An Aussie on a Wine & Dine 2019 Mission - Comments Very Welcome

SUNDAY 3RD NOVEMBER 2019

PART 2 - PATRIOTIC MICKEY HALF MARATHON & TWO COURSE CHALLENGE


Eventually though I just had to finish and headed for the finish line.

IMG_6452 by Jennie G, on Flickr

017aa1a9-0b4f-4abd-9278-b24da8b8d91d by Jennie G, on Flickr

6f6111fe-c294-459a-9e9a-3fcedd6421a0 by Jennie G, on Flickr

ac5514d1-4227-4476-a7c6-c0e05760a3af by Jennie G, on Flickr

54c56b13-9cea-44bc-985e-8e2b2d084526 by Jennie G, on Flickr

I cried!! I bawled like a baby as I finished and made my way through the finishers chute. I made my way through the breakfast boxes, the challenge medal tent and the drinks pickup before I realised that I had no wifi coverage and I hadn't made a plan of where to meet my husband in the event that we couldn't contact one another OH NOOOO!!!! DOH.

I wandered around thousands of people and eventually decided to head over to the spectators finish line bleachers to try find him. Luckily he was there but unfortunately he'd arrived after I'd already finished. By my estimation he'd only missed seeing me finished by maybe 5 minutes but oh well.

My brilliant husband had had the foresight to grab my other 2 medals and bring them with me for photo ops. What a clever husband :love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love::love:

IMG_E6320 by Jennie G, on Flickr

After finishing and finding the husband we headed back to POP for showers and then onto Magic Kingdom for medal shots and lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. We found a fantastic photographer in the hub area who as very attentive and excited for all us race finishers. His name was Adam and he was AMAZING!! He took a lot of extra time with all the runners in front of us and I'm so so thankful to him for capturing what I've been told by my lizard running group is an amazing medal photo.

IMG_6406 by Jennie G, on Flickr

Liberty Tree tavern was amazing and the perfect celebration lunch post race. We made our way out of Magic Kingdom around 2:30pm and headed back to POP for a well earned rest. Around 5pm we headed to EPCOT to an ESPN Monday Night Football demonstration. After the demo we joined the insanely overcrowded world showcase awaiting the part closure and the start of the post race party.

Neither hubby or I are beer drinkers but friends of ours in Orlando had really encouraged us to try the grapefruit beer in Germany so we headed in that direction and scored ourselves some tasty F&W treats along the way.

IMG_6390 by Jennie G, on Flickr

I'd scored a Frozen Ever After Fastpass as well so we headed over to Norway for our very first ride

25e60f72-29e3-44b3-80f3-7d9523ba688d by Jennie G, on Flickr

As I said before, I'm not a huge fan of Frozen but really enjoyed this and actually got a little emotional. Coming off the ride we ducked into the Norway bakery and finally tried a Troll Horn ummm YUM!!! By this time it was fireworks time and we pulled up a piece of concrete in Italy and enjoyed the show. I might be in the minority here but I actually really like the EPCOT Forever show. I saw Illuminations and liked it too but I prefer EPCOT Forever.

By around 10:30pm we were beat and headed towards Mouse Gears to do one last special purchase. When I set out on this crazy journey I promised myself that at it's successful conclusion I was going to buy myself a Dooney & Bourke bag! I grabbed the 10th anniversary limited edition yellow handbag and it's now my pride and joy.

IMG_6400 by Jennie G, on Flickr

I was also gifted the RunDisney Pandora charm by our friends who live in Orlando.

Untitled by Jennie G, on Flickr

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I write this it's now New Years Eve 2019 and as I look back on this crazy journey from start to finish I can honestly say that 2019 has been one of the most memorable and remarkable years of my life. I never imagined when I started this journey that it would be so rewarding and frustrating.

I've struggled with injury from mid year onwards but with assistance I got there and there were certainly times when I wondered if it was all worth it. But looking back it definitely was worth all the miles and pain.

