Wine & Dine Half Marathon - Food & Race
2:30AM is a very early wake up call even if you get that extra hour of sleep! Don’t let anyone tell you any differently. I got ready. My breakfast was very similar to the day before. Powdered donuts are very tasty! I also grabbed the Clif Protein Bar - Mint Chocolate from the Box the day before so I could eat that when we arrived at the corrals. I decided to go with that one over the nut butter one given to us with our shirts since I knew the Mint Chocolate one was the safe choice as we buy those at home - my husband eats them for lunch sometimes and I’ve been known to eat them for a meal when in a hurry.
At the corrals, we took a selfie b/c that is what you do when you get to the Pre-Race area if you forget to do it on the bus!
Race Selfie!
We also realized that the lines for the characters were way better than the day before! This could be because it was 3:15AM and not a lot of people had arrived yet. We got in line for Remy! I also got a decent photo of Lumiere when we got to the front of the Remy line!
My Husband looks like he’s being pulled apart
We hung out for a while. At 4:15AM, he left me to head to his corral (B - b/c he’s fast) and I met with a group of friends I’ve met through the Disboards to get a group shot!
All the girls!
And then we all headed to our respective corrals. 3 of us were in the same corral so we headed to G together to chill towards the right side before it was on turn to start. For the initial corrals - they start off each of them pretty quickly! We were started before we knew it!
Fireworks
I started off with my easy-I-really-shouldn’t-be-doing-this Interval of 15/30 as we headed down out of the Wide World of Sports. The first mile went ok.
ESPN Sign
It was nice seeing the Country Bears out as I don’t recall having seen them before out on the course at least in the races I've done!
Country Bears
And I made it to Mile 1! Yay!
Mile 1
After Mile 1, I started getting a new pain. One I had never experienced before - a pain alongside the bottom right side of my arch of my right foot (the recently healed one) I was really happy to see the Medical Tent and decided to get some pain reliever and keep on going and hope it would go away. While I may not finish this race, I wanted to make it through Animal Kingdom at least and get some new photos! They mark your hand so people know if you had medicine or not later along the course...
Pain Medicine Time!
Not much else happened between Mile 1 and 2. I just kept to my right side of the road and kept moving along.
Mile 2
After Mile 2, we got to see some Rave Dancers with whips and things. That didn’t excite me much as that was never really my scene.
Dancers
I slowed way down as I approached Mile 3. I decided I would just walk from now on and enjoy the course. I would get however far I would get!
Mile 3
As I was walking towards Animal Kingdom in the parking lot, I apparently had a perfect ‘Dis_Yoda’ judgmental face moment as a runner pushed through myself and another runner on the far right side. Behind me, I hear a very familiar voice saying “There is that look I love” or something similar. I’m not sure exactly. I was happy to see it was
@Tankgirl making those comments along with another person we know here from the Disboards who was also walking.
@Tankgirl was actually trying to finish the race and the other one knew she wasn’t going to finish as she was already in pain. I told her my plan had now become - get through Animal Kingdom - visit Medical Tent. She liked that plan and hung around with me. After some amusing conversations I’m sure some other people hated (Underwear Selection or Non-Use while running, when your monthly cycle hits on a race weekend (here’s a hint - it sucks!), how during Light Side & Dark Side I text message
@Tankgirl while I’m soaking in a bathtub full of Epsom Salts and that some people think that is odd) There were no children there around (you have to be at least 14 to run a half at Disney and a 14 year old is more than old enough for those conversations anyway)
@Tankgirl left us and continued on her path to finishing the races! Go her!
I instead had conversations with the other friend and took photos like so...
Animal Kingdom Arrival
Baloo
Tree of Life
Thru Asia
Mile 4
Stilt Walkers
Mile 5
Train
While I had taken photos of characters, I hadn’t gotten in line for them as I didn’t feel the urge to. That opinion changed when I saw Meeko! His line was only about 6 people deep so we hopped in!
Meeko Visit!
I didn’t take a picture with the topiaries as I remember when this was first used for the World Cup many years ago...
