservation for Skipper Canteen. This was a very underwhelming meal. I'm not much of a complainer because I worked in a restaurant for 6 years, but I don't think I'd eat there again. Went to grab a fruit and nutella waffle from Sleepy Hallow
AND THEY DON'T HAVE THEM?! 
Used mobile order to skip the massive line for a strawberry funnel cake (it was ready approximately 30sec after I ordered it) and went to find a place to watch fireworks. I love Disney fireworks. I don't think this is my favorite show, but I liked it. Then it was back to the room and back to bed because DH was running the 10k in the morning. Fun side note: while we were waiting for our food at Skipper Canteen, the coach that was covering DH's games for him during our trip texted him to see if there was anything he wanted to tell the team before their game. DH decided that he would "bet" them that if they won their game he would wear his race costume to practice when he got back. And his team ended up winning by like 26 points or something. Their first win this season. And now Vacation Genie will be making an appearance today.
More hydration. Liquid IV and nuun today. More water.
Friday: Thankfully I slept through DH's alarm this morning because I was soooooo tired and I knew what was coming for the next 2 days with Goofy. Made it all the way to 6am. Yeah. That was sleeping in this trip.
DH stopped for more pics during this race after I reminded him that there was a REASON we got memory maker, and it was the race photos. So would he please use it?! We wandered around DS for the morning, and ate lunch at Terralina. Another underwhelming meal. Nothing wrong, just not impressed with the food. After that we hopped a bus to Art of Animation to do a skyliner tour and walk to the meetup at HH. So nice to meet other DIS'ers and put faces to screen names. All 3 of us were still pretty tired so we decided to make it an early night and headed back to OKW to eat dinner watch our oldest's basketball game (our school/conference has a streaming service) and get some sleep. Only had one adult drink (at the meet up) and more liquid IV and nuun. Must hydrate for Saturday/Sunday.
Saturday: Slightly more race nerves than usual. Woke up about 5x during the night SURE that I had slept through my alarm, forgotten to turn it on, or had shut it off the first time it went off. Little bit of coffee, bowl of oatmeal, and took a half a water bottle with a full packet of tailwind to drink in the start corral. Drove the car to the HH at the resort for DH to retrieve later that morning. I looked around in what ended being the place for the meetup when I got to the start, but I must have been early or something, so I kept wandering through and got into my corral early to get off my feet and try to calm my nerves. At some point I saw
@The Expert walk past and I was SO HAPPY to see a person that I "knew" so I tracked her down in the crowd and we ended up running most of the race together. I said one of my goals was a dark-sky castle (aka still lit up) pic, but I wasn't sure if I could make it because of how far back we were in the start groups. She agreed to run with me and if we got to a point where one of us wanted to run a different pace from the other that we would just do our own thing. Somewhere around mile 3 or 4 we saw a Miss Piggy with a long blonde ponytail sticking out of the back of a hat and discovered that we had come up on
@SheHulk! So we ran with her as well until somewhere around Main Street. It cracks me up to look at the mile splits because after we got clear of the masses (mile 1) we ran around 13:00mm and then at mile 6 (where we split up for character/castle pics) it's over 25:00 for that mile.
WORTH IT! I caught back up to The Expert somewhere around Grand Floridian and we ran the rest of the course together. It seems that our paces matched up pretty well and we were both willing to be flexible in our intervals and just wanted to coast to the finish to save something for Sunday.
Real talk. After this race my feet were killing me. So so so sore. We headed to DS so I could finally do some shopping before the crowds started to peak. We had a lunch reservation for Chef Art Smith's that I was SO EXCITED FOR. But since I didn't eat my snack box IMMEDIATELY after the race, and waited until I got back to the room, I had almost no appetite. I
wanted to eat, but I just couldn't. Dinner was pretty much the same. I made myself eat.
My parents are "snow birds" who have a winter home a couple of hours from Orlando, and they drove over to see
us the toddler for the afternoon. We hung out at the pool, which helped my feet and legs tremendously, and then it was an attempt at an "early" bedtime (8:30) so I could feel like a person and not a zombie on Sunday.
