On recovery, endorphins, and a stupidly brief stab at lifting weights.

I've been a jerk for the last week. I've been home from Disney for two. I had a week of post-Dopey, pseudo-endorphin fueled euphoria! I ate a lot of food. I slept a lot. I wore my Oofos around the house. I updated my blog to try to grab those memories from Dopey. I didn't unpack my suitcase (although I did make a half-hearted effort at it). I didn't run.

And then I had this week. And this week, it felt like there wasn't anything that didn't trigger a reaction in me--either internally or externally. I was spending the week just below boil. I don't think that's my normal mental temperature; it didn't feel "normal" to me, and I was aware that my reactions to just about everything felt larger than they needed to be. I still didn't run. 

In the last year and a half, I have not gone more than four days without running. For the second half of 2016, I was on a streak. I ran 180+ days straight. And at the end of that running streak at the start of 2017, I started marathon training for the Illinois marathon. And at the end of that training cycle, I started training for the Dopey Challenge. By the end of the year, I had run 1281.38 miles. 

So when I got back from Dopey, I decided to take PLENTY of time off. Two whole weeks. I should have recognized the signs of withdrawal: depression, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, muscle aches and pains, insomnia. Sorry, friends and co-workers. 

And then today I ran. How on earth do people live without the endorphins from running? I even stopped at the Fitness Center to lift after my run (rare!). For a full three hours after my run (of just four miles), I was planning to take on the world. I started by rather unsuccessfully cleaning the house, followed that by taking my daughter to lunch in town and some grocery shopping, came home and finally unpacked my Dopey suitcase. My brain was working in overdrive, too. Wild. 

The timing of Dopey is tricky. It hits right at the beginning of January--the time of year when most of the country is making New Year's resolutions and setting goals for the coming year. Meanwhile, I kicked off the year by nailing a goal from the previous year. And in the two weeks after completing the challenge, I haven't been able to even think about what's next. Feels like just about everyone is thinking only about "What's next?" in their own lives (understandably.) And while I'm not a new year's resolution sort of a gal, I am a goal-oriented gal, but I've had to give myself permission to not think that way. 

Which brings me to today. I lifted when I finished my run. Not sure what that was about. I even considered going online and posting a request for someone to help me learn more about lifting... the horror. I'll have to revisit this one again later in the week. Post-run today, I felt ready to do anything. I'm off that. But I do have to figure out what's next. So maybe what's next is to figure out what's next. 

Dopey Finale--The bling

You might think that the point of running the Dopey challenge is the bling. Especially when the bling is as sweet as this. The picture above is my favorite photo of all those that I took during the races. 

And if the Dopey Challenge is about the bling, there is plenty of it. If you finish all four races, you get three medals on marathon day--the marathon medal, the Goofy Challenge medal (because the Goofy challenge is completing the half and the full), and the Dopey Challenge medal. 

So if you are keeping track, that's a total of six medals for completing four races. And this year the medals were pretty darn sweet. 

A fellow Dopey Challenge participant captured this picture in the park the day after. Because it was the 25th year for the marathon, we were all given a special set of ears as a surprise. Pretty sweet. 

And finally getting to have a beer at Disney Springs and celebrate with my mom after all was said and done was pretty sweet. But none of these pictures really capture the point of running Dopey. 

On any given day if you ask me "Why?", I'll give you one of a hundred answers. Sometimes platitudes: There will come a day when I cannot run. But today is not that day. So I run. 

And we must do the things we think we cannot do. (So said Eleanor Roosevelt.) 

I put 15+ months of work into preparing for this race series, and I'm actually convinced that THAT was what it was about. It was about the prep. And grinding out the miles even when I didn't want to. And I often didn't want to. In order to run 48.6, I ran 1300+ miles of preparation. Today, that's what it's about. Ask me again tomorrow, though. Tomorrow, I do my first run post-Dopey challenge. 

Dopey Challenge--Mickey's Full Mary--26.2 miles, day 4

Mickey Madness through all 4 parks + ESPN Wide World of Sports

We finally all got the message on race morning, and we all wore our mylar blankets from the day before in addition to any other number of layers. This was the view in the corral on race morning:

So much mylar...and so much time!

The strangest thing for me on race morning was that I had no idea how to think about the day ahead. I had spent so much time trying to figure out how I'd get to that start line, that I really had no idea what to think about what should happen when I crossed it. I've run several marathons, and I usually spend a lot of time working on my thinking heading into race day, but at the start of my fourth race in four days, I remember just thinking that I would figure it out as I went along.

