Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon take 2

So last year when I ran this race with my friend Chrissy it was our first half marathon. Here is my recap http://runningdownmainstreet.blogspot.com/2015/01/disney-wine-and-dine-half-marathon.html. In a nutshell last year the weather /running gods thought it would be fun to challenge us by raining on our entire first half marathon! We were sad and disappointed because we felt like some of the excitement about the day was taken over by fear about how we would handle not only our first big race but now running 13.1 miles while wearing ponchos in the rain! But we finished and were super proud of ourselves for it! Now months back when I decided to sign up for Wine and Dine again this time with my husband joining me I thought what are the chances of bad weather happening 2 years in a row?!?

Well this is the weather alert at the expo on race day...

Max's Fourth Birthday: Thomas and Friends Galore

Another birthday party has come and gone. This year being Max is still obsessed with trains we went with a Thomas theme since we did the train theme last year. Hoping we move on to another obsession before next years party, I can't do any more trains! 

I actually had more fun than I thought I would with this theme. At first I thought I would just pick a few of the main characters or even just Thomas, but I ended up having more fun going all out and covering as many characters as Max asked for! Every day he would ask me to make a new character! It was fun to see him get into the creation of the party as much as I was! 

So now for the picture slide show:

The main room had so many of my favorite creations.

Max's Third Birthday: Choo Choo's Everywhere!

A few months before Max turned two he developed his love for trains. And of course this happened at the Magic Kingdom. He fell in love with trains watching the old vintage steam trains running through the Magic Kingdom. He was mesmerized by them! Who knew that love of trains would still be going strong to this very day!

For his 3rd birthday party I decided to go with a vintage train theme. At this point he also did love Thomas, but really he didn't judge, he loved trains of all kinds!

I definitely had fun with this theme! We went all out for this one, I even involved the hubby begging him to build me multiple items!

Max's Second Birthday Party: Crazy for Mickey!

Max's second birthday was a no brainer. He was obsessed with Mickey Mouse. I guess that's what happens when your first trip to Disney happens when you are 2 months old and you go pretty much every month from then on! 

Birthday Party Craziness: Max's First Birthday

I am currently preparing for Max's 4th birthday party. Every year my parties for him get bigger and more involved! My love for DIY birthday party themes has definitely grown with each year! I think back to his first birthday party and how I just had a couple of decorations. I wanted to showcase his birthdays here in my blog to see not only the changes in Max side by side but also each party theme as well! I know that he won't always want to have a crazy at home party and I am going to be sad when the day comes that he says "Mommy I just want to go to Chuck E Cheese!" I am not sure where I will get my crafting fix when that day comes! 

So starting with Max's first birthday party. August 2012. I decided to go with a car and truck them. He didn't really have any particular interests at that age, but he did seem to like cars and also I found some cute ribbon at Michaels with cars on them so those cars pretty much became the theme! 

I remember thinking how long this took! Who knew that in years to come I would spend months preparing for his parties!

 

This was his little birthday banner with pictures from each month. Its crazy to see how much they change in that first year!

 

Disney Enchanted 10k and running in general

Tomorrow is early registration for Princess Half Marathon weekend 2016. I have somehow convinced Chrissy to partake in another runDisney event with me! This time we are taking on the Glass Slipper Challenge! This consists of a 10k on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday. Because runDisney events sell out sooo quickly I always get so anxious the day before registration! Luckily I do have an annual pass so I am eligible for early registration but early registration sells out in minutes! Hope my typing fingers are warmed up tomorrow at noon! 

