WDW Marathon Weekend-Day 2-THE GOOFY'S CHALLENGE BEGINS!!!

Day 2 started VERY early, with the alarm going off at 2:30am. I hadn't slept very well that night, as I tossed and turned the whole night, I guess I was either excited or nervous about the race! I had laid all my stuff out the night before, so all I had to do was get up and get dressed. I checked the weather one last time, and decided I would need some sweats to wear before the race, so I put on my throw-away clothes and got ready to head out. The busses start running at 3am, and I wanted to stop in the food court for some breakfast, so I left the room at about 2:50am! Marathon weekend might be the only time when Pop Century has people walking everywhere at 3am, as lots of people were up getting ready to head off to the race.

I went to the food court, which they open early for the runners, and bought a bottle of water and a bagel to eat before the race. I learned on Saturday that the bottle of water was not a good idea right before the race, as I had to use the bathroom MANY times before the race started! Needless to say, I didn't buy one on Sunday morning! I hopped on the bus a little after 3, and after waiting for the bus to fill up with people, we were off to the Epcot parking lot. In the parking lot they have all sorts of stuff going on, there is a tent selling souveniers, a concession stand, information tents, and a DJ and band playing. All the runners and spectators were just hanging out in the Family Reunion area waiting to head out to the starting line. Here are some pictures of that area:

After a little while, I headed through the baggage check area, where I checked my bag for after the race. Since Gregg wasn't coming out to watch on Saturday, I took along a bag with my Crocs, and clean clothes for after the race. I went through the baggage check and found some people from the Disboards sitting in "port-o-potty village". I call it this because there is probably several hundred port-o-pottys in this area, it is hysterical! Good thing they were there, because I went to the bathroom 3-4 times before heading to the starting line!

At about 4:50am, they opened up the gates and everyone walked down to the starting line area, which is on Epcot Center Dr, outside of the EPCOT parking lot. The walk from the staging area to the starting line is about 0.5 miles, so it was good to keep me warm, as it was quite chilly that morning. When I arrived at the starting line, I stopped to go the bathroom again before heading in to my starting corral to wait until the start. I met up with a few ladies from the Disboards in the corral and it was nice sitting there talking with them while waiting. While waiting they have music playing, and they have emcee's who interview different runners and get the runners pumped up for the run, it is pretty cool! Here is a picture of me waiting in the corral, notice my arms are inside my shirt--it was rather cold sitting there waiting:


The half marathon has a wave start, which means that there are three different starting times. The fastest people are in Wave 1 and their start time was at 5:50am. Just before that, they had the National Anthem and then Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald came out on a little stage by the starting line to count down to the start. Luckily they had big TV screens so that those of us a little further back could see what was going on! I was in the second wave that started at 6am. So, after the first wave left, my wave got to move up closer to the starting line. Once again they counted down from 10, to start us. On the start, they shoot off fireworks and we were on our way. Here are some pictures from the start:

So, the race started and I was on my way. I decided that for the half marathon, I was going to really take it easy to save my legs for the full on Sunday. My strategy was to do run/walk intervals. Originally, I was planning on doing intervals of running for 2 minutes then walking for 3, but I changed my mind for some reason right before the start and ended up doing running for 3 minutes and walking for 2. The race heads out along Epcot Center Drive for about 2 miles before turning right onto World Drive. Once on World drive, we head right through the Magic Kingdom toll plaza, and follow the road into the Magic Kingdom parking lot. We went right by the Disney World Speedway, where they had some race cars outside. For some reason, I didn't stop to get a picture, which I wish I had! Anyhow, the race continued through the Magic Kingdom parking lot to the Transportation and Ticket Center. There are LOTS of spectators in the MK lot and at the Ticket Center, it is one of my favorite parts of the race. The race continued on past the Contemporary and over to the Magic Kingdom. We entered Magic Kindgom through a back stage area and end up coming out right at the end of Main St. This is my absolute favorite part of the half marathon (with the exception of the finish of course!). As we turn up Main St, it is wall to wall people, and they are going nuts cheering! Here are a few pictures, although they are a little blurry, since I took them as I was running!

At this point, I am about 6 miles into the race, and I still feel great! I had been sticking with my intervals, and was just cruising right along! In the Magic Kingdom, there was lots of characters out, and I decided to stop for a bunch of pictures. The first stop I made was to get a picture with Winnie the Pooh.

