Day 3: Saturday, January 12, 2013
2013 Walt Disney World Half Marathon - Arriving
No waking up early this time...I slept like a ROCK.
Technically this was my first time running the WDW Half Marathon, but I have run this course before...it's exactly the same as the course used during the Princess Half Marathon. I leapt out of bed at 2:45, turned off the iHome, grabbed the room wake-up call and did the same as the previous morning - coffee, sunscreen, camera battery check , etc. After saying good-bye to a completely dead-asleep Will, I headed out of the room at about 3:20 with a bit more stuff than I had with me for the 5K - Gu chomps for fuel during the run, breakfast for Princess C, my phone wrapped in a paper towel and secured in a baggie - you'll see me holding it in pictures, a small pack of tissues (sole purpose - in case I happened upon a porta-potty with no toilet paper!
) and completely pointless throwaway clothes. With the long wait in the starting corrals runners bring old clothes to wear to keep warm, which Disney picks up, cleans and donates to charity. This was the first year I'd actually remembered to bring clothes, and of course I totally didn't need them - temperatures were already in the mid-60s with 100% humidity at 4AM.
Like I said earlier, monorail resorts utilize the monorail for transportation to these morning races, which was really nice. The bus transportation I've had in the past (from Port Orleans Riverside in 2011 and Beach Club Villas in 2012) was totally fine, but I have heard horror stories of traffic jams and bus drivers getting lost. Taking the monorail just gave me an extra piece of mind that getting to the start would be smooth. I took very careful notes on how long everything took so I'd know what to do for the marathon, and this started when a monorail pulled right up to the station when I arrived at 3:28AM. We briefly stopped at the Magic Kingdom stop (the doors opened for a few seconds and then quickly shut again) and this is when I got my first course spoiler - the Magic Kingdom, including the castle, was all lit up! Woohoo!
We picked up some runners at the Contemporary before continuing on to the TTC. Everyone was very quiet, which was fine by me - I don't do well with making small talk in general...chit chatting before I've had a sufficient amount of coffee is borderline impossible.
Our monorail arrived at the TTC at 3:36. We silently switched monorails and were en route to Epcot by 3:39. Everyone was still quiet and I could see more race "spoilers" along World Drive - Mile Marker 3, a screen with runner Mickey, Donald and Goofy, and the same pirate ship that had been out during the 2011 Princess Half Marathon. I don't recall feeling very nervous...I think the 5K had allowed me shake out all of the nerves and now I was just looking forward to getting out there to run!
We arrived at the Epcot monorail station at 3:50AM. Coming down the ramp from the monorail station there were LOTS of Cast Members available to direct us either to the starting area or to the bathrooms under the monorail station. I, of course, went to the bathrooms...because they were REAL BATHROOMS!
This is very rare on a race course.
After the bathroom stop I made my way toward the start. I have to say, the Cast Members I encountered that morning were AWESOME - they were all so nice and encouraging (lots of "good luck" and "have fun" wishes) and didn't seem to mind that they were up so early just to tell us where the bathroom was. It was great that there were so many of them - there was absolutely no confusion on where to go. Lots of us runners made sure to thank them as we passed by.
LALALALALA *plugs ears*
Under the mouse ears and into the starting area!
Continued in Next Post
Ours was great!
The problem with these race trips is that if my brother and I are doing the races I don't really feel like I can tell my mom that she can't come, ya know? That might be awkward. 
And my brother "gets" Disney but he's pretty disorganized, so that was part of the reason why their room got booked so late. Oh well, I did my best. 
The good news is that when Will and I go just the two of us he gives me the reigns (but still has some input, of course) and then I can really let my crazy OCD planning tendencies shine through! Yay! 
I also realized that "near the DJ" was definitely not a specific enough meeting place...I shouldn't even refer to it as a meeting place at all. Like I said before, way too vague. I don't know how Craig spotted me because there were lots of people around and I couldn't see him at all...maybe he had an advantage because he's tall. There are lettered tents in the "Family Reunion"/start area and we quickly decided to meet at one of those tents the next morning for the marathon.
Hope you get to do a Disney race some day, I bet you would love it! 