They announced several times that we should not cross the start line wearing our mylar blankets because it would screw up the timing system, so I shed my two mylars (one on top and one on the bottom) before I crossed the start line. Other people were tossing off jackets, blankets, and sweatshirts, as well, and I saw a man walking next to me who grabbed someone else's discarded fleece blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking, and I knew from the previous three days that it would take me a couple of miles to warm up, so I snagged the first fleece blanket I saw hanging on the railing, and I wrapped it around my shoulders. Great decision  #1 of the day! 

From park to park on the half day was exciting. But from park to park to park to park on marathon day was amazing. Knowing that I was going to see so many new sights and to cover so much new ground made it easy to get excited about the distance. (And if you read the earlier post about porta johns, you'll know that I was also excited about having access to real bathrooms in each of those parks!). 

While we entered the Magic Kingdom in the dark, the sun came up while I was making my way through the park. 

Notice I remembered both a hat and sunglasses for the daytime run. We came up on the back of the castle, and it was an incredible rush. Then we were off for some uncharted territory for me--the other parks. 

There were a lot of miles between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and not all of them were pleasant. There are about 30,000 runners in the marathon, and at times the course was restricted to a single lane of a road. That made for some incredibly crowded (and sometimes frustrating) conditions. I only heard one nasty exchange between two women--one who was mad because the other started walking and didn't move over before doing so, and the other who pretty much told her where to eff off. The reality, though, was that the course was so narrow in places that it was really difficult to run comfortably. And it was really difficult to walk comfortably. And if you were run-walking, heaven help us all. The only possible solution was to have a lot of patience. 

At the halfway point, we got to run through Animal Kingdom. The park was already open, and Disney managed the crowds incredibly well. And some of the rides were open to runners. Some of my braver running pals jumped on to Expedition Everest. I was afraid that if I even tried to sit down on a ride, I would never get up again. (Plus, Everest kind of terrified me when I rode it on our Spring Break trip down.) 

Everest is really THAT tall. And THAT terrifying.

We left Animal Planet and ran into the misery that is ESPN Wide World of Sports. Narrow paths (think 10 feet wide) running between sports fields. When we first entered the complex, they were blaring "Hail to the Victors" over the speakers, and that was definitely the only highlight. 

Notice that I'm smiling as I run in. 

I hit mile 20 in the baseball stadium at WWOS, and I took my first picture of a mile marker. Because, well, mile 20.

I've yet to see anyone say that they enjoy the run through WWOS, and I'll jump on that bandwagon. I'll also add that somewhere in there, Disney put a guy next to a car with a speaker and a microphone, and I think he was supposed to be encouraging us, but he was the worst motivational speaker ever. If I were going to give Disney any feedback on the entire experience, I'd holler at them about the expo, and I'd holler at them about that guy. He was just truly awful. 

BUT, then we moved on to the next park!

The run through Hollywood Studios isn't long. When we entered the park, I had to stop and capture this moment.. the Tower of Terror. Any Culver friends reading this post will understand why this picture had to be taken. 

And just like that, I was running into Epcot again to finish the race and the Dopey Challenge. The last mile around the World Showcase at Epcot is pretty incredible. Again, the parks are open, and there are people everywhere, but the path for runners is clear. 

I made this face often on marathon day. But this version was my "I did it!" face. 

And here's the marathon medal.

One really cool moment on marathon day was when I was finally coming into the finish line, and a man was standing off to the side of the race chute high-fiving incoming runners. It was only after I had finished that I realized that I had been congratulated on my finish by Jeff Galloway. What a great treat. Jeff's run/walk training was a large part of why I was at the finish line, so it was incredibly apropos that he was there. I am grateful to have gotten to thank him. 

That's it for a marathon report... Dopey wrap-up coming in my final Dopey post. 

Dopey Challenge--13.1 magical miles--The half

Controlling the controllables--Managing the cold

I finally figured out the cold by the time I got to the half marathon. Dialed it in! In addition to all the other layers, I used mylar blankets that I picked up at the end of the previous day's race to wrap around my lower half. Then I had a trash bag on my top half over my other layers. And I started to feel like, "I've got this!"

