Our trips now need excuses: this one's excuse was the TOT 10-miler

[bumbershoot]

Let's have some pictures of our room, yes?

It was a corner room, standard (parking lot) view. I'm starting to think it's silly to request a corner room because who sits in their room with the blinds open? This only shows one window, and it was the ONLY time I had the blinds open.

Now, again, they seem to be replacing those bedspreads! Yay for no icky unwashed spreads, but ew for plain white in a ROYAL room.


This room is a semi-Handicap Accessible room. The bathroom, basically, is different. Most of the POR rooms have a vanity area separated from the room by a curtain, and the toilet/shower area is separated from that by a door. Not in this room!

The door to the room might be a bit wider but I'm not sure.

I loved this cubby. I took up the entire thing.

Safe. Put your stuff in on its side end.

This is the *sliding* door between bathroom and room.

 

[bumbershoot]

It would really be so awesome. I think our kids would get along well, they seem to have so much in common, besides having shared diaper covers (I know I don't post trip reports much anymore, but my kids are Lego fanatics, Harry Potter fans, Disney fans (duh), and I often find myself nodding along as you talk about E). And I bet we would have a lot to talk about as well .

Of course I understand if it won't work out, but the timing is soooooooo close!! It would just be so cool if we could make it happen! Keep me posted, OK?



I actually don't know, as we always leave the Monday that most kids go back to school. I was mostly just trying to convince Molly to go to WDW early so we could meet I'm an enabler like that . We've "known" each other for over 9 years online, it would just be so fun to finally meet in person!

I will definitely be sure to let you know! It would be really great. And because it would just be me and the kidlet, well you can see how great that would be, just mamas and babies! Old babies, but still. Babies.

Darn... I wasn't hoping you knew. I do understand being an enabler though... and the kind you are is the best kind!

Enabling is so fun when others are doing it. I hadn't even thought of decorations still being up. Heck, I was trying to figure out why flight costs were so high before the 4th, because I am focused on running, not New Year's!

 

[bumbershoot]

They are no longer using the full folders, or even the half folders. Rather they are now giving out pockets. At least they gave one to me.

Popped open the pocket and took the picture looking down.

What's in there?

And this is the new in-room info. Honestly, some of it seems like it's *yours*. Like you take some of it and use it? So...yeah, some of it might have become mine. Or not. Whatever you want to think and keeps you thinking of me as a semi-decent human.

See? I might take out the pizza thing and get sauce on it. I might take the transportation thing out and use it to find, you know, transportation.

And it seems to have the Be Our Guest guide, which opens to a poster AND has the bounceback info in it.

Coffee cups.

I know, these pictures are terribly exciting.


mmm, new coffee....

 

[bumbershoot]

So this morning started early. Surprisingly so! If anyone has a significant other who has work stuff taking up 3/4 of their brain, you'll understand when I talk about the FACT that I talked DH (and DS) through our first few days 18 different times to make SURE they understood what was going to happen. Robert took notes. Because that's how he absorbs things.

And the KEY thing about the 5th was that *we didn't have to wake up early, we were supposed to sleep in, laze about, have nowhere to go*. That was the point of me getting there a little early, rushing to the Expo, and cancelling our (crying) Kona reservations (oh how awesome would Tonga Toast have been the morning of the race? if you're gluten-free do NOT answer that...don't even THINK about that...save yourselves from the "half loaf of bread"!)

Anyway, I swear, he repeated that with me each time.

And when I went to WW to do my weigh-in on Thursday, 2 full days before our normal weigh-in, I repeated it all. Asked if he was going to do that or if he was just going to skip it. Skip it!

But then...AFTER eating the T-Rex meal, after a flight, with not enough hydration...he wanted to go to weigh-in on Saturday morning.

OK, fine, let's go. Good meeting, cute leader. I didn't weigh-in again because, well, you can't do it twice in one week. So we went, we found a Publix, we found a Starbucks. Nearly like Saturdays at home!


We must have gone back to the room and then a bit after that headed over for some lunch. Because nothing's better before a night race than food you've never had before! (no)


I had some sort of FP+s made but last minute wasn't feeling up to it. Long story short, kinda thought I was pregnant, a week later realized I wasn't, whatever (cry, sob, darn you universe), anyway I was dizzy and my stomach felt weird, and Mission: Space wasn't my speed at that moment in time. So I did this instead.


Gardein Chik'n with rice and a curry. We use rice, we use Gardein products. The sauce, however, we don't. SO good.

Vegan chocolate cake with some sort of white something on it. Passionfruit sauce maybe? All VERY good.

You might notice my awesome shorts there. And my bright pink Crocs. To really round out the visual there, know that I was wearing a BRIGHT orange v-neck from Old Navy. 'cuz I'm awesome. I like people to see me. From across the park. Or from space.


The guys joined me soon enough and hit the Terra booth as well. E loved loved loved the chik'n, and Robert loved the Gardein Beefless Tips chili colorado so much he got two servings.

And later on, Troll Horns (pictured) and School Bread (not). Decided that from now on we will SHARE a School Bread. Robert and I, that is. Eamon shares nothing. Growing boy.

