Dopey Adventure, Day 3

Ugh. 3:30 am comes so fast.

But this was it - the beginning of the Dopey Challenge. The thing I'd been working towards for a year was finally here. I wasn't taking any chances so I had set 3 alarms and asked Dan to knock on my door at 4:00 just to be safe. I hopped out of bed, put on my Jasmine costume, made myself a bagel with peanut butter and joined Dan for our walk to the bus. We were carrying his costume so we got a couple looks along with way from the runner zombies walking to the bus line.

We were a little worried about the costume. Two days earlier Disney sent out stricter costumer regulations and though Dan's costume conformed to them, we were still nervous because it was BIG.  We successfully got through security and breathed a sigh of relief. Our friend Alia, also doing Dopey, spotted us easily (I wonder how?) from across the parking lot and came to say hi.

Alia found Dan and I pre-race.

We did up our costumes good for the 5K.

Jasmine before I ditched the wig in the crazy humid conditions.

Standing next to Dan in his costume made me feel a bit like a celebrity because one after another people kept streaming towards us asking to take a photo with us and the costume. We must be in dozens of race photos of complete strangers. All the attention caught the eye of the race director and came over to talk to Dan. He was very nice and said because security let us in, he'd let Dan run in the costume that morning but if he was doing any other races that weekend to leave it home because it was a "prop". Dan was disappointed, but being a race director himself, he understood. His plan now was going to be to stop at every character on the course for a photo so he had plenty with his costume.

Another Fleet Feet-er!

Dan went to corral A where he was seeded and I went to D, where I ran into friend and fellow Fleet Feet runner Erin and her daughter. We chatted until it was our turn to start. Erin and her daughter peeled away at the first porta potty stop so I was on my own. I was having a blast. The weather was great once we got started and soon we were in the world showcase portion of Epcot. It was still dark and the lights were on everywhere and there were cool torches lit along the lake and great music pumping out of the speakers, It was awesome. After the world showcase, we ran into the future world section and right after mile 2 I caught up to Dan. We stopped together to wait in line for a photos with Stitch. Thankfully I went first because Stitch was so excited by Dan's costume, that we leaned in for a hug and got taken out by the enormous ears. His handler quickly escorted him away. We waited for him to come back but it was taking a while. I was getting parched because I hadn't been taking any water so I told Dan I was going to go on and meet him at the finish. Race 1 was done!

Stitch suggested I pose this way.

Race #1 done.

After getting back to our resort and taking a quick shower, I stuffed some of the food from our race goodie box in my purse and we headed to the Magic Kingdom. We had fast passes for Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and to meet Mickey so we had to get movin'. We were unable to get fast passes for the newest ride in Magic Kingdom, The Seven Dwarves Mine Train, but I had never ridden it so I told Wendy and Dan that I'd be willing to wait in line for that one. We stumbled upon a 45 minute wait, which was pretty good for that ride, and slid into line. Halfway through my feet started to get sore. They never did fully recover the rest of the day. We rode the coaster. It was pretty good. Dan decided to head back to the resort because his calf was bothering him and he needed to rest it. Wendy and I rode Big Thunder Mountain and met Mickey and decided to take the ferry over to the Polynesian before heading back.

We had to go visit Mickey.

We bonded.

How about a little ferry ride? We ran into some BloNo folks on the boat!

As we were doing that, I got a message from Ashley saying her and Paul had made it there and were hanging by the pool. I told her I'd meet them shortly. I got back to the resort, met up with them and the 3 of us headed to the Boardwalk for dinner and maybe ice cream. Unfortunately there was a 45 minute wait at Beaches and Cream so we walked to ESPN and had a delicious dinner there. We got done in time to make the last ferry back to Hollywood Studios where we could catch a bus back to our resort. We got back around 10 and I immediately got ready for bed. My wake up call the next morning was going to be a half hour earlier.

Ashley and Paul made it!

Before crawling into bed, I checked my VivoActive for my mileage that day. 12 miles. Oops.