Disney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon RACE re-cap!

I finally made it to the last re-cap post I have, except for on Friday when I’ll be releasing my Disney Highlights VIDEO!  So be sure to check back for that.

In case you missed the previous re-caps:
Disney Wine & Dine: Animal Kingdom
Disney Wine & Dine: Friday
Pre-Disney

After we finished up at Animal Kingdom, Noelle and I headed back to the hotel room to get ready for the race.  “Getting ready” involved taking a nap, eating dinner, and getting dressed.  The nap was wonderful, although I’m always a little groggy afterwards – so I don’t take naps often, but knowing that I’d be up til 4 or 5 in the morning made me re-think my “no-nap” idea.  I decided to dig into my Go Picnic meal for dinner {TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!  I only have 16 entries!  Seriously, these things are delicious – go enter!} It was wonderful, of course, and definitely hit the spot before the race.  I didn’t feel overly full, I was completely satisfied.  It offered me the fuel I needed.  We finally found our way to the bus for the race and arrived at the pre-party!  We got our bags checked in and then I finally met up with Meg for some actual time together!  Although I still feel like our time was not enough, it was fun.  We did the cupid shuffle and talked about her dreams of moving down South!

We finally made our way to corral H.  We started the race approx. 20 minutes after the initial start time.  The first mile wasn’t so bad, but I was having issues with the shorts I was wearing, so that took me some time to get adjusted and find the right comfort.  Once I got over that issue though, I began having incredible foot pain.  Running had never been so painful before!  Every strike of my foot was agony.  I’m pretty certain that my shoes gave way literally right before the race.  Around mile 11, I was tearing up.  If I had let myself, I could have burst into full blown tears and cry fest mode, but I didn’t.  I sucked it in and kept going.  I also could have quit about 20 thousand times, but pushed through.  I finally finished the race and honestly, that’s all I can say about it.  Luckily, I kept up with my friends, but it was a struggle.  Now, I’m waiting until I can buy some new shoes before running again.

Here are pictures from the race night.  I’m surprised I could even muster a smile in most of these!

We definitely had some other amazing character pictures and we did manage a picture after the race – although, I’m not sure how I did it.  (Those pictures are with my friends though).  The race was a lot of fun, as I expected.  The pictures went by super quick, so I don’t feel like we lost too much time, but we did stop for a good many of them!  There were times when we didn’t take a picture for a long distance and then BAM you take like 3-4 in a row.

In my opinion, you don’t do a Disney race if you’re worried about time.  We finished in 3:30, but we took walking breaks whenever there was food or drinks being passed out or when my feet needed it (I tried to not stop too often for the pain, but there were times when I had no choice) and when we took pictures with characters and we also walked when I needed to adjust my shorts because I realized why they were so uncomfortable.

We did make it to the after party, but we weren’t there for long… I couldn’t handle much more.  My feet were about to rip my heart out of my chest and kill me themselves, that’s how much pain they were in.  When we finally made it back to the hotel, I was so thankful to rest them in bed and we got a little bit of a late check-out, which was helpful!  We ate lunch and then headed back to Starkville.

Well, that’s the end of my re-cap posts for my Disney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon Weekend experience!! Overall, I had a wonderful time with some wonderful friends!  Disney always puts on a great race that is so well organized.  I miss Disney a lot though and I can’t wait to be back!