OH dear. Looking at the pictures, I realize that we had that lunch AND dessert at noon, and that was after having Starbucks, and just 40 minutes after lunch AND dessert we headed to Kringla og Bakeri.

And it was only two HOURS later that we found ourselves at Sunshine Seasons.

Turns out you can get an adult sized portion of the mac&cheese. E was all over that.

And the adults got the Gardein "Tamarind Vegan Beef", which sounded way better than it was, but I really really appreciate the effort! We adore Gardein. (sorry, oh gluten-free goddesses)

 

[bumbershoot]

Next up?

 

[jugrijo]

Following along.

I intend to run this race on 2015, so... gotta read everything about the TOT race until then.

I'll check your PTR later, for sure.

 

[bumbershoot]

Following along.

I intend to run this race on 2015, so... gotta read everything about the TOT race until then.

I'll check your PTR later, for sure.

Train for running in the heat. Seeing your location, it doesn't seem like this will be a problem.


The kiddo was doing his learning work and now we're off to visit a friend of his, so more of our trip will have to wait!

 

[annmarieda]

Let's have some pictures of our room, yes?



It was a corner room, standard (parking lot) view. I'm starting to think it's silly to request a corner room because who sits in their room with the blinds open? This only shows one window, and it was the ONLY time I had the blinds open.

Now, again, they seem to be replacing those bedspreads! Yay for no icky unwashed spreads, but ew for plain white in a ROYAL room.


This room is a semi-Handicap Accessible room. The bathroom, basically, is different. Most of the POR rooms have a vanity area separated from the room by a curtain, and the toilet/shower area is separated from that by a door. Not in this room!

The door to the room might be a bit wider but I'm not sure.

I loved this cubby. I took up the entire thing.

This is the *sliding* door between bathroom and room.

Love all the room pics! It makes me excited for January.

I could be wrong... but I believe that corner rooms are just a slight bit larger. The extra window is nice... and not sharing a wall with guest on that side... but really I think I request thinking it gives me more room.

I too may have come home with informative pamphlets.

I like people to see me. From across the park. Or from space.

I am sure you looked fabulous!!!

Dont feel bad btw about guys not listening to plans... I told my youngest son "these right here in these boxes need to go to recycling. I know your dad will see and take them out and say that they are my work boxes. Tell him they need to go to recycling." I then told my dh.. "these are to go to recycling. I know they look like my work stuff... " i got a call from him while I was down in WDW. "um, I took all the recycling in but there were some of your work boxes in with it. So I made sure to set them aside for you."

 

[bumbershoot]

Your "males don't listen" story did make me feel better, Ann. Thank you.

(if any men are reading, sorry, please feel free to tell two "the important females in my life don't listen to me" stories to make up for it!)

 

[bumbershoot]

Everyone must be home for the weekend, using the photopass website. It was working beautifully and then suddenly it wasn't.

 

[annmarieda]

Everyone must be home for the weekend, using the photopass website. It was working beautifully and then suddenly it wasn't.

Oh that stinks! That site is always a head ache. Thank you for reminding me that I have yet to look at the pp pics from last month

 

[bumbershoot]

Ann, did you get one of the Autism Speaks 10-mile stickers? If not, do you want one? DH and DS managed to grab 3 for me, so I have 2 extra.

 

[bumbershoot]

I decided to head out of Epcot to go get a little rest. The guys followed. We had managed to mis-remember where we had parked, which led us to the amusing "where on earth is the car" game!

There are two ways to play this. Nice/silly or evil/mean. We've done both ways; but playing it nicely is way better. There was a family near us that was doing it the mean way, and it looked WAY less fun than the nice and silly way. The mean way means that you blame each other, are very very annoyed at them, and get super-snarky. The silly way is just laughing about how ridiculous it is that BOTH of you remembered your aisle wrong. We ended up finding our car, as did the other family, but we were laughing quite a bit more than they were!

Got back to the resort. I started laying out my running clothes and reading things through again, and finally was able to try to nap. Put in my earplugs, covered myself up entirely, and got...about 15 minutes of sleep. Well, that's OK. Power-nap, right?

Got up, got ready, got nervous as anything. I think I ate a little something, like a Luna bar? Not sure. I was ready nice and early. The guys were moving really slow, and for some reason I convinced myself that I couldn't wait any longer AND that I couldn't ask them to move quicker. Silly me, I should have put on my patient-pants and let them get ready.

At the semi-last minute I decided to wear my tried and true Roadrunner Sports waistpack instead of the awful double Spibelt I'd bought at REI. (thank goodness for REI's return policy...returned it the other day and bought E and book and me a clearance-clearance-extraclearance PrAna dress with the refund) Because of this change I left my phone in the room. (if I had worn the spibelt and taken the phone, however, I likely would have thrown the whole thing into one of the water features along the run, perhaps the one with the fireballs coming from it!)

So, off I went to the main lobby, to get on the bus to the race.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Following along! I also ran the race, so I'm excited to hear another take on it!

 

[bumbershoot]

Very cool!

