Springtime Surprise Trip: Day 3
It’s 5K day!! I set my alarms a little later than I ought to have 2am and 2:10am, and this didn’t make it to the first bus, or probably even the second bus, since the first left at 2:45, and mine didn’t leave until almost 3. But I discovered that the shorts I wore under my cute skirt on Thursday did not fit me properly in certain areas to prevent chafing, so I had to spend extra time this morning covering the wounds so I didn’t make them worse while running.
Anyway. I got all dressed, except for the wings, and headed to the bus. I was the last person to get a seat— the party in front of me had to get off because there were four of them and apparently not four seats (even counting the one I grabbed). I remembered by the shorts I grabbed for today are not in my usual running lineup—the pocket opening is way up on the hip and it makes it really really hard to get my phone in and out, even when I’m not also wearing a freaking tutu. Also, I should have waited to put my wings on until after security, since they set off the the thing and I got pulled aside, along with just about every other Tinkerbell that came through. This really irritated me because security is never neat digging through my bag.
Anyway, I finally made it to the pre-race area, and didn’t even bother looking to see who the characters were, because I knew there would be a ton of people in line and I just wasn’t in the mood. I headed for our light post, and eventually I was joined by @TheExpert , and later
@flav . We hung out for a while, and then headed to our corrals. I found a spot to sit for a while, and then it was time to stand up for no particular reason, since the gate was still closed. Then it was time to surge through the gate and head to the start line. I ended up somewhere a the back of the front (or maybe it was the front of the middle?) and started at 5:08. I wish people that intend to walk right from the start would make sure that they start right on the edge of the course, instead of in the middle. All in all, it wasn’t particularly congested anywhere, but I always seem to find the pockets of annoying people
I wanted to try to stick to my intervals, but couldn’t hear the alerts for most of the race and just kind of did whatever. The first character stop was the Three Caballeros right when we got to World Showcase, but the line stretched at least to China so I was like “nope, that’s not happening!” I think it was worse than the line for the triple princess stop at the Princess 2022 5K. Next was Incredibles in America, and I couldn’t see how long the line was because the end was in the dark down the path to the backstage area, so I skipped that too. I was surprised that there wasn’t a stop in France. I also skipped the Angel and random experiment stop by Canada because of the line, but finally stopped for Daisy. The lighting was apparently terrible, I had to do a lot of tweaking to get the picture to this point, and I’m still much redder that I ought to be.
Next, I stopped for the shot with the Nova Corps ship, since that’s a new race pic opportunity for me. Of course, SE chose that moment to be less than spectacular in its lighting effects
I skipped the Captain Hook line because I have shot with him and Smee from W&D 2022. Then I was almost at the finish! I tried really hard to find and keep an open pocket to get a good finish pic, and it worked (for a change!)
As I posted in the Springtime thread, it’s so nice to be back with PhotoPass folks with race-course experience! I have so many good pictures!
After I made my way through the finish chute and the whole maze back to the gear trucks, I grabbed my bag and looked for a spot to sit down. Then I saw that there was space on the bleachers towards the character photos—I didn’t have to sit on the ground! I was so excited! I had time to kill, since I finished at 5:55, and the buses wouldn’t even start until 6:30. So I sat down, got my bib off, changed my shoes, and ate my snack, with the hydration boost-enhanced bottle of water. I checked out my run data, and figured out that this was my 4th fastest Disney 5K, both by moving time (42:56) and overall time (47:17)
After a bit, I headed toward the buses and had to wait a million years (or possibly 15 minutes, I don’t know the difference) There was a whole cheering section, complete with cowbell, waiting for us at Pop, which was cool. I headed back to the room to get all my sweaty stuff off. I washed my hair in the sink, grabbed a
lightning lane for Tower of Terror between 9 and 10 am, set an alarm on my watch, then allowed myself to doze off.
I got up and got ready to go about 9. There was a little line for the skyliner, but when we got to Caribbean Beach, most people were headed for Epcot. I did my ToT LL, and booked my next one for Midway Mania. I had time before my LL to hit Star Tours, and I got some of the new scenes! I started with pod-racing, which is obviously not new, then got the mission from Cassian Andor, and met up with Ahsoka and the space whales.
I headed over to Midway Mania and scored 117,000, with an accuracy of 50%. I also booked a post-lunch LL for Runaway Railway. Then went to Sci-Fi for lunch, and I think they’ve changed some of the clips since last spring, so that was cool. I watched Muppet Vision after lunch, and then walked over to Runaway Railway. I was running out of energy, so I just booked a LL for the 1:15 show of Indy. After that, I hopped on the skyliner and went back to Pop. I grabbed some food from the food court, got everything ready for the 10K, and tried to get some sleep.
Waited around for the next one, and when I got to DS, I headed straight to the 