So I have been training for my second half marathon for the past few months. I am running the Wine & Dine half again this year but this time with my husband. I have no idea why he agreed to do this with me, he hates running! I am struggling with my training right now. The summer has gotten super hot really quick this year. Last year Chrissy and I did the bulk of our long runs at night throughout the summer, but due to just life getting in the way she isn't available as much at night so that is leaving me by myself to train. I used to run at night by myself all the time, but then we started getting chased by dogs on more than 1 occasion, so I am now terrified to go by myself at night anymore. So now I am stuck with morning runs. So unless I get up at 6am I am really struggling to run more than 5 miles in the morning! I was all geared up to do 10 miles today after dropping Max off at school but I could only make it 5! Even starting at 7:45 is just not early enough when the temperature is already in the 80's and it feels like the 90's! 

I never did an update about the Enchanted 10k Chad and I ran in February. I have one word to describe it... COLD!!! The race started at 5:30am and Florida was having one of those crazy cold streaks and it was in the 30's or 40's that morning! Being from upstate NY you would think I would be used to this but it is just the opposite, I must have left my blood in NY! 

I had 4 layers on plus a head warmer, gloves, and knee high socks!

I love this shot (not just because of Chad :P) but do you see the man in the tiara to the right of Chad? So awesome that he was an older man running a 10k and he even dressed up for the event! Love! The 10k was just around Epcot and the Boardwalk area, and too much highway :(. The first mile was rough trying to weave around all the people to find a pace spot that I was comfortable in. But I finally found my groove and was pretty happy with my end time; 1:15. The time will at least qualify me for a closer coral for my next half! Hubby came in 15 minutes after me, super proud of him for finishing his first 10k! 

Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend Recap

I'm a little late in writing a recap for my half marathon, but I guess better late than never! 

Back on November 8th I finally completed my very first half marathon at Walt Disney World. My best friend Chrissy and I ran it together. We choose the Wine and Dine Half as our first because it took place at night. We have always been night runners, so this was perfect! We had trained for just about a year and had made it a total of 12 miles in our training. We wanted to save the 13 milestone for the actual race! We felt pretty prepared but then the weather forecast came out and it was looking like rain. After checking it every day up until the day of it looked pretty inevitable that we wold be running our first half marathon in the rain... Running in the rain, was not something we had practiced, so we were definitely nervous!

Since we never get a chance to get away we decided to make a weekend out of the race. We went up on Friday morning and spent the afternoon at the Expo. After spending way too much money we headed over to Downtown Disney for some more shopping and a very delicious dinner at Portobello Italian Restaurant. Seriously best meal I have had in a long time! 

After dinner we were exhausted (not to mention our credit cards were also exhausted from way too much shopping!) So we called it an early night and headed back to the hotel. We stayed at the Double tree in Downtown Disney. Love the Double Tree for its spacious rooms and great prices (not to mention the free cookie on check in)!

On Saturday we wanted to have a relaxing low key day. We had decided that we weren't going to go to any of the parks. First of all being only an hour away we can go anytime and we also both get very stressed out by crowds and didn't want to add to our nerves! Plus we were very anxious about our eating plan the day of the race. We had a big breakfast at Captains Grille at Disney's Yacht Club and brought snacks and water to munch on and hydrate throughout the day. The weather was beautiful during the day (of course) so we took advantage of it and resort hopped.  From the Yacht Club we explored all the other resort hotels along the Boardwalk just checking out the sites and browsing the gift shops. Oh and checking the weather forecast on our phones every 30 minutes just hoping something would change! Nope still called for rain to start around 8pm and to continue throughout the night. During our outings we kept seeing many people buying ponchos at all the gift shops for the race that night. We were thankful we had brought some with us! 

After exploring the Boardwalk area we headed over to the Magic Kingdom resorts. We strolled around the Polynesian and Grand Floridian and stopped for lunch at Gasparilla Island Grill. We wanted to eat something healthy and small. My lunch consisted of veggies, apple slices and hummus dip and a yogurt parfait. My stomach was definitely confused that I wasn't feeding it pizza or grilled cheese! (What my usual lunch would have probably consisted of at a park!)

We still had about 2 hours to kill so we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge. I had never been before and heard the the animals just roam around the resort.

