January 2020 – The Full Dopey – Day 1

So I decided I’ll report in for this one since it was a very unique and exciting trip for Christy and me!

I’ll preface by saying that, aside from the monetary costs involved, Christy and I spent a year preparing for the Dopey Challenge! Our training consisted of running 3 times per week most weeks, only skipping a run when weather was dangerous or something unexpected and unavoidable came up (like an injury or family emergency). We even ran on our vacations in 2019! 2 runs per week were run/walk/run intervals for 30 minutes. The weekend run was a distance that we completed at our best comfortable run/walk pace. Weekend runs would alternate between 3 miles one week and expanding on our longest distance the next. In our last couple months of training we were running 6 or 7 miles 2 weekends in a row, and then on every 3rd weekend, expanding our distance to 17 miles, then 20 miles, then 24 miles. So we devoted entire days to this. Back in September we ran an official 1/2 Marathon at a 11:55/mile pace to submit it for official proof of time for the Dopey Challenge. This got us in Corral E for the 1/2 and Full Marathons of the Dopey Challenge instead of way back in F, G, or H Corrals.

Now to the report…We left home on Wednesday, January 8th at 3:00am to drive to Baltimore/Washington Airport and get there by around 4:00am. We checked our bags (complete with Magical Express tags) and went through security. We had TSA Pre Check which is pretty much amazing! We then snagged a VERY early breakfast at Chick-fil-A and waited to board our flight. We flew via Southwest and our flight took off at 6:00am. The first non-stop flight to Orlando for the day! Some winter weather had hit us the day before, but didn’t delay our flight at all, but they did have to spray the plane with de-icer fluid.

We had a smooth flight and touched down in Orlando around 8:30am. We made our way to the Magical Express and were admitted right onto the bus! The bus left about 5 minutes after we got on. It was PERFECT timing! We were staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village in a Studio. Our stop was the second one (after Jambo House). Of course our room was not yet ready, so we left most of our things with Bell Services and hopped a shuttle to the RunDisney Expo at Wide World of Sports. Again, we experienced perfect timing as the shuttle arrived just as we walked out to the bus stop! We had never been to the Wide World of Sports before so we were kind of soaking in the vastness of it as we walked up to the arena to check-in for the Dopey Challenge. All the while, we were keeping up via text with @starbee who had arrived with her husband the day before and @eeyorepoohfan who was still on her way to Orlando with her husband.

Now I didn’t pay close attention to some of the details, so when we got our running bibs I was excited to receive 6 running shirts with them! Nice quality too! Apparently @starbee checked in shortly after us because she saw our names signed in the book when she walked up We then went to the exhibit area and I have never seen so much runner’s merch in one place. They had everything I could think of and a large number of things I never knew existed. While there, we stopped by a food table and got some BBQ sliders for a savory snack since I was famished! Outside, Christy got a coffee from the Joffrey’s stand. We then went down to the RunDisney official merch building. We saw an enormous line to get in just to see the merch, but at @eeyorepoohfan ‘s behest, we made sure to “Wait in that line!”. After waiting in it for about 20 minutes or so, I realized why there was a beer cart in the room with us A little while longer, we were in the room with the merch. They had a lot of really cool things that we didn’t buy (but we have no regrets). The funniest thing was the “Sleepy Challenge” T-Shirt that had the dwarf, Sleepy, on it and said “I slept through the whole thing! 0.0 miles” Right before we were about to leave we bumped into @starbee and her husband (who had purchased the Sleepy Challenge shirt Who could blame him?). We chatted for a short while. There it was, my first official D-COT meet!

Christy and I returned to our resort to drop off our shirts with Bell Services. Our room still wasn’t ready, so we headed to Epcot for the afternoon. We used our FastPasses at Spaceship Earth, then Soarin’. We did some shopping at Mouse Gear and then I took a ride on Mission: SPACE by myself…I’m used to it. One of the guys in the simulator with me wasn’t. We did the lift off part and he was going “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” the whole way up!

After that, we headed to Morocco where we had our ADR at Spice Road Table. We had never dined there before. We were outside and it was a cool and breezy 60-some degrees. But having come from 20-some degrees at home, we were happy! I even ordered a Moroccan Mint Iced Tea! It was the mintiest tea I’ve ever had (and they make some minty tea there)! It hit the spot, but not like the food did. For an appetizer we split the Brie Fondue. It was out of this world good and was a perfect start to the meal. For entrees, Christy got the Yellowfin Tuna and I got the Coriander-crusted Rack of Lamb. The Tuna was very good, but the Lamb was EXCELLENT. We went to 2 more restaurants this trip where lamb was available, but I refused to order it because I knew it wouldn’t compare.

After dinner, we walked to France’s Les Halles for dessert. Christy ordered a Framboise and I got the Duo. Both were rich and flavorful, but the Duo definitely won out! When the Frenchman behind the counter recommends it, it has to be good!

We debated staying for the fireworks, but knowing we had a 2:30am wake-up call, we decided to stroll the rest of World Showcase and then leave. We stopped in the Odyssey building to see the 10-minute preview show of all the plans they have in store for Epcot in the near future. I have to say, I was skeptical about it all, but much of it does look promising. We got back to Kidani around 7:30pm, picked up our grocery delivery and went to our room. We had Bell Services bring up the rest of our bags we had dropped with them and our checked luggage was already in the room. We settled in, prepared our clothes and such for the early morning and went to bed. It had been a great first day, but all 48.6 miles of the Dopey Challenge still was ahead of us!