Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon April 2018 Day 5

Sunday April 22nd:
Half Marathon Day! 2:15am wake up. Neither Ryan nor I could sleep. We got maybe an hour total. We usually sleep better than that before a race. So we were beyond exhausted! We were on our bus by 3:30am. We were dropped off pretty quickly and found Scott & Kathy. We got in line to meet Captain Phasma since she is the one that is on our finisher medal. We barely got through the line before we needed to start working toward the corrals. Ryan was in Corral C and I was in E. I ended up starting in wave 2 of E. They release approximately 1,000 people per wave to help spread runners out. Ryan and I were VERY undertrained for this race. Our spring was not kind to us. Lots of forest fires in the state so our air was smokey. The winds were relentless and so was the pollen. Our longest training run had been 9 miles and that was about a month before the race. I knew this race was going to be hard and painful but I did not anticipate it being as bad as it was. At the 5:30am race start it was 71* and 87% humidity. I was prepared for the heat by running with a cooling cloth in my pocket. I ended up wetting it and putting it around my neck within the first 5 miles of the race. I did make a 13 plus minute stop to meet the Ewoks at mile 2.25! I had sworn I would finally stop for a picture with them because I regretted skipping them on the prior years. I was happy I did! I had nearly a mile of sprinkles after meeting them. It was nice because it broke the humidity for a bit. Once it stopped sprinkling it was horribly humid! I walked way more than I ran and took nearly an hour longer to run this race than I anticipated. I’ve never run such a slow pace in all my life. I had horrible blisters on my toes from walking at the parks and the heat. So it was altering my running gait. By the end of the race I could hardly move. But I kept putting one foot in front of the other. This was physically the most painful race I’ve ever run and this was my 10th half marathon. But I can proudly say I finished the 13.1 miles. It wasn’t fun nor pretty, but I did it! I was sobbing as I crossed the finish line. I slowly made my way through to get my medal and finisher pics. I found Ryan, Scott and Kathy in the reunion area. They were all so sweet and supportive. I felt so bad that they were waiting so long for me to finish. I just sobbed in Ryan’s arms. Then Scott and Kathy’s. My feet hurt so bad I had stopped at the med tent in the finish area to get ice for my knees and blister pads to take with me. I had wanted to try to get some characters with my medal, but I could hardly walk. I actually had to squat and sit on the ground on the walk to the bus. That was the longest walk ever!! We said bye to Scott and Kathy for now. Ryan and I went back to our resort. I actually ended up napping when we got back to our room. I never ever sleep after a race. My body was just done! After my nap, I got up and showered. We ate our chips and cheese plus the Oreo’s out of our race snack box! Ryan and I then went to the Food Court to grabbed burgers for a late lunch.

We finally made it to MK just after 3pm. Ryan and I stopped at Starbucks on our way in. Ryan and I had arrived too late to use our Splash FP. We met Scott, Kathy and Kelly in Liberty Square before heading to Haunted to use our FP’s. Then over to Peter Pan to use those FP’s. We all went for a nice and relaxing spin around the People Mover and then to Carousel of Progress! We were able to snag FP’s for Scott, Ryan and Kelly for Space. I couldn’t get one for myself. So Kathy and I got to visit and chat at the exit of Space Mountain. My feet appreciated the rest! We all went and enjoyed dinner at Pinocchio’s. Then off to the Plaza for ice cream. Kathy was exhausted so she went back to POP. The rest of us rode Pirates with less than a 15 minute wait. We said goodnight to Scott and Kelly and they went back to their own resorts. Ryan and I had thought about trying to stay to watch Happily Ever After but we were exhausted. So we decided to leave as well. Happily Ever After started right as we were leaving Main Street. We stopped for a train station photo pass pic and managed to get the fireworks in one of the shots. This is the best time to leave MK! We walk to our bus stop and waited just a short time before our bus arrived. There were only a handful of people on our bus. And we could see the fireworks as we left! No madhouse and craziness for us! We were in our room by 9:15pm and lights out by 10:15pm. That was a LONG day!
Miles logged 20.9 including the 13.61 from the race