2013 Disney World Marathon Part 1- The Start

It has been a few days now since the marathon and I am pretty much back to normal.  The race overall went really well and I finished and received my medal so I am definitely calling it a success.  I had a lot of fun and I'm just super proud of myself for pushing through to the end.

I started in Corral G, the 2nd to last corral.  I've never really been that close to the back and the sweepers were already a worry for me so I decided I was going to just run the first few miles and put some distance between myself and the sweepers.  Yes, I have heard the sweepers aren't too strict at the runDisney races, but I didn't care to find out about that.  So I skipped some of the first few character stops.  That meant I missed my favorite, the Pirates, as well as Jack Skellington, who I really could care less about getting a picture of.   They also had this huge poster up which was really cool.

I took my first break (and only restroom break) at mile 4.  I was able to catch my breath and do a mental check over how I was feeling.  Overall, pretty well, definitely better than what I was expecting considering I really wasn't prepared for the race and hadn't been feeling well the days before the race.  

The race then headed to the Magic Kingdom when we came up to one of my favorite views of any of the runDisney races... running down Main Street.  The castle is just so pretty in the early morning, isn't it?  This was the first place I got to see my support crew, aka my Mom.  I still wasn't really stopping for character pictures, especially considering the princesses and royal Mickey and Minnie both had super long lines.  Luckily, I've already taken a few pictures with royal Mickey and Minnie and I'm not a huge fan of the princesses.  I did finally stop for a picture just outside of the Magic Kingdom with Mary Poppins and started stopping for more pictures.  Here are a few from the rest of the first half:

 One cool thing, was the Disney World Speedway, which hosts the Richard Petty Driving Experience.  For the race, the race track hosted close to a mile of the race as well as a car show.  Of course Tow Mater, Lightening McQueen, and Finn McMissile were all a part of it.  There were some super nice cars there ranging from the classics to the newest sports car.  It was definitely cool to see all of the cars out there.

The race then went to Disney's Animal Kingdom where they actually had some of the smaller petting zoo animals out.  Everything from a hawk and owl to a snake to sheep and goats.  I did spy one of our elephants in their night barn still even!  Of course they had some iconic characters out there... I bet you might recognize a few:

 

There was also another cool thing that I got to do before exiting Animal Kingdom... I got to ride Expedition Everest!  That's right, I totally rode a roller coaster in the middle of the marathon.  They had just opened the attraction as I was going by so I jumped on it and got a front car seat.  Only at the Disney World Marathon could you ride a roller coaster during the race!

After exiting Animal Kingdom, we headed towards the half way marker, as well as the ESPN Wide World of Sports facility... stay tuned for what happened in the second half of the race!