Walt Disney World 10K Recap

Friday morning was the WDW 10K. I was up at 3:15 and out the door by 4:00AM. I didn't really plan costumes for this race weekend, but I had picked up this shirt at the Tinkerbell expo and I was finally going to wear it for the 10K. I might have worn it for the marathon, but it was supposed to be super cold and I knew a short sleeved shirt wasn't going to cut it.

I headed down to the buses and ran into Pinnochio and Geppetto.

I'll admit, I was pretty excited about the marathon, since I have so few pictures of my first marathon and my second marathon was a horrible disaster for many reasons. I was going to soak this one in and enjoy it, which meant taking as many pictures as possible in front of anything that said "marathon" on it.

I'm really glad I did that. This whole weekend was awesome, so I'm glad I have so many pictures to look through.

After taking pictures, I made my way to the corrals. I was in corral D. I don't know how many total corrals there are, but the corral system definitely does not work the same way for the 10K as it does for the half or full. We stood in that corral for what felt like an eternity. They broke the corrals into waves, so even though a corral would start, there was a considerable amount of time before the next corral was released. I'm guessing at least 10 minutes. I'm used to doing the half or full where the corrals are released every few minutes and things move along.

My muscles stiffened up and my back was killing me. It was so weird- I haven't had problems like that for a long time, so I panicked a little at how crappy my body felt.

Finally, FINALLY, our corral moved to the start. I really felt stiff at that point, but still I felt confident that I was going to PR that morning. 

I didn't take any race pictures myself since I was so focused on PRing, but luckily, I had Memory Maker and unlimited access to Photo Pass photos. Otherwise, I'd have no pictures of this race.

What I thought would be an easy, peasy PR turned out to be a real struggle. I had been running at a PR pace for a month and running 5-7 miles at the pace multiple times a week. I thought I'd practically be moseying to the finish line and still get a PR.

Well, nope. It didn't work out like that. I don't really know what the problem was. Maybe it was the fact that my muscles stiffened up in the corrals. Maybe it was having been on my feet for the last few days at the parks and the expo.

Regardless, I struggled. I struggled a lot. But I actually got some decent photos out of the Photo Pass photographers, which is a huge improvement over Marathon Foto, in my opinion.

I pushed harder than I have pushed for a PR at any race I can remember. Every step felt like a struggle and my lungs were burning. In the back of my mind, I knew there was a chance I was screwing things up royally for myself for the marathon on Sunday, but I couldn't give in. 

I ended up with a 20 second PR, beating a time from 2011. I literally sprinted down the finisher chute and when I crossed the finish line, I not only felt like I might throw up any moment from pushing that hard, but I felt disappointed that I didn't have an obvious PR. To me, it felt like the same time since the minutes were the same. 

But after I stopped feeling my pulse in my face and had some snacks, I told myself that a PR is a PR, even if it's only by 20 seconds.

And PRs definitely deserve a cool drink that must shared on Instagram. So that afternoon, my mom and I headed over to Trader Sam's at the Polynesian. 

I had the HippopotoMai-Tai and she had the Zombie. Of course, neither of us would normally order a drink like this. I'm much more of a wine or mimosa girl, but you can't have the glass unless you order the drink, so I put on my big girl panties and ordered one. 

And it was delicious.

From the Polynesian, we headed to the Magic Kingdom for a bit and did some rides. The Christmas tree was still up at MK.

The temperatures were dropping. There was heavy rain in the forecast for the morning of the half and really cold temps for the full, but I wasn't really paying attention to social media regarding whether or not the race would happen. 

I was completely surprised when I got a text from a friend that the half was cancelled. It hadn't even rained at all at that point, so it seemed a little extreme to me at the time. Signs were out at the Boardwalk, I received texts and there was a message on our room phone alerting us that the race had been cancelled. I wasn't even running the half and I was alerted numerous times. 

When I woke up to thunder and torrential rain in the middle of the night and the storms were still going at 7 that morning, I knew Disney had made the right call. It was horrible out. The cool thing was watching so many people run their own half marathon at various hotels where spectators handed out snacks and water and made impromptu character stops. I saw it after the fact on social media, but I wish I had realized what was going on and went out to lend a hand.

