Monday, September 28, 2009

Expedition Everest or Monsoon?






We had so much fun during our weekend . The weekend began early on Friday when I drove with all 3 kids to The Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had never stayed at this hotel before and we all were really looking forward to the new experience. We arrived and the “magically” had a room ready for me (score!) and when I got to the room my hubs and kids had a “birthday basket” waiting for me. Lot of CHOCOLATE- yummy! Then Hubs decided to take an earlier flight so our whole schedule was thrown off BUT we adjusted. We went over to the Wild World of Sports to pick up the packet for the Expedition Everest race and I was really looking forward to the expo. I shouldn’t have! It was the absolutely saddest expo that I had ever been to L
We then went to T-rex for lunch which was excellent as usual. Back to the hotel and then off to pick up Dave from the airport. Then we went to Animal Kingdom (which will be a theme on this vacation). We went out for my birthday dinner at Boma which was probably the best meal at Disney that I had ever had. It was seriously that wonderful.
The next day we woke up and went to MGM who had extra magic hours for Ryan to be able to go on Toy Story Mania. We fastpassed it and waited in line so that we would be able to go twice. Then we took the kids over to see JoJo and Goliath. I was extremely sad for this because I took Ashley to see JoJo when she was Lexi’s age. Then we went and picked up Auntie Becky and went to Downtown Disney. Ryan had a great time in the Lego store and we just enjoyed walking around. We decided to spend some time at the pool and rest our legs for the night ahead.
We arrived for Ashley’s race at about 5:45 and her race started at 6:30. We took the pre-pictures and went to the port a potties many times and then it was time for her to go. Because there were obstacles in this race and not just running parents were “encouraged” to run with their kids. SO- Ash and I lined up and off we went. She did great. She ran and then had to climb under a cargo net, go across a balance beam, over a wall, and then had a scavenger hunt in a baby pool. She conquered those obstacles with style and received her medal like the champ she is. Well at this point it was maybe 6:45 and Dave and I were in WAVE 10 to start our race, so we packed our kids off with Auntie Becky back to the hotel and soon we were really glad that we did.
Wave 1 began promptly at 7:30 and every wave after that went off 5 minutes apart. Like I said earlier we were in Wave 10-yes that is right I said TEN! I have no idea how they set up these waves but oh well…moving on. Our wave began at 8:15 and because I was running with Dave and very happy to be doing so, I went at his pace. His pace is fast at the beginning then slowing down, where as my pace is slow at the beginning and progressively getting quicker as the race goes on. So, we took off pretty quick and soon we were passing people that were in Wave 9 (Dave’s goal met) and we continued running through the parking lot for Mile1. Mile 2 went really well. It was the portion of the race that was out and back. People were screaming walkers to left the WHOLE time but we just weaved through when we were going to hit walkers. Dave has nerve damage in 3 of his toes and they were bothering him so we slowed a bit (not a lot) but really we were moving at a 9 minute or so pace. We got to mile 2.5 and the sky opened up and the rain POURED down on us. I do not mean a light sprinkle but a monsoon. We made it to the finish of the the 5k and knew the obstacle course was going to be sloppy. (Remember – I don’t like to be dirty) I sucked it up though and we did the obstacle course pretty quickly. The scavenger hunt was a mess!!! The book they gave us with the clues was completely useless because it fell apart. It was raining so hard there were lakelike puddles in the streets that we had to walk through. We started running again just so that we could finish, get our medals, and go back to the hotel. We did finish and the scavenger hunt wasn’t even checked because (duh) the books fell apart and we couldn’t even write on them but all in all it was a very fun experience.
I have 2 weeks until the Race for the Taste 10K and I am so excited to see what kind of fun that weekend holds.
Tomorrow I have 6-6.5 miles to pump out and I am looking forward to it a lot more than I probably should be.

Happy Running!!

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