I met a woman on the bus from the hotel to the race start who was running her first half marathon, and she was so nervous and excited that her energy was infectious. She had no clue what to expect, so she decided to follow me and let me guide her to the start. I loved it. 

But then we got to the starting area, and I discovered that they had moved the start line. A long ways away. So a lot of what I had learned about race logistics from the previous two days was moot. I no longer knew where the best porta john stop was. On 10K morning, I found the perfect place to sit outside of the corrals to hide from the wind AND be comfortable on a sand bag, and that wouldn't work. Ahhhh, well. 

I read a lot about the races ahead of time, and many people wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses. A half a mile! (some people said). On the 5k and 10k days, there was a little bit of a walk from the buses to the corrals, but it certainly wasn't a half mile. It never occurred to me (dope!) that they would move the start line. So all those people who wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses? They weren't kidding. After getting to the 5k/10k start area and realizing that we weren't starting there again, I had to start to come up with a new game plan. When to hit the porta-potties again? (The layers and layers I had on made any port-potty stop an adventure.) Walk to the start line and get into the corrals early? I'm realizing as I write this just how much of my morning race plan centers around timing porta-potty stops. 

Seen Toy Story? One of the plastic soldiers is there to taunt you at the start line.

Found the new start line--that's not it under my head, though.

I walked to the start. I wished my new friend well when we got there a half mile later--she was headed to one of the "party corrals"--corral G, and I was headed to corral E. Corral G is the last (or second-to-last) corral to be released on race morning, and it's for the people who don't enter a race time to get seeded in the early corrals. That means that there is a mix of runners there--fast and slow, partiers and... well, I don't know what the other word is. But it's a fun spot to start (except it means that they have to wait even longer to start running, and that's rough on a cold morning!)

By day 3 of Dopey, I was finally dressed warmly enough to not have to dance around through the wait in the corrals to stay comfortable, so I decided to relax. And that's how I ended up with that picture of me laying on the road waiting for a half marathon to start.

The half heads out to the MK and back

The route of the half puts Dopey runners in new territory. While we do start at Epcot, the run is primarily about getting to the Magic Kingdom and back. That was exciting. Race plan for the half was the same as the others--run slowly and save my legs for the full marathon on Sunday morning. 

The road to the Magic Kingdom was dark, and I am not speaking metaphorically. It was actually dark. And there wasn't much entertainment. But it was easy to get into "easy run" mode and just go with the crowd. If I were to do the races again, I might think about having some sort of light on my shoes for those back roads, though. There were a number of uneven surfaces, and I saw more than one person who was tripped up out there by something on the road. 

I knew we were getting closer to MK when I came up on Mickey in the form of a hot air balloon in the middle of the road. Surreal. 

And then I teared up a little bit and had to stop for a selfie at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. The iconic gateway is even more special when you run through it in the early morning hours. 

And a closer view of the gate without the selfie...

Trying to capture the gateway without tripping or slowing down too much. 

And there is really nothing like running up Main Street USA towards the castle while cheering crowds high-five you. Serious happiness!

Heading towards the castle

Coming back around and through the castle.

The finish of the half is at Epcot again, but we only run up and around the fountain and Spaceship Earth and then head back out to the finish line. 

Not my best pictures, but hey... I finished, and I apparently wanted to document that each and every time. 

Each day you run at Disney, you learn something new for the next day. That was certainly true during the half. So lessons from the half:

1. Bring your sunglasses. The 5k and 10k happened almost entirely in the dark, so I didn't think to pack my sunglasses for the half. And because it was so cold and dark in the morning, I had a beanie on in the morning instead of a ball cap. So once that sun came out, I had nothing to protect my eyes. Squinting=extra layer of fatigue. 

2. Make a nutrition plan, and don't rely on Disney nutrition. 1)You can't eat at 3:00 when you wake up and expect that to hold you through a 5:30 start time. 2) A peanut butter sandwich in the corrals at 4:30 is a great start, but it still won't be enough. 3) Whatever your plan is for nutrition, add more calories to it because your metabolism from the two previous days will be in high gear, and you will be hungry. 4) Oreos at mile 9 of the half marathon will work in a pinch. 

           All that being said, the folks I talked to before the race told me that there would be plenty of food on the course. People told me that there would be food out there that wasn't even on the race guide: gu, sports beans, power-aide, bananas, candy. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to carry my own nutrition--one of the benefits of doing a race series like this is that it's a catered long run! The reality of race day was different from what I had heard, though, and I was glad I had my own nutrition with me.