My mom and I had breakfast at Be Our Guest. It was still raining a bit and the temperatures were dropping fast. We rode a bunch rides at Magic Kingdom. This guy didn't seem to be bothered a all by the freezing rain. 

Eventually, we made our way to Epcot for an early dinner at Nine Dragons. I justified the amount of food I ate by telling myself that I was carb loading for the marathon in the morning. And trust me, I ate an impressive amount of fried rice and pepper beef. It was delicious.

That night I decided to do a load of laundry and stay off of my feet. After the load was done in the washer, I put my clothes in the drier, except for the Darth Vader shirt I wore for the 10K. I had hung it on the back of a chair while I put the rest of my clothes in the drier. 

The machines lock once they start and don't unlock until the cycle is done. I made it back to the room before I realized I had left my shirt on the chair. Honestly, I didn't even really worry about it. I truly did not think I needed to race back down to get my shirt, I mean, who steals clothes from another person? Especially wet, running clothes?! 

But sure enough, when I went back to get my clothes out of the drier, my shirt was gone. It was still wet, so it's not like someone cold think it was forgotten there. It had just come out of the washer. I was honestly surprised. The Boardwalk is a really nice hotel and runners are typically jerks. The worst part is that you can no longer get that shirt on the Disney Store website. I tried to order one for my mom. 

I'm super sad. I mean, I'm not going to jump off of a building over it, but I saved that shirt for the weekend and I only wore it once. I hope the jerk who took it feels good about his or herself. Grrrrr.

Anyone else run the WDW 10K?

WDW Marathon Expo X 3

I somehow managed to make three different trips to the expo for Marathon Weekend.

I planned for my mom and I to spend some extra time at Disney World this year when we went for Marathon weekend so that we could make sure we did everything we wanted to do.  I was doing the 10K and full marathon, so I wanted to make sure we had an extra day at the end in case I was really sore on Monday. So I planned for us to go Wednesday to Wednesday. Traveling east across the country can take all day, so I figured we'd go to the expo Thursday and I'd do the 10K on Friday. 

We ended up on a red eye with a connecting flight Wednesday at 1:00 AM and arrived in Orlando at 9 something in the morning. Despite the fact that I was exhausted and somewhat cranky from not getting any sleep, I managed to get my second wind once we arrive at the Boardwalk. 

Our room wasn't ready, so we ended up heading straight to the expo. I've been to Disneyland race expos right when they open, so I was expecting a total shit show, but it was nice and calm. I think we even ended up inside early.

The 5K and 10K bib and shirt pick up were outside in the stadium, so we went there first to get my 10K packet. Easy peasy. Some of the vendors were set up there, as well, which was different than other e pos at WDW that I've been to. I haven't been to Marathon Weekend since 2013, so things were a bit different since then.

Next, we made our way to the Jostens center so we could get official merchandise. I swear, no matter what race I'm doing, the other races have better shirts. I saw a really cute Dopey pull over that I liked but the marathon merch was just...meh. I did end up buying a shirt and the medal pins for the 10K and full. I had also preordered the jacket, which I wasn't in love with, but it came in handy later because it was COLD in Orlando.

After doing some damage at the expo, between merchandise and fuel, I went back to the other building to pick up my bib. There was no line so all I had left to do was go back to Jostens to get my marathon shirt. 

Side note: how irritating is it that the 5K, 10K, Goofy and Dopey all,have shirt pick up where the bibs are but the half and full marathon Runner's have to go to another building to pick up their shirts?  Normally, this wouldn't irritate me that badly, but I hadn't had any sleep, we'd already been there for hours and I walked outside to go grab my shirt and saw this:

This was what I encountered when I went to just go grab my shirt. Holy wow. No way was I standing in that mess. I certainly didn't want to make an additional trip to the expo, but there was just no way I was willing to wait in that ridiculous line.

So my mom and I headed over to Disney Springs to check out the Hangar Bar, which was really cute. The food was decent but nothing amazing. I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I need to go back since there are so many other places I have yet to try!

We headed back to the hotel to go to bed early so we could hit up Epcot first thing in the morning and try to get on the revamped 'Soarin, which I loved. 