So what did I learn from my first RunDisney experience?
  1. Choose your resort wisely! We chose POP mostly because of budget but we really did come to regret that decision. Although the Skyliner was amazing and the refurbished rooms were fantastic, the noise at night when we were trying to sleep was crazy! We would try to be in bed by 8-9pm every night but regularly didn't get to sleep until 11pm because of noise and would then we woken up at least once before our alarm went off at 2:30am. It made for some really cranky starts, a lot of unnecessary fatigue and a really bad sleep pattern that haunted us for days after the races finished.​
  2. Leave enough time to really enjoy the expo! If you're a first timer like me, I'd never seen an expo like this. I've been told that the W&D expo is very small compared to Marathon Weekend so in future I'll be sure to leave a full day to explore the expo at leisure and participate in some of the classes and lectures they hold throughout the day.​
  3. Buy a pair of Aftershokz (sorry if I spelt that wrong)! I visited the expo stand but didn't try the products. Now that I've done my first races I can see how beneficial it would be to use something like these so that I can enjoy the ambiance and hear my fellow lizards screaming at me LOL!!​
  4. Chose your costumes wisely! I saw so many people struggling with their costumes during all of the race distances. I loved my storm trooper costume for the 5km but I regretted the tule skirt and long sleeve pizza planet alien t-shirt on my 10km costume. The skirt was itchy and scratchy and the shirt was just hot, too bulky and uncomfortable.​
  5. Join a running group with like minded people! Being a part of the BOGP Lizards was an absolute life saver for me. Not only did they keep me motivated and focused during the training leading up the races but they also provided me a safe haven of friends from afar. Facing the 10km and Half alone wasn't thrilling me but after meeting everyone the morning of the 5km I realised I wasn't going to have to struggle alone. I never would have enjoyed the Half nearly as much without them.​
  6. It's about the experience! Unless you're an elite runner I would just encourage you to forget the clock (within reason) and enjoy the experience. Talk to fellow runners in the meet & greet lines, enjoy one another costumes, help other runners if they need it and enjoy the entertainment. I honestly don't even know what times I ran and honestly I don't even care.​
  7. Document the experience! Keeping this training journal throughout the year has been a big undertaking but now that the year is over I can look back on it with absolute pride. It's kept me focused, motivated and on track. Advice from fellow runners along the way has been invaluable and much appreciated. During the races, take as many photos as you want.​
  8. Don't wear out your legs and feet in the parks! This was something I'd heard but didn't really understand and I made this mistake. I pushed to do too much park time during the weekend and it definitely wore me down.​
  9. If you're significant other isn't racing but wants to see you finish, make a well thought out plan beforehand! This was a big mistake we made and hubby and I both really regret that he wasn't there to see my half marathon finish. Make sure you leave enough time for your family to get to the finish line, have access to wifi or be in contact throughout the course, use the runner tracking system that RunDisney offers at the expo and arrange a meeting point so that you can find one another in the post race crowd.​
  10. Train for endurance not time! In the months before W&D I spent way too much time and effort trying to improve my time per kilometre. Pushing to improve time definitely aggravated my calf strain and put me under unnecessary pressure. When it came to race weekend I threw away the race clock and just enjoyed the experience. Had I have realised this sooner I could have saved myself a lot of pain, stress and worry.​
  11. Pre-order any official merchandise you don't want to miss out on! We arrived quite early at the expo, around 10:30am. The expo had only officially been open for about 30 minutes before we arrived but things were already flying off the shelves and people were frantically trying to find certain pins and race jackets. I almost missed out on the weekend race jacket which would have devastated me but I was very lucky to find a lady who was trying to decide between a Medium or a Large and generously handed me the Medium I needed. Had that not have happened I wouldn't have brought home that jacket which I absolutely LOVE!! A lot of people stress about the sizing but we saw an exchange area where you could exchange your race shirts and pre-purchased merchandise if it was too large or too small.​
There are a hundred other tips I could leave here but these were the big ones for us. There are so many great resources here on the DisBoards but I also found a heap of great advice on YouTube and Pinterest.

