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!