Massive fail on that. I went right to sleep. And then at 10:30 I woke up in the middle of some kind of anxiety attack. I maybe have ONE anxiety issue per year, and this one was a doozy. My brain was trying everything it could to convince me that there was absolutely no way I could run the full tomorrow. I was wasting my time. I wasn't really a runner and I wouldn't finish, soI should just turn my alarm off and sleep in. I should just vomit because THAT would mean I was *sick* and couldn't run in the morning. I was sweating, and then I was shivering. After about an hour I got myself calmed down, took another melatonin, and fell back asleep. And woke up 3 more times to check my clock. So I ended up with just under 4 hours of sleep and not the 6ish I was hoping for.
Sunday: More anxiety. Forced myself to eat some oatmeal, but couldn't even finish the single packet I made. I had intended to get to the meet-up but I was so tired that getting ready took me a lot longer than it should have, and I didn't get out the door until almost 3:00. Because we were changing resorts on this day (rented DVC points and limited availability basically tied our hands on this) the car was mostly loaded, and I didn't want to carry the stroller back up the stairs for DH/DD to use, so I decided to
limp walk to the front to catch the race bus. Which was 0.75mi. The sidewalks are well-lit, so I didn't feel nervous or unsafe about the (long) walk on my own, but it was yet another mile on my feet going into what I knew would be a long day. Add another layer of anxiety. Moving can help calm me down, so DURING the walk was better, but once I was on the bus it all started back up. I had intended to do the meet up on this morning, but I felt like I just needed to get into my corral, breathe, k-tape my foot, drink my tailwind concentrate, and try to get my brain straightened out for the day. I stopped at medical and got tylenol for my feet on my way to the corral, and stopped and checked a bag with a sandwich, compression socks, and clean (dry) leggings for post race, should I need them. I also packed my half medal with intentions of going back to that golden mickey statue for a pic with all of my medals at the end, but I didn't have the additional half mile+ in me by the time I finished. The Expert came and met me in the corral a bit before the start and we went back over the plan for the day: attempt 14min/mi -ish pace through the castle, and then just stay in front of the sweep line. We figured we would have around a 30min start on the balloon ladies, and would have "earned" another 20min by the time we got through MK, so a full hour of cushion to make the day as enjoyable as possible, with time to slow down and do any must-have character stops. And then they expedited the start because of the forecasted high temperatures and that initial 30min cushion became more like 15min. We were tracking the pacers from the 7:00 and the updates were VERY delayed coming in, which made us both nervous, but we knew that 12:30pm was around the cutoff for finishing.
We ran 90/30 intervals through the castle (some extra walk breaks for aid stations or when we took fuel) and stayed mostly in the 14-15mm pace through mile 11, and then we experimented a little with inverting that and doing 30/90, which we decided was too long of a walk and did 30/60 for most of the remainder of the race. The Expert lived up to her screen name with all of the tips and tricks for getting through the long, hot miles. DON'T THROW YOUR SPONGES AWAY! I had never seen that specific bit of advice. Keep them for the next water stations and re-wet them. The ice bags felt SO good. And her unwavering enthusiasm and positivity were exactly what I needed. We saw SheHulk on the course again in her Gazelle costume (SO CUTE!) on the way to MK. And we did it! We both finished, and I know that she kept me going through some of those long highway stretches, and hopefully I did the same for her.
I ate about half of my sandwich before getting on the bus, and provided a good laugh for someone waiting for their mears/uber/taxi when I walked backwards off the bus and then limped back to DH and DD in the pool area. Finished my sandwich, the chips and cheese, and then had a bacon cheeseburger. TOTALLY different from how I felt about food on Saturday. Our room at Boulder Ridge ended up being ready early so I was able to shower there and pretty much tried to not move too much and keep my feet elevated for the rest of the night. Unlike my October marathon, after these 2 races I can report that I had ZERO blisters, and almost NO chafing. And no blisters under my toenails either!
We got a text alert at 7pm that our flight for Monday morning was a little delayed and I did terrible, exhausted math and decided we still needed to get up at around 2am to get everything back to the car and drive to the airport.
Monday: got up an hour earlier than we "needed" to. We took our time getting around, drinking coffee, eating some breakfast, stopped to fill the car up with gas, and still got to MCO early enough to miss the bigger crowds at security. It took us about 20min to get through, and that includes having to get a bag re-scanned because we forgot to empty the toddler's sippy cup. My legs and feet felt surprisingly good, and I was able to put the toddler on my back in her carrier to get through security, the terminal, etc. However, 2 hours waiting for the flight, 3 hours on the plane, and then a 4 hour drive home stiffened a lot of things back up.
