At the end of the evening I parted ways with the girls. They went with my best friend and her family to stay at Fort Wilderness. I headed back to meet Angie at our resort.
The day had finally arrived! It was finally the day of my first runDisney Race! Mickey's Holiday 5K was going to take place in Animal Kingdom. I was super excited to experience Animal Kingdom in a new way. This race didn't start as early as the other two races would. We were excited to get to "sleep in." I did learn one important thing about these races...you have to get up and be at the bus stop EARLY. We missed that bus by about 5 seconds that morning and then had to wait another 30 minutes for another one. We got to the race in plenty of time for the race, but we didn't really get to participate in any pre-race festivities.
About 8 months ago, I talked one of my very good and longtime friends, Claire into driving over from Tampa and doing the 5K with me. I was so excited to not only see and get to spend time with Claire, but to do this race with a very dear friend. Claire is the one that had inspired me in 2014-2015 to start my fitness journey.
Getting to do this race with Claire was one of my favorite parts of this weekend. Since this was my first experience doing 3 races back to back, I told Claire that I was cool with mostly walking it. We met up before the race and then went on to find some of my "interweb" friends. About a year and a half ago I joined a group on Facebook for ladies that loved Disney as much as I did and also had the goal of being healthier. That is my kind of group! We communicate on a daily basis sharing our goals and our ups and downs in life. On this day I finally got to meet Lisa and Adele! I just love these ladies!
We met up with Lisa and Adele in the Santa Mickey and Minnie line. Just as we were about to meet them, Mickey and Minnie headed in for the race. Sad face. We settled for this picture instead.
After this we headed to our Corral. I was originally supposed to be in Corral C, but Claire was assigned Corral E. You are allowed to move back Corrals, but you can't move up. Since I had planned on doing this race with Claire all along, I moved back to her Corral. It also happened to be the Corral that Lisa and Adele were in.
I was very excited to see that Rudy, Carrissa and John Pelkey were back. I had learned that they were some of the favorite announcers for the runDisney races. Our time finally came for Corral E to start and we were off. We started outside of the park and eventually made our way to the front of the park.
The first character that we came upon was Rafiki. We didn't stop though. I didn't realize that the character lines really do move fast. Right inside the park, we found Baloo. We decided to stop for him.
We didn't stop for too many more. We didn't care to stop for Turk from Tarzan and the line for Santa Goofy was way too long. I just loved run/walking with my friend. The only downside of this race is that there are parts where the path narrows down. There are a lot of walkers in this race. That isn't a bad thing, but many don't pay attention to proper race etiquette. There were a lot of people walking with 4 people across. It was really hard to pass them. Other than that, it was a fun race. I'm so glad that I did it and I can't wait to run at the Princess 5K in February. Thanks for being my race buddy Claire!!!
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| I loved watching the sun rise in the Animal Kingdom! |
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| See! We did run! |
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| Hi Pluto! Thanks for coming out to cheer for us! |
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| Best picture EVER!! |
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| Thanks Disney for the post race snacks! Yum!! |
Stay tuned for more updates on our experience at our first runDisney race. Be sure to check here for our video recaps too! Don't forget to check out my friends over at Joyful Miles for their blog recaps. Check out their YouTube page too. You might just see a familiar face on one of their Jammin' on the Run episodes. :)
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