2014 WDW Marathon Week - 10K

Thursday was Day 2 in Team Tizzel's Dopey/Grumpy Challenge. We had barely been in Orlando for 48 hours and we were already onto our second race of the weekend - and getting tired. To hit some highlights: We flew into Orlando from Chicago on one of the worst travel days in history due to bitter cold. We arrived safely after being booked on 3 different planes and having our luggage lost. On Wednesday we survived the race expo, changed hotels, spent time in the Magic Kingdom, had drinks at Top of the World Lounge, dinner at California Grill, and drinks with friends at Bell Vue Lounge. Thursday we had the 5K, spent time in Animal Kingdom, toured around Epcot, and dined with friends at Teppen Edo.

Friday's 10K was an inaugural event. The new course took participants outside the main Epcot toll booth, around a few overpasses, then into Epcot's backstage behind Test Track. It wasn't until after the 3.5 mile mark that we that we entered the park. The course circled clockwise to the International Gateway for a loop of the Epcot resort area. Then it was back to Epcot with a tour of backstage between International Gateway and Journey into Imagination. Finally, the course cut through the center of Future World and took participants backstage to the normal finish line route.

For this race we joined up with about ten friends. The plan for the runners was to have a faster pace than the day before and get used to doing run/walk intervals with each other. Dave's plan was to walk faster than the day before at a consistent pace. At times he'd be infront of the group and they'd catch up, or he'd be behind and catch up during their walk breaks.

The morning was a bit interesting. Michael was throwing up the night before - not sure if it was food poisoning or viral. Holly placed him in personal quarantine. Eddie had an Oswald theme going while Dave wore a fake mustache all morning. Most of us were wearing pink cheetah compression socks as a symbol of our support of breast cancer awareness. (Michael chronicled a weekend with Eddie when they attempted the #Goofyinaday Challenge back in November here on Team Tizzel. Visit their adventure here).

It's good to be friends with the race announcer. As we left Corral C we got a big shout out for Team AllEars and Team Tizzel! Within the first tenth of a mile Dave ditched the mustache - it wouldn't stick. After a few minutes we all realized it was really humid. REALLY humid. This gave us some concern for the next few days of races. Our group was together most of the first few miles, some going faster than others or doing different intervals, but in general we were all in line of sight of each other. There was not much to look at until we hit the Epcot backstage guard house. Disney's entertainment before that point was one character stop (Peter Pan theme) and a big video screen playing music videos from the Disney Channel.


We entered World Showcase between Norway and China - that was different in the fact that it cut out a typical bathroom break opportunity. Next bathrooms were in Germany. It was still pretty dark so the pavilions had their night time lighting on and looked very nice. It was fun to go through the Epcot resort area too. Lots of spectators and the sun putting a nice light over the Beach Club. It was fun to have some friends cheering for us on the Beach Club/International Gateway Bridge.

Waited for Dave to leave so we could take pictures

When we reached the Swan and Dolphin Hotels Dave went ahead of the rest of the group. We know there are people that have a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time - Dave can't hold conversations and walk at the same time. He's more of a bury your head and chug it out kind of walker. Dave was also secretly planning to attempt a certain time goal for the half the next day and today's pace was not giving him any confidence. Add to that the stress of waking up to a broken GPS. Between the humidity and the difference of being on a crowded race course vs. training he was doubting he'd make his half marathon goal.

There was a mobile DJ in the Epcot backstage area by Soarin' and a few characters in World Showcase and Future World.  There were some giant puppets near the 6 mile mark. Not much entertainment overall on the entire course.

Instead of finishing alone Dave waited the short few moments for the rest of the group to arrive so he could film all the finish line fun. We received our medals with a little hassle. runDisney screwed up Holly's registration and placed all her info under Dave's name. They eventually fixed their records but did not fix her race bibs so her tag read "Dave". The person whom gave her the medal said "Nice Job DAVE". She was concerned at some point someone would think she bandited the race and her Dopey could be forfeited. One more thing to stress over.  After we got our snacks we joined some other Team AllEars friends in the spectating area before the finish line to cheer in more friends and other race participants. We saw the last person cross the finish line.

Overall we had a fun morning with our friends even though most of the course was lackluster. It wasn't very fun to have nothing to look at for over half the race - especially all upfront. It would have been awesome if the back part of the course looped to make up the 6.2 miles. Holly gets to run this course again in a few weeks as part of the Glass Slipper Challenge for Princess Half Marathon Weekend. Dave will be sitting that one out.

Dave brought the GoPro out on the course and managed to salvage a cohesive story out of a ton of shaky videos. Underneath Our video is our friend Eddie's video. He started a new Facebook page for his race videos which you can find at Fast Eddie Videos.