My memories are pretty vague and basic, so it might not be so exciting. I should go read your and Ann's writeups, actually.

 

[annmarieda]

I decided to head out of Epcot to go get a little rest. The guys followed. We had managed to mis-remember where we had parked, which led us to the amusing "where on earth is the car" game!

There are two ways to play this. Nice/silly or evil/mean. We've done both ways; but playing it nicely is way better. There was a family near us that was doing it the mean way, and it looked WAY less fun than the nice and silly way. The mean way means that you blame each other, are very very annoyed at them, and get super-snarky. The silly way is just laughing about how ridiculous it is that BOTH of you remembered your aisle wrong. We ended up finding our car, as did the other family, but we were laughing quite a bit more than they were!

Got back to the resort. I started laying out my running clothes and reading things through again, and finally was able to try to nap. Put in my earplugs, covered myself up entirely, and got...about 15 minutes of sleep. Well, that's OK. Power-nap, right?

Got up, got ready, got nervous as anything. I think I ate a little something, like a Luna bar? Not sure. I was ready nice and early. The guys were moving really slow, and for some reason I convinced myself that I couldn't wait any longer AND that I couldn't ask them to move quicker. Silly me, I should have put on my patient-pants and let them get ready.

At the semi-last minute I decided to wear my tried and true Roadrunner Sports waistpack instead of the awful double Spibelt I'd bought at REI. (thank goodness for REI's return policy...returned it the other day and bought E and book and me a clearance-clearance-extraclearance PrAna dress with the refund) Because of this change I left my phone in the room. (if I had worn the spibelt and taken the phone, however, I likely would have thrown the whole thing into one of the water features along the run, perhaps the one with the fireballs coming from it!)

So, off I went to the main lobby, to get on the bus to the race.

Glad you enjoyed the game in the nice/silly way...and not the evil/mean way. That way is never fun

Those fireballs!!!

Can't wait to read all about your race.

 

[bumbershoot]

Ann, I was looking at marathonfoto's site last night. If you are interested in photos, you might check the unidentified ones. There's someone with a smile much like yours in that section; were you wearing a possibly wine colored shirt for the run? And a cute black running skirt. I filtered for Female and Medals, and the person with the smile like yours is on the second page of results.


Sidenote: why am I the only one I've seen pictures of who looks like their clothes are sweaty? I swear I look like I had an accident, and everyone else's clothes look perfectly dry. Obviously I need better running clothes. Shorts, at least.

How fit do I have to be to feel comfy wearing those shorty running shorts I saw on what looked like the more elite runners? So cute. I think I need to do situps for about a year, though...

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Sidenote: why am I the only one I've seen pictures of who looks like their clothes are sweaty? I swear I look like I had an accident, and everyone else's clothes look perfectly dry. Obviously I need better running clothes. Shorts, at least.

How fit do I have to be to feel comfy wearing those shorty running shorts I saw on what looked like the more elite runners? So cute. I think I need to do situps for about a year, though...

You should see my pictures from last year. I thought it was much more humid last year so at about mile 5 I started to dump cups of water on my head. So you can imagine what I looked like.

Then again...most of our pictures showed my boyfriend, then you could see my arm or a leg and there was always a tall person in front of me blocking me from the picture.

 

[annmarieda]

Ann, I was looking at marathonfoto's site last night. If you are interested in photos, you might check the unidentified ones. There's someone with a smile much like yours in that section; were you wearing a possibly wine colored shirt for the run? And a cute black running skirt. I filtered for Female and Medals, and the person with the smile like yours is on the second page of results.


Sidenote: why am I the only one I've seen pictures of who looks like their clothes are sweaty? I swear I look like I had an accident, and everyone else's clothes look perfectly dry. Obviously I need better running clothes. Shorts, at least.

How fit do I have to be to feel comfy wearing those shorty running shorts I saw on what looked like the more elite runners? So cute. I think I need to do situps for about a year, though...

You are awesome! I am not particularly happy with a single photo from the race... but that one (and yes, it was me) wasn't half bad!!

And... look at my skirt... it kinda glistens? Yes, I dumped at least one cup of water on me each water stop....so I was very wet.

And...running skirts are my favorite to run in... any kind... I love them and believe me... I am not all that fit.

 

[bumbershoot]

You should see my pictures from last year. I thought it was much more humid last year so at about mile 5 I started to dump cups of water on my head. So you can imagine what I looked like.

Then again...most of our pictures showed my boyfriend, then you could see my arm or a leg and there was always a tall person in front of me blocking me from the picture.

That's like my finish photo. Tall woman to the left, tall man in the middle, I managed to squeeze over on the other side so I could be seen at the end (couldn't have added 1+1 at that point but KNEW I wanted to be in the picture!). All my other pictures are just me, but in more and more serious stages of "wow she looks like she peed", LOL.

I bought the digital image of the finish, though. $27 and came with a $20 Shutterfly giftcertificate! Dude, how could I say now?

You are awesome! I am not particularly happy with a single photo from the race... but that one (and yes, it was me) wasn't half bad!!

Yay!!!!



Did my first run since the 16th. Treadmill. UGH.