This was a great race! I was really unsure of how I would feel about a night time race, and I know that my nerves showed in the earlier part of the day. I tried to sleep in, but it didn't happen. My husband and I had planned on taking it easy on Saturday, had some breakfast and then headed over to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping. We were also meeting up with my brother in law and his girlfriend who were driving in on Saturday. We met up with them and had lunch, after that we all decided to head back to our hotel rooms to rest a little before taking the bus over to the start line.
The race start time was 10:00 pm. About 7:00 we got on the bus to go over to ESPN Wide World of Sports where we checked our bag for after the race and then basically just hung out until it was time to go to the start corrals. The really nice thing about the start line for this race was that it was so much closer to the drop off than for the princess half. My husband and I were in corral C, so when it was time, we headed that way to wait.
Once again we were planning on a 3:1 run:walk ratio. And for the first 8 miles that worked out great. I will say one thing, we went over a couple over passes and it seemed that every time we were at a walk break we were going downhill and every run was uphill. I know that's not really possible, but it sure seemed that way. I am not sure if it was because of those overpasses or not, but about mile 8 my back was starting to hurt. I have a bad habit of tensing up my shoulders when I run, but this was a lower back thing that definitely felt different. We kept pushing through, ended up walking a little more at the end than I liked, but we finished, that's all that really matters in the end! And for me it was a new PR for a half marathon- official time of 3:14:26, my watch time was 3:10:41.
After the race we met back up with my brother in law and his girlfriend and started enjoying the after party. This was one great thing about this race- included in your race fee was admission to EPCOT and their food and wine festival. We stopped at several of the food booths and just hung out until it was time to catch the bus back to our hotel. I remember thinking that there was no way I'd be able to stay up and actually take advantage of the after party, but I remember at one time looking down at my watch and realizing it was 3:30 am. We caught the bus back to our hotel about 4 and said our good byes.
Overall, I loved this race. I'm already trying to convince my husband that we should do it again, but given the choice, he wants to try out the Tower of Terror 10 miler. So we are still in discussion over which one we'd like to do if we are fortunate enough to do another one.....
