Family Fun 5k
The first race I ever got my husband to run was the 5k that
runs in conjunction with the Wine and Dine, the first RunDisney event I had
ever done. I was so thrilled when
he agreed to run with me, as he often says that he does not run. Since
then he has done three (now four after this race), all of which have been
RunDisney races. I’m pretty
impressed he does these races with me, as getting up early isn’t really his
favorite thing, but I’m glad he does!
That being said, we got up super early and were at the bus
stop in All Star Sports a few minutes before the four, when the first bus was
supposed to leave. There was room
on the bus that was already waiting, so we got on in our groggy states and I
snapped an early morning traditional selfie.
We got to the race start pretty quickly, which is nice. I often hear horror stories of how hard
it is to get to Disney races with traffic and such, so I make it a point to get
on one of the first buses. We got
off the bus and wandered around what we thought was the staging area for a
bit. Turns out that was were the
finishing festivities were, but we weren’t really sure. It started misting/raining so we took
cover in one of the gear drop off tents that wasn’t being used for the 5k, and
I hunted down a piece of plastic to wrap my phone in, since I was unprepared
and didn’t want it to get wet.
Luckily the rain was short lived and we went to the corral without
getting soaked.
I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have any
characters at the starting line for this race. Both Mickey’s Jingle Jungle 5k and the Royal Family 5k had
characters that we wasted some time waiting in line for. Nothing here. I thought that was odd.
We went to corral A and waited toward the back, knowing that
was how they would release us and walk us to the starting line. While we were waiting there, Z noticed
that there weren’t too many 5k bibs around us. I think we saw like three of them, all of the rest were
Dopeys.
It is always exciting when they release the corral to go to
the starting line. We walk past
all of the other corrals and they all start cheering for us as we walk by. It gets me really excited to run the
race. The National Anthem singer
was good, a few people spoke, then Pluto made his appearance and we were OFF!
The first mile to a mile and a half were pretty boring,
through parking lots and such. Z
get telling me to go ahead if he was too slow. He had a terrible cold for a few weeks leading into the race
and had little training. For some
reason he thought I would be worried about my time since Dopeys were being
officially timed. But I insisted
on staying with him and helping him pace.
Entering the park is always fun. You come in at the World Show Case and it’s always so
pretty, looking at the building and architecture. They started characters right away, with Dopey being the
second one, but we didn’t stop. Z
was really hoping for a decent time, despite having little training, so I ran
straight through with him without taking character stops. Besides, the Dopey line was already
really long and I can never convince myself to get in line for pics during a
race if it’s going to take too long.
We were doing awesome, Z was on the way to blasting his PR,
but then his knee started hurting.
It could have been from the fact that he was wearing new running shoes
that weren’t broken in (his luggage was STILL in Tampa), which he bought at the
expo. They didn’t have the kind he
usually wears so he tried one that was similar. Regardless of what caused it, it slowed him down a bit in
the last mile. As we ran by
Spaceship Earth and out of the park to the finish line he was hurting really
bad, and when we crossed the finish line he JUST MISSED breaking his PR. Stupid knee.
They keep you moving after races, even after the 5k. so we
got food, stopped for finisher pictures (which is always a pain because you
already have water and food in your hands), and then stood in line for pictures
with Pluto and Donald. 
We left shortly after that as we had breakfast reservations
at Cape May, one of our favorite buffets, and wanted to shower before we
left. There was a pretty long line
for the bus when we arrived. The
buses were moving pretty quickly and as soon as one bus was full and moved out,
another one quickly took its place, so we were on the road pretty fast. Overall, a very good race morning!
In case you missed it, Part one and two of my Dopey series:
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