From Pennies To Yennies

I woke up Saturday morning ready for the 10k. I didn’t get much sleep, but that’s just how it goes during RunDisney race weekends. I had breakfast and got dressed. I was running as Minnie Mouse!

I caught my shuttle to EPCOT and was later than I’d planned. The shuttle had a super long line. I got there eventually though, and caught the tail end of TeamRunDisney‘s meetup. I didn’t recognize many people but finally met a friend from Twitter named Carla. So that was nice!

I started heading to my corral and was on the lookout for some of the people I’d spent time with the day before, but no luck. I did however finally meet Shannon! We’ve been chatting online for quite a while and she also lives in Seattle.

I didn’t see anyone else, so I went to my corral. From there things moved pretty quickly. I was in corral C, and as they bring each corral to the start line you walk past the others and they cheer for you. It’s pretty neat, and was even cooler the day before, being in A and having all the corrals cheering. Anyway, Corrals A and B took off, and soon we were off too!
Obligatory start line photo

The course was pretty different from what I expected, I wasn’t happy the first half but in retrospect I think I enjoyed it. My biggest issue was readapting to the Florida humidity, and my headphones broke. I really hate running without music, so all I did was run in silence and dwell on the heat. We did a long out and back on the highway before entering EPCOT.
Toy soldiers as we entered EPCOT

We ran the World Showcase again which I just love. The sun was rising and it was a great reminder why I love to do these Disney runs. I stopped by the America pavilion to get my picture with Tianna, Naveen and Louis. I waited in line for 10 minutes or so, and with only 3 people in front of me Tianna and Naveen leave! Louis was still there though, and I’m working on conquering this character fear thing, so I went for it. I posed with my arms crossed thinking he’d do the same, like the girl in front of me, but at the last minute he threw his arm around me! I didn’t love it but hey, I survived.

Once we finished running the World Showcase, we left the park and ran the Boardwalk, running past the 3 resorts. This was great because again, I did it during the marathon at mile 23 and just have zero memory of it. So it was nice to run it and enjoy it. Soon we were back in EPCOT and basically heading to the front of the park and backstage to finish. With the heat and character stops I had a lousy time, like 1:35 or so, but again I don’t really do the Disney races for time.
Inaugural Enchanted 10k, done!

I still hadn’t found any friends so I decided to head to my shuttle to the hotel. As I was leaving I saw my friend Jillian and decided to go say hi to her. I kid you not, as I was approaching her and a friend she was chatting with, it just started raining! People were taking cover, and she looked up and saw me, and I basically said hi and ran away to get on a dry bus. I knew I’d see her again though!

I got breakfast at my hotel’s food court again and ate in my room.

The plan was to go to Animal Kingdom with Dee and Rachel. I went ahead and got ready, then just hung out, checking email, reading etc. I finally decided a nap wouldn’t kill me, and was only asleep for about 10 minutes when I got the text that they were heading out! D’oh! I’ll never learn that Run Disney weekends and sleep don’t mix.

I was really dragging at this point. I met the girls at the park and we also ran into Amy, the birthday girl from the night before, so we were a nice foursome strolling the park. Did some rides, ate some stuff. A typical day of fun!
Expedition Everest! Amy and I in the back and Rachel in front of us. Not pictured: Dee, who doesn’t like rollercoasters and had found a vegan food cart. Also, I’m not super sweaty, we’d just got caught in a total downpour!

And of course we did the safari because I love it! I’m sad they don’t do the whole plotline about the elephant poachers anymore though. Maybe it was too scary? Lots of giraffes were out and close to us though!

After we’d had enough of Animal Kingdom, we headed to the Beach Club resort to go to another meetup. A running group called Racing the Dream was holding a Kitchen Sink meetup. What’s a kitchen sink? A monstrosity. The ingredients are:
½ cup fudge topping, warmed
½ cup butterscotch topping, warmed
½ cup peanut butter topping, warmed
1 medium banana, sliced in 1/2 –inch slices
1 cinnamon spice cupcake (2 ½ x 1 ¼-inch), quartered
1 angel food cupcake (3 x 1 ½-inch), quartered
2 4-oz. scoops vanilla ice cream
2 4-oz. scoops chocolate ice cream
2 4-oz. scoops strawberry ice cream
1 4-oz. scoop mint chocolate chip ice cream
1 4-oz. scoop coffee ice cream
3 tablespoons chocolate syrup
¼ cup marshmallow crème
¼ cup strawberry topping
¼ cup pineapple topping
1 14-oz can dairy whipped topping
1 brownie (6-inch x 6-inch), quartered
1 regular-sized (2 ounce) candy bar, quartered
4 chocolate cookies with cream filling
1 tablespoon sliced toasted almonds
1 tablespoon dark and white chocolate shavings
1 tablespoon chocolate cookies with cream filling, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped jellied orange slices (approximately 2 large slices)
1 tablespoon milk chocolate chip morsels
1 tablespoon peanut butter chip morsels
1 tablespoon chocolate sprinkles
1 tablespoon rainbow sprinkles
½ cup drained maraschino cherries
It’s insane. And HUGE. No one person goes and gets themselves a kitchen sink. So I thought this meetup was a pretty neat idea!
Almost everyone who attended the meetup. Jazz hands!

Photo by Liz Patel
While we waited for our kitchen sinks to be made, we chatted about the races, our lives outside of running, and all sorts of other things. We also noticed how we all had race wristbands on (if you run more than one race for a challenge, Disney makes you wear a wristband all weekend as “proof of finish”), Magic bands for the parks, and a bunch of us had Fitbits. We called it the “arm party”. We were also rather color coordinated

Alas, it was kitchen sink time.

We were given bowls so we weren’t all eating out of a trough, and got to work. Amy, Michael, Rachel and I all worked on it, and I honestly think we would have finished if it hadn’t melted to soup towards the end.
Our table. Can you tell I was excited about the kitchen sink?!

After much socializing and ice creaming, we headed out. The rain had stopped and it was beautiful out! The plan was to go to a s’more bake and singalong at the campgrounds, but I decided to bow out in favor of a good night’s sleep for once. To my surprise a lot of people looked relieved! We all ended up heading out!
Jillian, Rachel, Dee, me and Amy!

Of course, this is Florida, and while waiting for our boat to take us to the buses at Hollywood Studios it started pouring. I couldn’t help but notice how color coordinated Dee was…

We parted ways and called it a night. I was exhausted, and went to bed around 7:45pm. Success! Half marathon the next day!