          Each morning, I packed a ziploc baggie with a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water. For the half marathon, I also threw in some peanut butter crackers. And at 4:30, I ate that breakfast in the corrals. For the half marathon, I also decided to wear my Nathan Intensity Race Vest and load it up with water even though there ARE plenty of water stops on Disney's courses. I wanted to be able to drink whenever it fit into my plan, so I decided to carry my own. I also had a couple of these Nathan bottles  filled with my favorite nutrition for long distances--UCAN in Cocoa Delite. I usually plan on one bottle of UCAN for about five miles of running, so I planned to drink two for the half marathon and then supplement with either stuff from the course or salted caramel Gu that I had with me. 

          There was NOT any Gu out on the course (unless I ran past it and didn't see it). And there were Sports Beans on the course, but I won't take those during a race. I used them during both Ironman-distance races and I ended up with horrible stomach cramps. The Sports Beans may not have been at fault, but I wasn't going to take any chances. 

          I drank all my UCAN by mile 8. I supplemented with a Gu packet. But I hit mile marker 9, and my stomach was growling. GROWLING. I reached in my pack to find something else to eat, and I found only Oreos from the RunDisney box I had been given the day before. All good! I'd eat anything. I did get a couple of looks from other runners on the course as I was munching on some cookies, but they may have been looks of envy. That pile of sugar hit the spot. And I knew then that I'd need to come up with a better plan for the marathon. 

Oh, and I almost forgot! Each day at the end of the races, Mickey, Minnie, Dopey, and Goofy were there for pictures. I decided to get my picture taken with Dopey after the half. (I wasn't sure I would get there in time to see him after the full or that I would feel like doing it.) I kept thinking, "I'm coming for you, Dopey!" It didn't seem right to act like I was going to punch him, though...

Dopey Challenge--The forgotten 10K

Crazy eyes at the finish line

The 10K finish chute

I should have taken notes on the 10k! It's a blur. The course for the 10K is pretty similar to the course of the 5K--we started in the same place, and then we ran out onto a road before running back into Epcot. They also added on a run around the Boardwalk hotels. For me, that was cool; I've been to Epcot a number of times, and I had no idea that whole resort area was back there. Here's the map:


I really enjoyed running with someone on the 5K day, but I also came away from the 5K day knowing that I hadn't run my own pace or race. And that worried me. I went in to 10k race morning knowing I needed to save my legs for the 1/2 and full. And I went into 10k race morning resolved to run my own race and to run it slowly. To that end, I also made the decision to not seek out a lot of conversation in the morning corrals with other runners. Frankly, I was worried that if I didn't resolve to hang by myself, I'd end up back in someone else's race plan again.

I managed to feel warmer on 10K morning. Best piece of running gear that morning: A large lawn waste trash bag. I remember discovering when I got to the race start that I had accidentally grabbed two trash bags that morning. And I knew that I had only packed enough for the four races, so the 10k morning's bit of gear nonsense was me deciding to carry a folded up trash bag through the whole run so that I would have enough to use one for the half and the full. (This reminded me of the time that I ran a 10k in Louisville while carrying a race shirt rolled up in each of the pockets of the jacket I had tied around my waist because we arrived late to the race start. I had to decide to ditch the shirts or run six miles carrying them. I carried them.)

The only other thing I remember now about 10k morning was that I was okay thinking I just needed to get it over with. My mind was on the longer runs, and I knew this was one step on the way to those longer runs. I didn't stop to take pictures until the finish. Medal from the 10K is cool, though!

Minnie hosts the 10k, so this is the Minnie medal. 

Oh, and that trash bag I carried with me in my pocket for 6.2 miles? I lost it somewhere between the finisher chute and the bus back to the hotel. Had to come up with plan C (or D...I don't know which plan I was up to at that point!)

Dopey Challenge--Pluto's 5K (The actual first event.)

A 5k? 3.1 miles? In the two months leading up to the start of Dopey, my shortest run was a taper run of 3 miles. Prior to that taper run, I hadn't done a run as short as three miles since mid-November. Everything was longer. So it wasn't the distance that was intimidating. It was about shaking off the first-morning jitters, getting a feeling for the lay of the land at 3:00 in the morning, and trying to figure out just how cold the start would be.

