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Last year, aka, Splash & Dash, was a wet mess. This year gave 2014 a run for its money.
It's been unusually warm here in Central Florida this month with some strange low pressure areas and weak fronts that have been causing lots of pop-up storms, but it's been similar to the typical summer pattern, wherein the weather dissipates by nightfall. Race day predicted a 40-50% chance of rain, which was not unusual.
I made it to the expo Friday evening after fighting rush hour traffic, picked up my stuff and wandered around for a few minutes. I didn't have anything in particular on my shopping list but I walked away of course with another SparkleSkirt and some freebies from other vendors.
Lots going on at the Expo! The crowds are usually too much for me, though
The next day after work, I met up with Scot at ASMovies and we got dinner and some nap time in. Around 7, we started putting the last bit of our "Lava" costumes together- this involved cracking glow sticks and attaching them inside our bucket headpieces! I think we looked great though, even if not very many people understood what we were!
As we started to head towards the corrals at about 9:15, a cool breeze kicked up all of a sudden. We could see lightning in the distance and had seen the red areas on the radar earlier. It looked like the storms might miss us, but after a few minutes of more flashes of lightning, an announcement came over the speaker telling everyone to evacuate into Champion Stadium and the Field House! 15,000+ people filed in a surprisingly orderly manner up towards the main buildings of the Wide World of Sports. The stadium looked like it was filling up so we headed on towards the Field House, where packet pick-up had been. We found a seat in the stands to overlook the area as it filled up with people.
The RunDisney staff tried to keep the energy up with music, but there were people outright napping, laid out flat on the floor down there! Someone up in the stands started the Wave and it worked its way around the crowd a few times. But most of all, we just sat. Every now and then, the announcer would tell us to keep waiting- we could see him and some other staffers fixated on what was probably the radar loop on a laptop.
Start time, 10:00pm, came and went.
Scot and I passed the time fiddling on his phone.
Around 10:15, a murmur came up through the crowd and people started moving. Someone somewhere had given the all clear! As we joined the group inching towards the door, the rumors started circulating... race start 10:45...someone was finding information on Twitter... then we started hearing things about a shortened race course. Basically, no one knew anything for sure.
We hit up the bathrooms and followed the crowds towards the corrals. Many people were pushing their way through bushes and crawling over the corral fences and I'm pretty sure there were a lot of folks in the wrong areas. It seemed though like everyone just wanted to get the show going! An official announcement was made over the speaker that the course was to be shortened by just over 6 miles.
I was bummed. No one knew why, but we'd be skipping Animal Kingdom. Scot was looking forward to the run through AK the most and I felt bad for him. I was assigned Corral B but I stepped back to C to run with him. Eventually, just after 11pm, the wheelchair racers started!
I have to mention this because it made me laugh hysterically. Apparently, some runners who did not speak English crossed the start with the chairs. The RunDisney rep with the microphone hollered at them to Stop, come back! but they didn't understand him. After yelling Stop! a few more times, he blurted out "Por favor mantengse alejado de las puertas!" You know, from the Monorail. I about died.
The fireworks burst overhead as the corrals headed out one by one. I got my watch set up but decided to skip the music because hey, it's a shorter course and there will be plenty to see and do. Finally, the countdown ended and C was off!
I wasn't sure where we were going, as we didn't make the turn on to Osceola Parkway as originally planned. There were some rumors swirling around as to why the course was modified- from wind damage at AK to road closures ending to medical staff timing out but it didn't matter because we had to roll with what we got. It certainly made for some memorable photos!
Never gonna see 8 miles in 25 minutes ever again!
I think this one was around mile 2ish? We decided to try to get every single character stop since we didn't give a rat's patootie anymore about finishing too late at night and missing the after party. We weren't exactly sure how far we were about to run but figured it would be 7ish miles or so. So we got some good pics! A few came out blurry (hey, guy at Lilo and Stitch, you can't take a photo while walking towards us at the same time!)
