Day One Recap - runDisney's Wine & Dine Half Marathon

Okay, I've waited long enough, and now I absolutely positively must start recapping the Wine & Dine Half Marathon weekend. With so much happening in just a few days, I now understand why everyone's runDisney recaps usually require a few separate posts. In fact, this is already my second, and in my first, I spoke briefly about some very inspirational people who entered my thoughts while on my way to the starting corrals (you can read that post HERE).

So without further ado, let's review the weekend's first day. Here we go...

Friday, November 8 - The Expo, The Beach Club, and Epcot

One of the advantages to where I live is that it takes just a couple of hours to drive to the Walt Disney World Resort, so I don't have the frustrations of battling airports, ground transportation, and general travel challenges faced by many who partake in the Florida runDisney races. In fact, I guess I'm fortunate in that I have yet to take a "race-cation"  since my feet have been back on the pavement. That said, I do see a few in the stars for 2014...but more about that in future posts.

After getting the car packed up, my wife Michelle and I picked up our daughter Mary at school around noon, grabbed a quick "on the go" (and completely unhealthy) meal at McDonald's, and were on our way to see Mickey. Admittedly, with my first half marathon about a day and a half away, I was feeling a little jittery, maybe a tad anxious, but overall I would say that I was still doing okay.

Over marathon weekend back in January (Mary and I ran the 5K, which you can read about HERE), we drove straight to the expo before heading to our hotel, and since it worked out well back then, I decided on the same strategy this time around. So at around 2:30, we arrived at the Wide World of Sports Complex for the expo, which at the time had been open for about four hours.

With Mary at Wide World of Sports

And to much pleasure, it was an easy and painless experience. Because I had printed and signed my race waiver in advance, I walked right up to where I needed to pick up my bib, waited zero seconds, and picked up my bib.

From there, we had to head over to the other building to get my race shirt, and again the experience was easy and painless...total time at the expo was maybe a half an hour at this point. Oh, and that includes Michelle and Mary having to wait in a line to pick up their $10 Gift Cards for the Finish Line Party.

Not really having too much to purchase at the expo - some KT Tape for me (and my Achilles) and a Sweaty Band for Michelle (Mary decided to get her prize at Epcot) - we did a little bit of meandering but ended up getting out of there in a couple hours at the most...probably more like an hour and a half.

From the expo, we got back in the car and headed over to check in at The Beach Club Resort. While we typically don't stay at the Deluxe resorts for our Disney trips, I decided to go the extra mile this time for two reasons: First, I knew that we weren't going to be doing much on Saturday, so since we were going to be hanging around the resort, we should at least hang around one of the nicest pools on all of Disney's Florida property; Second, knowing that the Finish Line Party was taking place in the Epcot World Showcase, I knew that being able to walk back to the hotel after the race would be much easier than having to jump on a bus...turns out I made the right call.

Here's a great shot of Michelle and Mary right after we arrived at the hotel and were already heading to Epcot...

Mary & Michelle - My Cheering Section!

I had made dinner reservations in advance for the San Angel Inn in Epcot's Mexico, one of our favorite restaurants around the World Showcase...but we had planned a couple of hours for rides before dinner, so we went over the Future World and took rides on Test Track (yes, we had gotten Fast Passes in advance), Spaceship Earth, and Living with the Land before heading back to dinner in Mexico.

Dinner actually gave us the first of just two disappointments of the weekend....and it had nothing to do with the food.

One of the negative facets of Epcot's Food & Wine Festival is that some people have more difficulty handling the wine part than others. Unfortunately, we were seated next to three who were about twelve sheets to the wind, and there were quite a few F-Bombs and other not-family-friendly crude comments flying around. At the end of it all, though, we asked if we could change tables, the staff complied, and we ended up having a lovely dinner.

As a side note, I did have some initial "how's my stomach going to react to Mexican food before a half marathon?" concerns when making the reservations at San Angel; however, when taking into consideration that we were eating about twenty-seven hours before Saturday night's race, I made the judgement call that all systems would be functioning properly come race time. Fortunately, I was correct; and even more fortunately, there were no stomach issues resulting from any meals over the entire weekend.

After dinner, we took a leisurely stroll through the countries, stopped off in Japan to get Mary a "trip gift" she was asking for, and then headed back to the hotel for some shuteye. Saturday was, in fact, going to be a very big (and ultimately a very long) day. But let's talk about that next time.

Until then, enjoy your journey...