Disney requires that all runners be on the buses no later than 4:00 for a 5:30 start time. The temperature on the morning of the 5k was 26 degrees. And the high for the day was to be about 40 degrees. And the race was going to be done before sunrise, so I didn't expect to run in temperatures above 30.

I'd done a ton of reading ahead of time, and people warned me that standing in the corrals would be the worst part, so I wore layers. Lots of layers. My mom tried to capture my look before I walked out the door:


But frankly, this was four layers short. I had a long-sleeved Skirt Sports top  with a t-shirt from my high school over the top of it. And I had a skirt sports skirt + leggings on the bottom I was really hoping that I'd be able to represent Culver at the races, but my survival skills got the better of me. I was going to be warm at the start line no matter what.

Before I headed out the door, I added a light jacket (for wind resistance), a hoodie sweatshirt (that I planned to throw away at the start of the race), a $2.50 fleece blanket from Walmart, and I stuffed a trash bag in my pocket to add if I needed it. On the bottom, I added a pair of the ugliest $1.96 pair of fleece Christmas pants I could find on the Walmart clearance rack.

And let me say right now, I was effing cold. I have run in temperatures here in Indiana where people have called me crazy. I have run in temperatures so low that people haven't been able to start their cars. But let me tell you, it's one thing to dress for the temperatures in your house, run out the door and do your run, and come home to warm up. It's another to get dressed in a hotel room and then go stand in a corral for an hour and a half before running. I was a popsicle by the time the 5k race started.

I was still smiling when I got on the bus with my extra layers....

And now for today's tip: If you have a trash bag in your pocket at the start of a race, use it. For some reason, I got off the bus, and I felt just fine, so I decided to set my trash bag down on a table so someone else could take it if they wanted to. An hour and a half later, I was certainly regretting that decision. The wind was eating me alive. And I was cold.

We're all in this together, folks. (This year's mantra, it seems...) Look at all those hats! We were all cold. The start line of the Pluto 5K was all lit up. And we got fireworks. Little ones. 

I'm not sure how many waves there were, but I was in corral C. And they sent us off in waves with a minute apart. I crossed the start line somewhere in the 5:40 range. I chatted with a woman who had run a number of Disney races in the corral before the race, and we ended up doing the whole 5k together. And I never took my sweatshirt off. It was THAT cold.

I teared up when we entered Epcot. It was so beautiful. All the buildings around World Showcase were lit up beautifully, and they were playing music through the speakers, and Disney has a great sound system, so the tunes were just amazing. 

My feet never did warm up. But it was a good first-race jitters kind of a race. I also didn't try to stop for character stops anywhere along the way. Those are pretty popular on the 5K, but it just wasn't my thing. I did stop to take this quick shot with Dory outside of the Finding Nemo ride. "Just keep running. Just keep running." 

I finally got back to the room at 7:30 or so, and my mom snapped this picture. Me in my throwaway top (I'd wear it again the next day for the 10k). And my first of three medals. 

When people have asked me this week which race was the hardest, this is actually the one that comes to mind. It wasn't hardest because of the distance. But it was hardest because of the nerves, the cold, the unfamiliar logistics... And frankly, when I got back to the room and was thinking about prepping for the 10k, I was most concerned about the cold. I wasn't sure how I could handle the cold again the next day. 

(Spoiler: I managed the cold better each day, and the weather got four or five degrees warmer each morning.)

Here's the 5K map:

Dopey Challenge--The expo! (Perhaps the first event...)

I decided not to bring my computer with me to Florida, so my reflections come post-Disney. It's been a week since the 10k; five days since I ran the marathon. I did it! I'm a Dopey! (And it was awesome...)

I'll post here, then, about the Dopey Challenge from start to finish in hopes that my experience might help someone else who is considering doing the series. And while the race series is a 5k/10k/half/full on four consecutive days, there are all kinds of factors beyond the actual races that impact performance. I felt like the fifth event was early start/cold corrals. That required some serious endurance. But it all started with the expo...

This was the closest I could get to Dopey at the expo.

I was flying from Indiana in to Orlando in early January, and I'm a nervous flyer, so I was watching the weather like a hawk. The weather in Indiana was clear enough for our takeoff, but the weather in Florida was... well, cold. I spent the week watching the weather channel, and the predicted temps for the race days kept dropping. I filled my luggage with throwaway clothes for the start lines, and I was grateful that I wasn't planning on any elaborate Disney-style costumes.