We spent the morning at Epcot. I finally rode the ride with Figment, which was entertaining, even though it was dated. We rode the Frozen ride, which is cute but not mind blowing. I needed this picture while we were waiting in line.

The ride is really cute and I'm glad we went on it but we didn't really feel the need to go on it again during our trip. Now Soarin' is another story. We definitely wanted to do that again.

Next we were headed back to Disney Springs to have a late lunch at Raglan Road. I've been there twice now and both times, I've had the Shepherd's Pie and it is so, so good there. Plus, the ambience is great. If you go at night, they have Irish dancers that are really good. I'll definitely be adding this to my rotation.

I chipped one of my nails and I literally had just had a gel manicure hours before we boarded our flight. It was annoying me and catching on things, so I figured It couldn't be that complicated to get it fixed. Well, just so yo know, there aren't that many places to get manicures. 

Since we were at Disney Springs, Saratoga Springs is right across the "lake" and they have a spa. So we headed over there and wow, is that resort cute! Especially for a horse crazy girl like me!

My mom took one look at the spa and got sucked into not only a manicure, but a pedicure, as well. I figured this would be an excellent time to hear back to the expo to get my marathon shirt. 

It was much better this time around. Luckily I had thought to bring my bib with me that morning when we left for Epcot. Picking up my shirt was a breeze since it was the evening of the second day.

My mom ended up having the longest mani/pedi in history so I wandered around for a ridiculous amount of time waiting for her.

I spent more money that I should have, but I also stumbled across the world's most amazing running belt that is not only great for races, but awesome for hanging out in the parks if you are like me and like wearing running pants while riding rides. I need to do a separate post on this belt. It turns out they are a local company for me and their warehouse is like 15 minutes from my house.

Finally, my mom arrived at the expo and we headed back to the Boardwalk since I had to be up early for the 10K. We had snacks at the hotel and called it a night!

I made my third trip to the expo on Friday after the 10K to exchange my shirts for a smaller size. Luckily, I was still able to get a medium 10K shirt, even though the race was over. 

Three trips is way more than I want to be making to an expo, let alone one at WDW, where it's a production to get there. 

Next up: the 10K recap.

In With The New

I must say, 2017 has started with a bang. But before I get into that, I need to complain about a First World Problem. So, I got myself an iPad Pro. And no, I certainly don't have the spare cash to shell out the money for this top of the line, 256G, lightweight piece of amazingness. Sometimes our vendors pay us in "award points" rather than cash and we can buy things.

Usually we like just getting paid actual money since award points can't pay my mortgage, but the flip side is that now I have a super cool new toy that is the best iPad out there and I can totally justify its existence. Now I can retire my third generation of the original iPad, which weighs approximately 68 pounds and freezes all of the time because it's only 32G and there's not even room for iOS 10 on it.

You might be asking yourself why I need a 256G and the answer is this: because I wanted it. Here's the thing... I wouldn't ever be able to justify actually outright buying this iPad. But because I used points, why not get the best one? I most likely won't upgrade for years. Secondly, now that we can download things from Netflix to watch offline, I'm downloading stuff like crazy. And that takes up a lot of room.

So my actual problem here is that when I set up my new iPad Pro from iCloud, I thought everything transferred just fine until I went to actually follow through with my New Years resolution to get back to regular blogging and noticed that my favorite app is missing!!!

A few years ago, I purchased an app called Blogsy, that was ah-maz-ing. It made blogging on the go so super easy, even adding pictures with captions. The app wasn't free, either, but so worth the money. I can't remember how much it was when I downloaded it, but it was totally worth it.

So I went to the Apple App Store to just get it from the cloud and *GASP* it is gone! Imagine my utter shock and dismay. I mean, I might have even teared up a bit. That app was the best and it's nowhere to be found. All of the other blogger apps have horrible ratings, but I love writing blog entries from my iPad rather than an actual computer. Plus, my laptop is from like, 2011, and in computer years, that's prehistoric. You don't even want to know what happened to the speed of that thing after I downloaded Windows 10. It's terrible.