Just before turning to go through the castle, the professional photographers got this picture of me, notice I am carrying my camera in my hand, you will never see the "fast" runners doing that!!

On the back side of the castle, they have the trumpeters up on the balcony playing, and they had the Cinderella and her evil stepsisters out for pictures.

Another highlight of the race is coming through the castle! Just in front of the castle, they always have the professional photographers, so everyone tries to get in sight of the camera. Here is a picture just after coming through the castle:

After going through the castle, the course heads toward the back of the Magic Kingdom and Frontierland. This year, they had Mickey, Goofy and Donald all together for pictures. The line was quite long (usually I only stop if there are 2-3 people on line ahead of me), there was approx. 15-20 people ahead of me, but since I wasn't too concerned about my time in the half, I decided to wait, since this was a picture I really wanted!!

After taking that picture, I settled back into my intervals, as there are really no more photo opportunities on the course with characters. The course left the Magic Kingdom through a backstage area near Splash Mountain, then headed on Floridian Way past the Grand Floridian and Polynesian. There are always lots of spectators in this area, so it is a fun part of the race. Between the Grand Floridian and Polynesian the race hits the half way mark. At this point, I was still feeling really great and just kind of taking it all in and enjoying the race! The next four miles of the race are kind of boring as there is nothing really there and not many spectators. From mile 8-12, the course travels between the Magic Kingdom area back over to Epcot for the finish. Here is a picture from that stretch (notice I am still smiling!):

In this picture, I am all the way to the right behing the guy with the white hat.

At Mile 12, I decided that I was going to jog the rest of the way, as I was feeling pretty good. The last 1.1 miles goes through Epcot. We entered near the bus station, and headed out to the World Showcase where we turned around and came back. On the way back, the course goes to the right of Spaceship Earth, takes a quick right turn through a back stage area where a gospel choir is singing, and then the last 0.1 miles of the race is in the parking lot heading to the finish line. For the half, Epcot is not open yet so there are no spectators until the parking lot and last little bit of the race. Here is a few pictures from the last mile of the race:

The finish line of the Disney races is always awesome! They have characters out along the way giving everyone high five as they approach the finish line, there is an announcer saying people's names as they cross, and the stands are filled with spectators! It is really cool. They have lots of photographers at the finish line to make sure that everyone has pictures at the finish. Here are a few of mine:

In this picture, I am under the "H" in finish with the yellow hat with my arms up.

After the finish, they make you walk quite a distance to get the medal, as first you get the silver mylar blanket, then they remove your timing chip, and then finally I got my medal!!! My first WDW half marathon Donald medal! After getting my medal, I went through the food area, where they were giving out free water, gatorade and a variety of food including fruit and muffins. Before leaving the finish area, they have lots of professional photographers set up to take a picture of each runner with their medal and a marathon weekend background, here is my picture:

After I got my picture taken, I headed to the baggage claim area to pick up my bag of clothes and shoes. I changed my shoes and put on a dry shirt then headed to the bus to head back to Pop Century to meet up with Gregg.

All in all, the half marathon was a fun race. My chip time was 2:37:12 (my clock time was 2:48:07-but I didn't cross the starting line until just about 11 min. after the first wave started). This was actually a little faster than I had anticipated running. I figured I would finish around 2:45, but since I ran more than I was planning, that makes up for the time difference. My legs felt pretty good after the race, and I was excited to go back, shower, and get ready to head to the parks!

Next up: the rest of Day 2-Animal Kingdom

WDW Marathon Weekend-Day 1

We headed to Disney on Thursday night for Marathon weekend. Things didn't start off so well, as our plane was delayed for three hours due to high winds in the area. I have the worst luck with flying, it seems that whereever I go, the planes are delayed! We hung out in the terminal at Newark Airport and got some dinner before the plane left around 10pm. We landed in Orlando around 12:30am, then went to get our luggage and rental car before heading to Pop Century. Since it was almost 2am, check in was VERY fast and we were in the room quickly and getting ready for bed!

On Friday morning, we got up and headed to the race expo at the Wide World of Sports so I could pick up my race numbers, timing chips, goody bag, and to buy some new race gear! We got there before the expo opened and had to wait a few minutes, but as soon as it opened the lined moved fast and before I knew it I was getting my number for the Goofy's Challenge!!

This picture is in the Milk House at the Wide World of Sports, where the race packet pick-up was:

This picture was right after I picked up my numbers and timing chips...I don't look to happy..maybe I was wondering why on earth I decided to do both races!!!