Repurposed Goofy
I know Mickey & Minnie have been around for awhile as well!
Repurposed Mickey & Minnie
And I have better pictures of my playing with Chip & Dale when they were lonely in the EPCOT building during the rain so a driveby was fine for me!
Chip & Dale
Now we were officially through all of Animal Kingdom and my body was telling me...YOU ARE STUPID! WHY DID YOU DO THIS CRAZY LADY?!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?! I told my buddy with me this and she was feeling similar. My ‘good-recently healed’ right ankle felt like it hated me - my right knee wasn’t happy and my chronically ‘bad’ left ankle was slightly not happy. We knew the next medical tent had to be coming up as I had pulled up the course map on my phone and knew it was shortly after mile 6.
Mile 6
I was very happy to see Mile 6. I was also happy to see that the 10K marker was at the edge of the turnaround point so it would be really easy for someone to pick out if someone was course-cutting by skipping this turnaround point on the course (about .6 miles of the course was an out and back) While we were at the end of the return part of the turn around towards the end of it, we saw the dreaded ‘balloon’ ladies (although they weren’t dreaded to me) and you could tell people were rushing by us to get way ahead of them. We also got to see what a hard sweep look likes as the people leaving the backroads of Animal Kingdom were getting hard swept into the buses at that time. We trudged ahead and made it to the medical tent and said - we couldn’t continue and needed ice! My right ankle was very very happy to get the ice on it when the medical person wrapped it up for me!
Ice Time!
I realized I didn’t stop my watch right away but here is what it was when I remembered to. If I thought my 10K time was my Worst Time Ever, pretty sure this has it beat!
6.39 miles at 19:36 pace
Half of a Half Marathon Finish Time
So we waited until we were picked up to be taken to the end. Since the sweepers were closing off the course at the end of Animal Kingdom, they thought it was wiser just to make our Medical Tent wait until that bus could take us along for the ride outside of those at the tent that needed more serious medical attention (like the poor lady that was passing out for dehydration and another whose body was going into a shock like state from being overheated + not having enough fuel in your system) I was fine with waiting. My husband had finished while I was sitting here - he finished at 2:07:22 - so better than Princess but his 2nd worst half time so he wasn’t happy. (His best half time is 2:01:05)
Being on the sweeper bus was an interesting time. There was the group of us from the medical tent (no, crazy woman, even if I had skipped the 10K yesterday, there was probably no way I could have finished today since I literally hadn’t trained in like 5 weeks!) and there was the group that got swept before Mile 6. Some of those individuals were obviously very upset and crying. Others were morose. Me? Well, I was that annoying, cheerful person. My friend and I were talking and being well happy. No point in being down on knowing when to quit in order to not hurt yourselves more. I took pride when I did make a sad person laugh (at my own idiocy but whatever) but I still think some people on that bus wished I would have shut up. Oh well!
We were taken to the finish line area - but post finish line area. If you ever been in the rundisney post race chutes - you’ve seen tents labeled things like “Tigger” and were like what are those? Well - the “Tigger” tent is the tent they put those individuals that didn’t finish the race through. You are given your half medal (not your challenge medal) along with your race food box and drinks and sent along the way. If you need minor medical attention, it is also there for you. Now you know!
I walked to my bus and took it back to the Swan. Someone on the bus stopped me when they saw me bib and told me I forgot my challenge medal and I told them, nope, couldn’t get one of those as I didn’t finish and again I got a strange look in return.
I’m happy I listened to my body and quit when I needed to quit. If I had kept pushing it - I would have ended up more injured and possibly out for more RunDisney races!
I got back to the room the earliest ever for a half! 8:15AM! I took my shower (I really wanted a tub though!) and settled in to enjoy my food box. Cheese & Chips and Oreos for me! It was then nap time as well for a little bit. You can’t go wrong with those items after a half of a half!
Food Box
so I took a creeper photo. We hung around talking to someone we knew. 
I loved the Oreos and applesauce too...YUM.
