Recap of the 2014 WDW Marathon Weekend: Day 2 -- The Family Fun Run 5K

Even though I had the best intentions to get of my Disney Marathon Weekend recaps done last weekend (I did get the first one done...check it out HERE), it seems as though another week has passed and now I have shifted my intentions to getting them done this weekend instead...so let's get back to it!

Thursday, January 9

After a pretty early-to-bed Wednesday night (the first of what would be a few over the weekend), it didn't seem to be too long before the alarm went off (at 3:30am) and Michelle, Mary, and I were being summoned to partake in the first running event of the WDW Marathon Weekend: The Family Fun Run 5K! Fortunately, we had laid out all of our running gear the night before - including pinning our bibs to our shirts - and it didn't take too long for us to get out the door. By 4:15, we were heading to the bus stop; and by 4:30, we were on our way to the Start Line at EPCOT.

Mary and I had run this race a year earlier (which I recapped in one of my first blog posts that you can check out HERE), but Michelle couldn't partake because she had sustained a stress fracture just below her knee. As such, she was about to take on not only her first runDisney event but actually her first 5K...ever! And while I had prepared her for the race itself (with our fairly regular family fun training runs), I didn't do as good a job preparing her for the pre-race waiting that comes with any race of decent size. Unlike a local 5K with a few hundred people, it takes a little while getting 10,000 people in place in their five corrals (we were in D) for a runDisney 5K over Marathon Weekend. And although the DJ was certainly pumping up the jam and we were having fun with some moving to the beat (I'm glad I don't have pictures of this), cooler temps and some intermittent drizzling rain made all of us eager to get on the pavement.

Getting Ready for The Start!

Before heading over to the corrals, though, we stopped to visit some of my Disney Pacebook Running Club friends for the pre-race group picture, which Michelle actually took. It's fun to catch up with this group of supportive and fun people who run in many of the runDisney events both in Florida and California. It's like a mini reunion before the races!

The Disney PaceBook Running Club!

After a cup of coffee (well, Mary had hot chocolate), a banana, and one last trip to the porta potty, we made our way to Corral D to get things underway...and the next thing we knew, it was 6:30, the National Anthem was sung, and the first corrals were heading out. I think there were about five minutes between corral starts, so we were underway at around 6:50-ish.

We went into the run with the decision to just run/walk "as we felt necessary," which was pretty much how we had been training. Knowing that the character lines would be long, we decided in advance to forego the character pictures, and we were all okay with that. As a side note, the Dopey line was by far the longest (I heard some waited a half hour for the Dopey picture), but this due to the fact that those undertaking the Dopey Challenge (5K, 10K, Half Marathon, and Full Marathon on four consecutive days) were lining up for the coveted picture with the Challenge's "mascot."

The first mile of the 3.1 is the most uneventful, as it winds around the EPCOT parking lot, as well as the behind-the-scenes not-so-magical areas; but because of the excitement of the race, it didn't seem very long before we were running into the EPCOT World Showcase next to Mexico. As we made our way around the World Showcase (clockwise from Mexico to Canada), we did stop for a restroom break in Germany (maybe that coffee wasn't the greatest idea), but other than that, we took our steady approach to moving toward the Finish Line. After running by the Future World fountains and under Spaceship Earth, though, we did stop for a quick family picture...

Just about a quarter mile left at this point!

After starting back up, the next thing we knew, we were doing this...

We Did It!

So at the end of it all, we made our way through the 3.1 miles in just over 45 minutes...and had some good family fun doing so! And at the end of the day, that's what it was all about!

I will say, though, that after crossing that Finish Line, even though we had some family fun in different parts of Disney World over the next couple of days, my mindset and focus really shifted to Marathon Sunday. Yes, I had more family coming in that night, and some members of our party were taking on the Half Marathon on Saturday...but regardless of all that, it was tough to focus my mind on anything but Sunday morning...but let me go into that in my next post.

Until then, enjoy your journey...