This picture is in the new Josten's Center at the Wide World of Sports, this is where they had the actual race expo with lots of vendors. We looked around at the vendors but didn't buy anything except some official race gear!

This picture was just before we left the expo.

After leaving the race expo, we headed straight to the Magic Kingdom. I was surprised to see that the park was pretty crowded. Last year, the crowds were not so bad, but this year definetly seemed much more crowded. Even with the crowds, we were still able to go on a lot of stuff while hanging out there on Friday.

This picture is on the tram heading to the park.

We asked someone to take this of us while waiting for the monorail at the Transportation and Ticket Center.


Of course, we had to get some pictures on Main St. with the castle in the background!

After we took some pictures by the castle, we headed towards Tomorrowland to go on some rides. This picture was taken while we were waiting for Stitch's Great Escape:

After going on Stitch, we went on Buzz Lightyear, the People Mover, The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Swiss Family Treehouse, and some other stuff that I can't remember right now! Around 3 or so, we were pretty tired so we decided to head back to the hotel for awhile to rest. Before leaving we stopped in the Emporium on Main St to look around, and we tried on some silly hats!

After resting up for a little bit, I headed down to meet up with some people I know from the Disboards message board. The WISH team, is all people that train for and run the Disney races, and every year they meet up at Pop Century to meet and talk about the races in person (since we only talk via the message board the rest of the year). It was neat getting to put some faces with names of all the people that I have "met" on the boards this year. Here is a picture of some of the people from the board:

This is a picture of the whole group that was there, it was amazing how many people came to the meet!

While I was down meeting the message board people, Gregg took a little nap in the room. When I got back, we changed and got ready to head to TRex for dinner. We were really excited about going here since it had just opened recently. We heard it was a lot of fun from my mom, Charlie, Sharon, Andrew and the kids after they went in November. I had made a reservation so we didn't have to wait long once we got there. The place was SO cool! It has different themed rooms, and there are huge dinosaurs everywhere. And, every once in awhile there is a meteor shower and all the dinos come to life. It is pretty cool! Here are a few pics from TRex:

After TRex, we headed to Epcot for a little bit, as they were having Extra Magic Hours that night. Epcot wasn't that crowded at all, so we got to go on a few rides. We went on the Land, Test Track, and I even went on Space (the easy version!). Unfortunately, the wait for Soaring was pretty long, so we didn't get to go on it. We ended up walking back to the World Showcase so Gregg could get a beer and we ended up watching the fireworks. After the fireworks, we went on a few things, then headed back to the hotel. Here are some pictures from Epcot:

When we got back to the hotel, I got all my race stuff together, as the first race of the weekend, the half marathon, was the next morning. I had to pick out what I was going to wear, pin my race number on my shirt, put my timing chip on my shoe, get my waist pack filled with my gels for the race, my camera, ipod, and headphones. I tried everything on to make sure it was just right before laying it all out.

After everything was all set, I set the alarm for 2:30am, and tried to get some sleep! It was a LONG first day, but we had a lot of fun!

Next up: Day 2: The half marathon, Animal Kingdom, and more Epcot!

New Year's Eve

This year, instead of going to Sharon and Andrew's house for New Year's Eve, we decided to go to our friends Joe and Beth's house. Joe is one of the groomsman in the wedding, and some of the other guys from the wedding were going to be there, so we decided to hang out with them this year. We had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone! Here are a few pictures from that night:

We didn't stay too late because I had to get up the next morning to run, as I had the marathon coming up really soon.

Christmas 2008

We started off on Christmas Eve going to Gregg's house to have dinner with his Mom, Dad, and Grandma. We had a good time spending time with them and got to eat a lot of great food! Before leaving Gregg's house, he gave me my gift....it was a new 32" HD TV!!!!! I was so excited! It is so much bigger than the old TV I had, and the HD channels are awesome!




When we got home, Gregg and I gave each other the rest of our gifts. I had already given him his new hockey gloves earlier so he could use them in his last hockey game before the holidays. I also got him some new workout clothes and Xbox games, to go with his new Xbox that his parents gave him. He also got me a new digital camera, Rutgers shirt and nice fleece!


Christmas morning we headed down to Sharon and Andrew's house to spend the day with my family. Of course, when we arrived there were toys EVERYWHERE!! Unfortunately, Charlie was not feeling well and he had to stay home. The rest of us got all the gifts together, and the kids opened theirs first. They were very excited with all the cool toys they got. Here are some pictures of the toys that Gregg and I got for the kids:

Here is Ally with her Barbie for President doll!