So, my dear blogger friends, can anyone recommend an app that works well with the Blogger (Blogspot) platform? I've heard the actual website works okay now on Apple devices but I haven't figured out how to add captions to my pictures (or really even upload pictures from my device) and things like that, and I'll be honest here, captions on pictures make my world go 'round. I just need them, okay? (Updated from the Atlanta airport where I downloaded a brand new app called BlogPal which also doesn't seem to have an option to adjust pictures or add captions. We'll see how it goes...)

I'm currently writing this from up in the sky on my way home from Marathon Weekend at Disney World (Spoiler Alert- awesome, awesome, awesome time with PRs, but I'll recap those separately) using the Pages app that came on this iPad. It's pretty cool and seems to work just like a regular Word document. Maybe I can use this to just cut and paste and my world won't actually come to a screeching halt because Blogsy has disappeared from the blogosphere.

So, in conclusion, I'm attempting to follow through with my New Years resolution to get back into regular blogging and reading other blogs (yes, I know, I've been so terrible about ignoring my blogger friends! I'll change, I swear! Please take me back!) and I feel as if the world is trying to thwart my efforts!

Speaking of New Years resolutions... I actually followed through on the one I made going into 2016. I gave up soda (not club soda because that's what I use to get my bubble fix) and didn't have a single sip of that sugary deliciousness in all of 2016. I'm carrying that on into 2017. I don't even want it anymore. 

Notice I did not give up wine or champagne? No, siree. Not happening. 

And in case you're wondering, no I'm not giving up alcohol in 2017, either. Just throwing that out there, especially since I consumed plenty last week. This is called a HippopotoMai-Tai and I had it at Trader Sam's at the Polynesian. I don't usually go for mixed drinks, but I had to have the souvenir glass which you can not buy without the drink. And no, you can't substitute. I asked if they could put prosecco in there instead, but no dice. So I took it like a champ. Had to celebrate a 10K PR!

Bye for now, bloggerinos. I'm off to do some recapping while on my journey back across the USA.

The Scottsdale Half Marathon- A Tale Of Bad Life Choices

I know that I claimed that I was going to be better about blogging, but A) work, riding and life have been super crazy and B) I'm a liar. The WDW Marathon is looming on the horizon like horrible monster with razor sharp teeth and blood red eyes, so there's plenty to write about, I've just been so swamped that I just...haven't.

I've actually been doing a fair amount of consistent running, but I haven't been great about doing long runs. I planned to do the Hot Chocolate Race for the hoodie to get in a 15K run, but I waited until the very last minute to sign up and it sold out. I also planned to do the Scottsdale Half Marathon the next weekend, but I wasn't excited about it and they had race day registration, so again, I waited until the last minute.

This is how my weekend went down and it includes just about every scenario you should avoid before running a half marathon. I am the running equivalent of a D.A.R.E. commercial. Don't drink and run, kids.

If you happen to be stopping by my blog for the first time ever, I will preface this story by telling you that I am an avid rider (as in horses, not bicycles. Ew.) and my barn mates take weekend brunch very seriously. And by "seriously", I mean that we discovered a new restaurant that serves bottomless mimosas from 10am until 2pm for 12 freaking dollars. And it's not even like you have to reorder! They wander around and just constantly refill your glass, so you never really know how much you've consumed until you realize it's now dinner time and you then order yourself dinner.

So last Saturday, I still hadn't committed to the race on Sunday morning by the time we decided to go to brunch, which could probably be considered lunch since it was 1pm with only one hour left of bottomless mimosas.

Don't mind my riding clothes and really dirty nails from being at the barn.

 

I figured that I couldn't get into too much trouble because we only had an hour. Well, they kept serving us until around 3:00 and then we waited a couple of hours to leave.

I even made sure that I ordered water to counter the mimosas, but I didn't even finish one glass.

 

This is the conversation at the barn that led to this debacle:

Kelly: we still have an hour left for bottomless mimosas!

Me: okay, but I can't drink too much. I might sign up for a race.

Katie: running is dumb.

Me: yeah, it is. Let's have mimosas.

At some point in the middle of all of this, I decide to register for the half from my phone while completely buzzed. Champagne buzzes don't last too long, but being the professional champagne drinkers that we are, we are definitely capable of putting away more than the average person. So even though we sobered up pretty quickly, it certainly doesn't help your energy or hydration levels when you're planning on running 13 miles in the morning.

