Run Disney - Wine & Dine November 2014

In November my sister in law and I were able to sneak away on a girls trip to run the Disney World Wine & Dine Half Marathon!  We began planning this trip very soon after we got home from the Tinkerbell Half in January.  Wine and Dine would be the finishing race to our Coast to Coast medal for 2014.  If you run a Disney Half Marathon in each park in the same calendar year then you are awarded a third medal for the Coast to Coast.

We booked our travel through GET travel, they do lots of the Run Disney events.  They arranged our stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort, our park hopper passes and our Half Marathon Bibs for us.  In this way we found it to be a very stress free way to get set up.  Disney runs are getting to be more and more popular and will even sell out now within a few hours of registration opening up.  Providers like GET Travel already have an allotment of race bibs and so they don't have to fight in registration to get them for you.

Our trip to Florida in November began like any other cross country journey.  I flew to Calgary to meet up with SIL, then together we flew to Toronto and then to Orlando.  From the Orlando airport we hopped on the Disney magic express and were dropped off right at our resort.  It had been a long day of traveling so we had no trouble getting settled in our room and then falling right asleep.  Here's a few photos of our resort the Caribbean Beach Resort.

In the morning we had plans to head over to the Expo at ESPN Sports Center. It was there we would be able to enjoy the expo, pick up our run packages and then maybe head into the parks for a few hours before we had to get ready to run!  The expo had lots of neat booths to look at, a few photo ops and a general atmosphere of excitement!

The first part of the day evaporated on us very quickly.  We were able to pop into Hollywood Studios and Epcot before we needed to get back to our room to try a quick nap and get ready for the evening.

The sky had some pretty serious clouds in them and the weather forecast didn't look promising.  It was really too late for us to modify our running costumes for the run but I did manage to pick up a hat to keep the impending rain out of my eyes.  In BC we get to rain run fairly regularly. 

This will be the last dry picture of the night.  Pretty well as soon as we had bussed over to the ESPN Sports Center and arrived at our corals it began to rain.  It rained lightly at first, our spirits were high, we were ready to rock this run!  We had also arranged to meet up with another friend who would run as our Mickey.

Soon enough it was time to hit the road and get our 13.1 miles on!  There were many characters out on the course for us to have photos with.  This alone despite the down pour of rain was amazing.  You could tell that Disney did have to wiggle a few character stops around.  Some were under any kind of roof that could be found, or tucked in alongside buildings, but they did the best they could.  Some of the characters were even right out in the rain like us runners.

Pirates aren't afraid of the rain

The Tree of Life

The Osborne Spectacle of Dancing Lights was amazing!!!

Running in the pouring down Florida rain was actually not too bad.  It was warm rain, as long as you kept moving you didn't chill.  It was a very unique experience, one I don't suspect I'll soon forget to run in this much water and be hitting puddles that splash up your legs and be really okay with it!  It was all kinda fun.  Of course not what we had hoped for but what is a person to do but make the best of it.

Three short hours later (Disney runs are for fun not PBs) we were running across the finish line.  It was really from this point on that things became more and more unfortunate.  We collected our medals, posed for a few pictures and then went right over to gear check to get out of our wet clothes.  Once the gear check bags were retrieved we had to wait in the cold and wind and rain to get into the changing tent.  Yes, boys and girls each had their own changing tent, but they weren't big enough.  After what felt like an eternity of waiting we finally got into the tent amongst hundreds of other wet, cold women who were in various stages of undress in a tight humid space.  Regardless we carved out a square foot of grass for ourselves and changed into whatever dry clothes we had packed.  It didn't really warm us but it was a step in the right direction.  From there Epcot was open until 4 am for us runners to enjoy the Food and Wine festival.  The first beverage of the night was a hot chocolate.  It may have been the best hot chocolate ever. We didn't tour all of Epcot or do any rides but we did make it until 4 am easy enough.  We had a few bites of food but the cold and the rain persisted.

After we made it back to the hotel room sleep came very easy in our warm beds.  The next few days were a blur of Disney World awesome.  We went into all of the worlds except the water parks and enjoyed all the rides we had hoped for including the new Dwarf Mine Train ride.  Disney World all dressed for Christmas was really something to see and the Food and Wine Festival was a delight!

All in all our Wine & Dine / Splash & Dash Half Marathon in Florida was fabulous.  Just like any of the Run Disney events it was magic with every mile!  I might like to try it again one year without the rain.