Here is Nicky with his HUGE Nerf gun!

And, Amanda with her Tini Puppini Dog!

After the kids were done opening their gifts, the rest of us exchanged ours. We did a Secret Santa this year, which was great. We had all picked a name on Thanksgiving, and we only bought gifts for that person. It was great! Helen had me and I got a cool light up night light, and a gift card. Andrew had Gregg and gave him a gift card! We both can't wait to use our gift cards to get some new stuff! We spent the rest of the day hanging with everyone! Here is a cute picture of Gregg and the girls!

After dinner at my sister's house, we left to head up to Gregg's house to see his family. We got to eat some more there, and hang out with everyone, including Gregg's Mom and Dad, Grandma, sister and brother-in-law. We exchanged all of our gifts and again got some really great stuff from everyone! I got some new workout clothes, sweatsuits, and Rascal Flatts concert tickets!!! Gregg got his new Xbox, some workout equipment, and clothes. We both loved everything we got!

By the time we got home, I was exhausted! Gregg wanted to hook up the Xbox and ended up playing it for awhile while I went to sleep!

All in all, it was a great Christmas!!!

A new post--finally!!!

I have really slacked off on the blog lately, partly because we haven't really done anything wedding related in quite awhile. After we booked all the big things, there hasn't really been much to do. I did get to pick up my dress a few weeks ago and it is now hanging at my mom's house. After I picked it up a few weeks ago, I was able to try it on to show my Grandma and Charlie, which was cool since neither of them had seen the dress yet!

I need to start really working on things after my marathon next week. Gregg and I will be heading down to Disney World next Thursday as I am doing the Disney Half and Full marathon next weekend as part of the Goofy Challenge! So, along with running, we will get a little mini-vacation down at Disney! I can't wait for that!

When we get back, I will need to start really working on things. We will need to pick out what kind of invitations we want to get, and what types of flowers we are going to get. I do have some ideas for flowers, but I haven't even thought about invitations yet, I guess I should start thinking about that! I also need to start gathering pictures for our video that will be shown at the reception. I have a feeling that I will start to get busy again with wedding planning after the marathon!

I am going to try to keep up better with the blog, since everyone has been hounding me about not updating it!!

We Booked our Officiant!

We haven't really done much for the wedding lately, because we have most of our big vendors booked and we don't really need to do a lot of the smaller stuff yet. But this weekend, we met with and booked our officiant. We are using Rev. O'Sullivan, who also was the officiant for Gregg's sister and Brother-in-law's wedding last year. We met him on Saturday morning at a diner in West Orange. The meeting was very quick and he just gave us a big packet of information to go through. We basically get to design the whole ceremony ourselves. He gave us examples of vows, readings, ceremonies, etc. We need to go through each part of the ceremony and pick out what we want. We don't need to choose anything till a couple of months before the wedding, so that will be a project for later on.

This week, I need to finalize things with our florist and put a deposit down on that. And, we need to finalize the bridesmaids dresses so we can get those ordered before the holidays.

It is hard to believe that it is less that 10 months till the wedding! Today we are at 299 days, time is really flying, before we know it, it will be August! I can't wait!

Trip to Davids Bridal

The other day, I found out that my veil had come it to Davids Bridal in Wayne. Since Gregg was working late tonight and then going to play hockey, I decided to take a ride over to the store after work to pick up my veil. While there, I decided to buy the undergarments to wear with my dress. I was surprised to hear that they actually had them in stock. So, I tried them on to make sure they were the right sizes and got to take them home today. I am trying to spread out buying all the little things, so we don't get hit with paying everything right before the wedding.

After leaving Davids Bridal, I decided to stop at my Mom and Charlie's house to drop off everything, since I don't really have anywhere to store them at my apartment. My mom is going to store them for me until I need them.

Now that I have my veil, I can start to figure out what I am going to do with my hair. I have a few hair people to call and decide which to use for the day of the wedding. I will have to go for a trial at some point, but I want to try to let me hair grow out a little more before going.

Not much else going on as far as wedding planning. I still have to finalize details with the florist, find a hotel to stay at the night of the wedding, pick out Bridesmaid dresses and get those ordered. There are alot of other smaller details to take care of little by little as well to, so I am sure I will be busy!!