Country bear! Right after we finished here and were running away, we looked back and saw 2 more bears headed out to the photo area! Dammit!
There was a line here before the characters showed up. We got in it and it wasn't very long. So glad we stopped to wait!
Trying to look Incredible
Of course we missed a lot of characters by not being able to run the full route but I think we did alright! The lines were minimal and we didn't wait more than a couple minutes for any of them.
Once we got over toward Hollywood Studios the course resumed its usual route through the Disco Car Wash (i.e. the strobe light tunnel) and then through the Osborne Lights! At this point I started thinking the shortened race was a pretty good idea because HOLY HELL MY HEAD WAS HOT! The bucket was not the most efficient cooling hat and the damn hair kept getting caught in everything!
Had to make a photo stop here! Lots of people were just walking through this area appreciating the view. Understandable, it's the last year for the lights :(
We ran out of HS and along the waterway towards the Boardwalk. The crowds here were amazing! I'm always so impressed with the people that choose to spend their valuable sleeping time standing outside with posters and noisemakers cheering for complete strangers running past them. But I tell you what, no matter how bummed out we were about missing half the race, those spectators made us smile and forget all about it.
There weren't any more characters after the HS exit but I did see the Sebastian puppet!
We left the boardwalk and entered Epcot through backstage. We popped out right near the Imagination Pavilion and high-tailed it pretty good all the way to the finish. The spectators around Spaceship Earth were awesome too! I guess last year because of the rain, I didn't remember as much crowd support. This was more like a regular daytime Disney race and I loved it!
Scot and I sprinted to the finish, received our sort-of earned medals, then went to decompress. I had checked an empty gear bag to put our stuff in- I couldn't pull that headpiece off fast enough! I de-tangled myself from the hair and the lei and shoved it in to the bag with our drinks, snack boxes, and Scot's hat. The temperature was juuuust right out! He got his free beer, I got my nasty-ass wine (not my #1 beverage choice after a run) and we headed to the after party!
We ate some of the things that had become our favorites over our previous 3 Food & Wine Festival days this year, so getting around and finding what we wanted wasn't hard. We decided to make up for the lack to characters on the run that we'd try for all the photo stops around the World Showcase!
Meagan had run tonight too, so we met up with her and her husband for a little bit in the UK
Love Remy! Hate that it's blurry though. And I handed my camera to the girl all set up for a sideways pic and she still took the photo like this, cutting off half of Remy
Gepetto was in Italy on his own doing pictures but he went on a break right before our turn! We waited maybe 5-10 minutes and he came back...with Pinocchio! Yay!
Jasmine and I had a conversation about her sand-kicker shoes...not good for running but great for keeping the sand out
I love Tiana!!! Girlfriend's from Louisiana and loves to cook- srsly she and I would be great friends. We got this photo just before she and Naveen went on break and left Louis out there by himself. Close call!
Another close call! There was an unusually long line for Mushu, and he went on break with about 5 people in front of us. 5 minutes later, he brought Mulan out! Yessss!
Donald! Final stop was Mexico and I was just about ready to crash.
Around 3:30, we headed out to the bus. We were back at the resort at 4 and as we zombied through the lobby, we saw a family leaving with their luggage. At 4 am! Sucks to have an early flight!
We wore our medals to Epcot and HS the next day before heading home. We had a fun time. Yes, we were disappointed in the whole distance thing but I understand RunDisney's reasoning and you do NOT mess around with lightning. It had to be a tough call to make, and I'm glad they didn't cancel the whole thing. I feel bad for those who were running this as their first half marathon, and those who had traveled a long way. Still, it was a great time and we made it everything we possibly could given the circumstances.
The official distance was 6.72 miles. Scot and I finished at 1:15:44. We weren't worn out, and had lots of breaks with waiting in photo lines. The race will not be usable for POT for anything since the modified course wasn't certified. Whatevs. Next up, Space Coast Half!
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