ZellyB
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2010
- Messages
- 6,873
January 8 – RACE DAY!!! Marathon Part 4 – On the road again…
After exiting Magic Kingdom you end up doing the next few miles on just some stretches of road that don’t give you much room to move. While there are some things and characters along in here, we chose not to stop much in favor of regaining some time. Additionally the characters we did see had some longer lines. Again, I was in a little bit of a daze moving through here, so I probably have some things out of order and no pictures to help me remember!!
As I mentioned, you leave Magic Kingdom at around the 6 mile mark and don’t enter Animal Kingdom until a little after the 10 mile mark, so it’s 4 miles or so along these roads. This road initially takes you past the Grand Floridian and past the Golf Course. I do know there was a character on the golf course, but can’t for the life of me remember who it was. Obviously, we didn’t stop.
I do think though it was somewhere along here that we saw Lilo and Stitch. While I think we have gotten a shot with them before on a race, the line wasn’t bad and it was easily accessible for us, so we jumped in.
Hey, I look almost normal here! Winner!!
On we cruised and we were still feeling good and just trying to work our way through these tight quarters. It does eventually open back up though and you get a bit more room to move. It might be around here as well that there is usually a Mary Poppins character set up. We had gotten a shot with Mary back in 2015 and as we went by this year it was the Penguins. The line was pretty long, so we again opted to pass them by.
I do remember passing some strange vehicles that I frankly didn’t recognize, but read here later that they were old ride vehicles from rides that no longer exist – which is cool. We didn’t know what they were so passed them by.
I was looking now for the traditional Villain set up that they’ve always had. I was really hoping for a Maleficient moment, but sadly no such luck. Instead we saw the Big Bad Wolf ahead. I wasn’t necessarily excited about that, but assumed he was my only Villain opportunity and the line wasn’t too bad, so why not?
And…the strange posing has returned.
Going into mile 11, there’s a short little out and back thing on a side road. I was not a fan. It was really tight again here and tough to keep doing our intervals without a lot of weaving in and out. We keep trying to stay to the edge, but there were these BIG drainage grates that were on a heavy slant and I kept worrying I was going to trip, fall or twist an ankle being over that far. It was kinda nice to see other runners and wave at them as they headed back, but I had to concentrate so much on my footing I just wanted this part over. I know they had to add some of this extra in to make up for the mileage lost from the speedway, but is there not a better way to do it than this?
Anyway, complaining aside, I was also watching my time closely because I was hoping to hit AK shortly around opening time because I wanted to try to ride EE. I knew Chris wouldn’t because of his motion sickness concerns, but I asked him if he cared it I tried and he said it was fine. Still we didn’t get into AK until maybe 9:20 or so, so I was worried about whether they would route runners through as quickly.
It was so nice to be back in a park though. YAY! We cruised past the animals they had out as you went in – seemed to be a lot of goats this year – and headed into the park. My favorite park. There were already park visitors there who were blocked off from crossing the running paths but most seemed happy to cheer us along. Hey, there beautiful!
Shortly after we were at EE and I peeled off to check into riding. I was directed to the single rider line and as I got down around the corner and got in line saw a substantial line of runners ahead of me. I debated a short time about waiting, but knowing how slow we were going and all the other stops we already made, I just decided it wasn’t meant to be and headed back out to find Chris. I was disappointed, but whatever, just didn’t work out this time.
We curled around through Dinoland
and eventually found ourselves leaving the park and running through the parking lot for the start of some long miles ahead with no more park time for about 9 miles.
Next up: WWoS, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and the big finish!!
After exiting Magic Kingdom you end up doing the next few miles on just some stretches of road that don’t give you much room to move. While there are some things and characters along in here, we chose not to stop much in favor of regaining some time. Additionally the characters we did see had some longer lines. Again, I was in a little bit of a daze moving through here, so I probably have some things out of order and no pictures to help me remember!!
As I mentioned, you leave Magic Kingdom at around the 6 mile mark and don’t enter Animal Kingdom until a little after the 10 mile mark, so it’s 4 miles or so along these roads. This road initially takes you past the Grand Floridian and past the Golf Course. I do know there was a character on the golf course, but can’t for the life of me remember who it was. Obviously, we didn’t stop.
I do think though it was somewhere along here that we saw Lilo and Stitch. While I think we have gotten a shot with them before on a race, the line wasn’t bad and it was easily accessible for us, so we jumped in.
Hey, I look almost normal here! Winner!!
On we cruised and we were still feeling good and just trying to work our way through these tight quarters. It does eventually open back up though and you get a bit more room to move. It might be around here as well that there is usually a Mary Poppins character set up. We had gotten a shot with Mary back in 2015 and as we went by this year it was the Penguins. The line was pretty long, so we again opted to pass them by.
I do remember passing some strange vehicles that I frankly didn’t recognize, but read here later that they were old ride vehicles from rides that no longer exist – which is cool. We didn’t know what they were so passed them by.
I was looking now for the traditional Villain set up that they’ve always had. I was really hoping for a Maleficient moment, but sadly no such luck. Instead we saw the Big Bad Wolf ahead. I wasn’t necessarily excited about that, but assumed he was my only Villain opportunity and the line wasn’t too bad, so why not?
And…the strange posing has returned.
Going into mile 11, there’s a short little out and back thing on a side road. I was not a fan. It was really tight again here and tough to keep doing our intervals without a lot of weaving in and out. We keep trying to stay to the edge, but there were these BIG drainage grates that were on a heavy slant and I kept worrying I was going to trip, fall or twist an ankle being over that far. It was kinda nice to see other runners and wave at them as they headed back, but I had to concentrate so much on my footing I just wanted this part over. I know they had to add some of this extra in to make up for the mileage lost from the speedway, but is there not a better way to do it than this?
Anyway, complaining aside, I was also watching my time closely because I was hoping to hit AK shortly around opening time because I wanted to try to ride EE. I knew Chris wouldn’t because of his motion sickness concerns, but I asked him if he cared it I tried and he said it was fine. Still we didn’t get into AK until maybe 9:20 or so, so I was worried about whether they would route runners through as quickly.
It was so nice to be back in a park though. YAY! We cruised past the animals they had out as you went in – seemed to be a lot of goats this year – and headed into the park. My favorite park. There were already park visitors there who were blocked off from crossing the running paths but most seemed happy to cheer us along. Hey, there beautiful!
Shortly after we were at EE and I peeled off to check into riding. I was directed to the single rider line and as I got down around the corner and got in line saw a substantial line of runners ahead of me. I debated a short time about waiting, but knowing how slow we were going and all the other stops we already made, I just decided it wasn’t meant to be and headed back out to find Chris. I was disappointed, but whatever, just didn’t work out this time.
We curled around through Dinoland
and eventually found ourselves leaving the park and running through the parking lot for the start of some long miles ahead with no more park time for about 9 miles.
Next up: WWoS, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and the big finish!!
And I DON'T remember seeing Lilo and Stitch, so you weren't the only one in a daze! Maybe a team effort between you and me can produce a full character list for the race! 
Still liked BBW though.
You look great in them! 
) to charge on up the hill. Chris gave him a “Hooah” as we went past and got one in return. 