Magical Express--Mom at Disney for the first time in 30 years

We got to Orlando's airport at about 2:30 in the afternoon and took Disney's Magical Express over to our hotel (Pop Century Resort). I used the online check-in service, and we had a text message with our room number on my phone when we arrived, so we got to skip the front desk and head straight to our room. We planned to use the Magical Express luggage service, as well. When Disney sent me luggage tags, they sent me just two. I called Disney before we left, and they told me that we could just tell the cast member at the Magical Express reception area that we needed the other two bags and give them our baggage claim tickets and Disney would make sure that they got to our room.

We got to our room. I'm not intending this to be a major review of Disney resorts, but I'll say that our room was pretty great considering the price! Below are some pics: 

 I left my mom hanging out there so that I could get over and back to the expo quickly. Disney provides plenty of transportation to and from the expo. Buses seemed to run about every twenty minutes from our hotel over to ESPN Wide World of Sports, so I went over and hopped on one of those and left my mom in the room. 

I headed over to the only chaotic part of the weekend. To this day, I'm still a little bit stunned that Disney didn't have their act together any better. The expo was nuts. Here's why:

1. ESPN Wide World of Sports is huge, and there wasn't adequate signage. People were there to pick up packets for the 5k/10k/half/full/Dopey Challenge/Goofy Challenge. And some people were there solely to buy out as much Disney merchandise as possible to list it that day on Ebay and suck the blood out of the people who were actually doing the race (issues!). And there wasn't signage directing anyone anywhere. The only direction I could get from people was "follow the people who are in front of you." That's good for race day, but it's not good for packet pick-up when packet pick-up means finding one of six different areas. Advice for someone doing it in the future? Get there early. Or make sure that you show up with lots of patience.

2.  There's one line you have to find (and you really do have to find it--there's no signage) for packet pickup. It's an adventure. And the people are really nice. But you have to have a signed waiver (print it before you leave home or you have to wait in line to do that, too), and you have to have your license with you to pick up your race number. And if you are doing Dopey, you have to make sure you get your picture taken with your bib at the expo. It looked a little bit like a touristy thing and not a requirement, so I almost walked out without doing it, but then I realized what it was and jumped in to get my picture taken. 

3. And then, there are two expos, technically speaking. And you have to leave the place where you picked up your bib to go back into either of the expos. And those aren't labeled, either. 

The Running Stuff Expo

The running stuff expo was pretty sweet. I got a new pair of running shoes (I run in Brooks Ghosts right now) for a sweet price. And I also got a pair of Oofo's  recovery sandals. That was my big splurge. (And they were amazing on the hard floors of our hotel room as I piled on the miles!). But I was really most interested in visiting the Disney Merchandise section. Until I walked out the door and found the line for it... 

The line for the Disney Merchandise Expo

I checked my social media chatter, and people were saying that they waited in this line for an hour or longer just to get into the area with the RunDisney merchandise. And then once they were in the area, the lines were even more out of control to check out. And while I was really interested in snagging some Dopey swag, I was disgusted at the line. No one knows how to do lines like Disney; seriously, if you've ever been in the parks, you know that you can stand in a line for hours and not feel it. But that expo line was brutal. So I left. No Dopey swag for me. 

Got back to the hotel, snagged my mom for dinner, and went to eat in the Pop Century dining area. And when we got back to the room, our suitcases were there... well, two of them. My mom's suitcases didn't make it over from the airport. At this point, it was 6:30 at night. I called the resort, and they said that they knew where my mom's suitcases were, but they weren't at our resort. And they said they would bring them to our room when they arrived. (If you are thinking, "That's pretty nonspecific!", you are thinking what I was thinking.)

I'll do the 5k prep as part of another post, but we needed to get to bed. It had been a long day, and I was wound up about the 5k. I put my clothes out for the next morning (again, details on that later), and I tried to go to sleep, but my mom's suitcases still weren't there. They finally arrived at our room at 11:15 at night. 

Frankly, that's it for Disney snafus for this trip. 

1. The expo was a mess with no signage. 

2. The Disney merchandise at the expo was inaccessible. 

3. Disney's Magical Express luggage service was a little less than magical. 

After that, it only gets better! (And frankly, that wasn't all THAT bad.) More in the 5K post next.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what the early morning schedule for these races looks like, here it is (and they aren't kidding about those times you are supposed to be on the bus):