Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon

Last weekend, Jon and I took a mini vacation to Florida for the inaugural Wine & Dine Half Marathon and a couple of days at the Disney parks.  This is a pic from Epcot, entering the World Showcase area, that says "Celebrating 15 Years of Delicious Discoveries".  You didn't see this during the race, but I took it the next day.

Right away, the dynamic of this race was different.  It started at 10:00 PM on Saturday night.  We drove down there on Friday, and had all day Saturday to visit the Expo and some of my family members in the area.  We had dinner around 6:00, thinking 4 hours was plenty of time for our food to settle before running.  Well, given that I normally run all my races on an empty stomach, this did not work well for me.  I didn't have any issues, but just felt uncomfortable during the race.  I couldn't really take in fluids because it gave me reflux, and I just felt "full" during the entire run.  Almost on the verge of being nauseous, at times.  Too much chicken and sweet potato at The Longhorn, perhaps?   

Jon's back is better, but while allowing it to heal, he started having issues with his right leg.  We think it's a nerve problem...  all related to the original injury.  So needless to say, this has continued to sideline his running and overall exercise.  It'd been 4 weeks exactly since he was allowed to do anything...  but he wanted that Disney medal.  And who could blame him, it's awesome and the biggest medal I've ever seen!  So he decided to walk it. 

I was hoping  for a PR on such an easy course, but it was not in the cards for me.  I was aiming for a 2:10 finishing time, and ended up with 2:15:39.  Not too far off the mark, but far enough to not be a PR.  But given that I'd missed three long runs recently, wasn't feeling my best, and a crowded race course that slowed you down constantly, I think it turned out pretty well. 

Jon said he ended up running 2 - 3 miles, but walked all the rest.  Anyone that's ever been walking with him knows how freakishly fast he walks...  so he finished the race in 2:51:05.  Wow!  So that shows one of two things...  either just how fast he can walk, or how slow I run...  or maybe both.  Haha!!

I took these with my phone, just before the race start.  I loved the sparkly Mickey headband this girl was wearing, though I could not imagine running 13.1 miles with it on.  The Mickey heads are on springs and they bobble!  And this was a shot of the crowd in front of me.  I was in Corral B and you can see how many were in front of me.  If you look at the light up ahead, you can see the starting banner. 

A few things I'll say about the race.  It was neat to run through 3 of the Disney parks...  Animal Kingdom, then Hollywood Studios, and finishing in Epcot.  However, the majority of the race was run down the highway, thru parking lots or on the faculty roads behind the scenes.  I had a misconception that we'd  be running IN the parks the whole time, and I guess that's just not feasible.  So it wasn't nearly as nice to look at as I'd envisioned...  but was a fun race nonetheless. 

This years event fell on my birthday, so it's neat to have a race medal with my birthdate on it...  and the fact that it was the inaugural race.  And it's during the International Food & Wine Festival, which I've never attended before.  So although I didn't feel like dining around the world in the middle of the night after the race, it was nice to visit Epcot later in our trip and enjoy all the goodies!