Wine and Dine Half Marathon 2013 Part 1

So what does a running blogger blog about when she can't run?  Past glory, of course!  In my case, race recaps.  And let's start with the one that got me into the boot for 6 weeks, shall we?

First, allow me to point out that I had run exactly 2 5Ks and done the Expedition Everest Challenge when I was, um, persuaded to sign up for the 2013 Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  That being said, I fully embraced the challenge and started my Galloway/Higdon training plan mash-up all the way back in June.

After weeks of training the big day was finally here.  If you've ever participated in a Disney race, you know that you have to get to the start early, so get to the start early we did.  There was lots of entertainment and portalets, but never enough portalets I discovered later.  We dropped the bag and went through the portalet line twice because there was no wait.  And then, we waited.  And waited.  Sat on the grass and waited.  Found our running buddies (all much faster than us) and sat and waited some more.  Portalet'ed again.  And then it was almost time to head to the corrals.  And I wanted to portalet just one more time, but so did every one of the 14,000 other people at that race and I couldn't wait in a 45 minute line.  It would come back to haunt me.

I'm gonna stop right here and say that whenever possible I run in costume.  I love coming up with them and putting them together.  Because the Wine and Dine finishes at the Food and Wine Festival at EPCOT I dressed like Figment. It was totally worth it because I got tons of comments and cheers and people wanted to take their picture with me.  Mark didn't dress up and was jealous.

I cut the feet out of a pair of socks for the arm warmers that I could toss and not feel guilty.  Mark (my husband, guess I haven't introduced him yet) thought I was a genius for this.

So back to the corrals.  For the first time in a race, I felt cramped and claustrophobic in the corral.  We were in K (out of A-L), so our corral did have more people, but it was really cramped and once you were in, you were in.  And then we sat down some more, because we waited probably 45 minutes before corral A moved to the start line.  Forty-five long, crowded minutes with no way to stretch or keep warm.  But all was forgotten when we started moving...