When I finished my RunDisney race weekend I didn't think I would do it again. The early starts were a little brutal and it definitely forces you to plan a very different kind of holiday when you have a race weekend smack bang in the middle. But now that 2 months has passed I'm excited to report that I've set myself a new goal. This one is a big one and one that this year has logically been working towards.

I'M GOING TO RUN 2021 MARATHON WEEKEND, COMPLETE THE DOPEY CHALLENGE AND RUN MY FIRST FULL MARATHON!!
:yay::yay::yay::yay::yay::rainbow::rainbow::rainbow::yay::yay::yay::yay::yay:


I don't think I'll keep an online training journal this time but watch this space on that.

I hope you've all enjoyed my training journal and 2019 journey. Thank you to each and everyone of you who's followed along, offered encouragement and kept me motivated. It means more than I could ever say.​
 
I'd love to know how you've added your trip reports and reports underway to your signature! I've been trying to figure it out and have today updated my trip ticker but I can't for the life of me figure out how to add my report links :(

There's a button at the top of the signature editing box that looks like two chain links linked together. That's what you use to out in the link and whatever text you want the link to actually say.
 
Thank you for sharing your journey! I've really enjoyed following along. I hope you will keep a journal here for Dopey 2021 :goodvibes

Your medal picture in front of the castle is AMAZING :lovestruc

I'm not a.bag person, but I am drooling over your new DB.

What on Earth is this lizard running group I keep seeing mentioned?
 
Thank you for sharing your journey! I've really enjoyed following along. I hope you will keep a journal here for Dopey 2021 :goodvibes

Your medal picture in front of the castle is AMAZING :lovestruc

I'm not a.bag person, but I am drooling over your new DB.

What on Earth is this lizard running group I keep seeing mentioned?

I'm so glad to have had you along for the ride and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I think I will do a training journal for Dopey 2021 but I don't know that it'll be nearly as exciting as this one LOL! My focus for 2020 is to be kinder to my body, take more time for myself and build those pesky muscles that caused me grief in 2019. Since returning from Wine & Dine I've been in a real running/motivation slump and have barely done 20km's on the road. Now that the new year has ticked over though I'm refocusing and scheduling at least 2 visits to the gym each week to focus on pump classes, weights and building strength. 2019 was all about cardio and I can see now that this was a mistake and was bound to lead to injury. I'm also trying to do a pilates or yoga class a week as well. So for at least now there will be less km's on the road and more time on those muscles :)

Ahhh my wonderful lizards. There's a podcast called Be Our Guest Podcast. I started listening to Mike, Pam & Rikki about 2 years ago and they kept mentioning their running group on the podcast, the Be Our Guest Podcast Lizards. So naturally I got curious and it all went from there. Up until Wine & Dine we'd only ever chatted over the Facebook page or read each others updates but when we finally met face to face they were like long lost friends. I've tried other running groups but I've always ended up leaving thanks to too many egos or too much focus on results rather than just celebrating each others own journey. The Lizards really are the most amazing group of runners I've ever met and we all encourage each other wether it's a couch to 5k scenario or a 50 marathons in 50 states challenge (which one Lizard did actually complete in 2019!!).
 


You are not alone. I know I need to do better about cross-training. I'm currently following along with the Iron Strength for Runners DVD about once every other week, but I know it's not enough. Yoga Burn keeps popping up in my Facebook feed so I'm tempted to give it a try. Her energy seems pretty great. Unfortunately, I'm too far from a gym for that to be a viable option.

I'll have to look into that podcast. I've been listening to Culpable which is about a homicide that the police department in my hometown ruled as a suicide, supposedly to cover up the involvement of the last Attorney General's son. I'm on the last episode, so looking for something new.

Everyone gets into a running slump sometimes, but a short break is probably good for your body and mind.
 

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