Sure enough they do! It was so cool! We hung out on the patio and watched them for awhile and then headed back to the hotel for a quick nap and more relaxing (and anti rain dances!)

We ate our bagels and peanut butter and then it was finally time to start getting ready. And the forecast still hadn't changed... rain was predicted starting around 8pm lasting until 3am. So we psyched ourselves up and headed out!

The race didn't start until 10pm but we had to be at World Wide of Sports by 8pm. Luckily during the 2 hours that we had to hang around the field it didn't start raining yet. We were so nervous it would start pouring before and we'd start out the race with soggy shoes! At 9:30 we had to line up in our corals. We were in coral K (second to the last!) Just as soon as we lined up the rain started. So thankful for those ponchos! Luckily the adrenaline and nerves were pumping so the cold hadn't set in yet! Finally at 10:45 it was time for coral K to start! 

The first leg of the race was a 3 mile run towards Animal Kingdom down Osceola Parkway. Now usually there is supposed to be a lot of entertainment along the way but because of the rain there wasn't much going on between parks. Thank goodness I had someone to talk to because it was so boring! There were still character stops, but we didn't stop at any of them. We already run at a slow pace and were way in the back and didn't want to risk meeting up with a sweeper! A sweeper is the official run disney time keeper that will "sweep" you off the course if you aren't keeping up with the 16 minute pace requirement! We had always run faster than a 16 minute pace during our practice runs, but we were still nervous! 

Running through the actual parks was amazing! I wished we were able to take pictures along the way. But we didn't want to risk getting our phones or a camera wet. After Animal Kingdom it was back down Osceola Parkway (Ahhhh!!) for miles 6 and 7. Then we turned onto World Drive and headed towards Hollywood Studios. Between mile 8 and 9 was a cliff shot stop. And it couldn't have come at a better time! Even though we still had the ponchos on we were freezing! I was surprised how I never did seem to warm up. We finally headed into Hollywood Studios. We headed in down Hollywood Blvd towards the Sorcerers hat and then I'm not quite sure were we ended up. At one point we ran through a tunnel that had disco balls and strobe lights and some pumped up music playing, it was a much needed pick me up! Then we finally entered the Osborne Lights! I was so looking forward to this part. I have seen the lights many times before, but nothing compares to running through them! I had gotten a second wind and was feeling pretty good. The rain even had let up for a small portion of time and we finally ditched the ponchos around mile 10.

Exiting Hollywood Studios was the final stretch! The course took us through the Boardwalk and into Epcot World showcase. Then we hit mile 12! Only 1 more to go! Never training past 12, I was really starting to feel it. Plus I was wet and cold and was so ready for this to be over! The final mile took us back towards Future World around Spaceship earth and back to the finish line!! They actually call your name as you cross the line (also at the same times as many others!) I was happy that I actually heard mine! 

We did it! We finished the entire race without stopping once! We were so proud of ourselves for running the entire time, no walking at all! Our time was right around what we expected. 3 hours and 16 minutes. Not the best, but hey we finished and that was all that matters!

Our very wet and tired after shots with our medals!

We had planned on attending the after party at the Food and Wine festival but after being rained on for several hours we were just ready to head back to the hotel. Thankfully there were food trucks at the finish line, so we grabbed something and headed back to the car. Now if I have to complain about one thing it was this. After just running 13 miles in the cold pouring rain the last thing we wanted tot do was walk to our car! Oh and not to mention we had no idea where the car was! We parked somewhere in the Epcot parking lot to get the bus but really couldn't remember where and we were all turned around from where the buses actually picked us up at. Oh how we would have loved to see a parking lot tram at this point to take us to our car! After what felt like 3 hours (okay it was probably 15 minutes) we finally found the car. I don't think I have ever been so happy to sit down in my life! 

So that is about it! My next race is the 10K at the Princess Half Marathon Weekend in February with my husband, and then he has finally agreed to run the half with me next January during Walt Disney Marathon Weekend!