Basically, I went home and went straight to bed.

At 5:30pm.

Like a boss.

Then I remembered that my running clothes were dirty, so at least I managed to get a load into the washer and got my socks and underwear out for the morning. Then I went back to bed.

I slept until midnight and woke up with a killer headache. Now I'm kicking myself because I know I'm going to feel terrible in the morning. I get up and chug two glasses of water and pull my running clothes out of the washer to hang up to dry. It then occurs to me that I don't know where my visor is and I'm sure my iPod needs to be charged. And where the hell is my running belt?!

So I was awake from midnight until 4:30am, watching Happy Endings on Hulu, and my alarm was going to go off at 5:45. The race started at 7:30. Pretty sure this is part of Meb's routine, too.

I finally fall back to sleep for about an hour, my alarm went off, and I got ready to race. My headache was much improved but still present and I felt very tired. I think this is why I signed up from my phone while tipsy at the bar. I knew there was no way I'd get up and go register before the actual race, but if I had already spent $85 less than 24 hours prior, there was no way I was wasting that money.

As I was leaving, I realized that I had no fuel of any kind. I stopped at the Circle K and loaded up on Clif Bars, coffee, water and giant Sweet Tarts (Sweet Tarts actually made good fuel!). I was the only one in the store and the lone employee watched me like I was a tweeker on some all night binge buying up all the snacks in sight.

Possible fuel choice for the WDW Marathon.

 

So off I went. I made it to the Scottsdale Civic Center at 7:10, picked up my bib and shirt, then checked the shirt and remainder of my snacks in the gear bag provided, and made it to the start by the skin of my teeth.

 

I won't bore you with a mile by mile recap, since most of my race was not monumental. Spoiler alert: I survived my first hung over half marathon and it wasn't as horrible as I imagined it would be.

This race used to be the Fiesta Bowl Half but changed this year to the Scottsdale Half.

 

It's a fairly small race, but well run. They only had aid stations every 2 to 2.5 miles, which is way less than I'm used to since I usually run really large races, but I can't complain too much about that since it was a small race.

The course was through a pretty nice part of town, which was enjoyable.

 

The crowd support was pretty much nonexistent, which made it hard to distract myself from the fact that I was trudging along for 13 miles, sweating out champagne though my pores.

 

I actually didn't do too badly considering my race preparation, or lack thereof. Like I said earlier, I've been running consistently, but I think I survived this race as well as I did because I've dropped about twenty pounds since this summer, which has helped my stamina immensely (but sadly, has not really made me faster). I'll write more about that in another post.

 

I'm no speed demon, that's for sure, but I still squeaked across the finish line in just under 3 hours. I hit a big wall at about mile 10, but that wasn't a shocker, considering. I walked all of miles 12 and 13. My legs were toast.

Berry champagne is pretty delicious.

 

 

But then there were free mimosas at the finish line, so my pain floated away and dissolved into a cloud of happiness. And they were not skimpy on the champagne, either. That drink is like 7/8 berry champagne, which is where the color of this drink comes from, and 1/8 orange juice. Frankly, this is the proper mimosa ratio, in my professional opinion. None of that 'splash of champagne in the O.J.' bullsh*t for this girl.

The irony of all of this is that when I ran the Tink Half in May, I totally did everything right. I ate very carefully the day before the race, I drank tons of water, did a lot of relaxing, didn't use effing Sweet Tarts for fuel, and you know what? I was still sick as a dog for half an hour post race in the porta potty, just like every half marathon (or longer) that I run.

This time, my stomach totally felt great and my headache disappeared somewhere around mile 10 and unicorns appeared in the sky, etc. Maybe I've stumbled upon my new pre-race routine, because once I was in that mimosa garden, I felt like a million bucks. And you're welcome, by the way, for always doing things in the most stupid way possible so that you don't have to. That's public service, right there.

 

Then I went home and spent my afternoon in the most cliche way possible: as a 40 year old spinster cat lady with Chinese take out. The end.

 

My selfie skills are seriously sub par.

 

 

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