I did it!  I finished my first Tower of Terror 10-miler and I LOVED it!  It was my first night race and it was my first time running that race.  I definitely will do it again.  The distance was perfect.  I enjoyed running at night despite my apprehension during the day that I wouldn’t have the energy to make it through the race so late at night.  I figured that once I started running my adrenaline would kick in and I would be fine.  The hardest part was sitting around prior to the race waiting to move to the corrals and then in the corral waiting to walk to the start line.

The morning of the race, I woke up when Kim got up for the 5K.  I had a splitting headache so I took some tylenol and somehow managed

 to fall back asleep until 9:00.  I jumped out of bed unaware of what time it is, got in the shower and Kim came back from the 5K.  We

got ready and then drove over to the Floridian for breakfast at the Floridian Cafe.  That is a favorite place of mine!  Once we were there and stepped

foot into the hotel memories of my wedding day came flooding to me as I could smell the special smell of the Floridian (more on my Disney wedding coming up in a future posting).

We took a picture with Richard the greeter there.  Love him!  We had a great breakfast of pancakes to load up for the day and have a big breakfast with plans for a later lunch to prepare for the race.  We had a nice time eating breakfast and talking together.

After breakfast I dropped Kim off at Epcot and ventured over to my hotel to see if I could check in.  It was noon, but my room was ready so I checked in, got my things laid out for the race and checked my GPS to figure out where I was in relation to Amanda and Sarah.  I hopped in the car and went over to Amanda and Sarah’s place to pick up my bib.  They had a great hotel.  They were staying at the Nickelodeon World Suites.  Those rooms were awesome!  They had a three bedroom, three bath suite with a full kitchen, dining room and screened in porch.  I believe the average price per night there is $175.  A great deal for a group of people to share a place with!  And it is only 10 minutes away from Downtown Disney tops!

After visiting with Sarah and Amanda for a while, I drove back to my area, grabbed a turkey sub from Subway, gassed up the car and bought PowerAde and water for the rest of the weekend.  I went to my room, called home, ate my sandwich and tried to nap.  No such luck but I did rest off of my feet for a few hours.  Then I realized it was time to get dressed and ready to meet Kim at her hotel!  I jumped into the car, and hit traffic at Downtown Disney, so I turned around and headed towards Saratoga Springs via the back roads.  I am getting more comfortable finding my way around Disney on my own now.  It is much better marked out than Disney Land is.  I got to her hotel and we hopped on the bus just as it was about to leave.  We got to Hollywood studios, took pictures of each other and others in costume and hung out to wait for the #teamRunDisney peeps to meet up.  Come to find out we were split into two groups.  We finally all came together and took a great group 

shot!  

The announcers started to get the crowd excited, and then the first group was off!  They released each corral with about 2 minutes between each one.  It moved along fast and before I knew it, we were starting our run.  The first part was so cool with the laser light ceiling shining above us with the Twilight Zone music and fog. Kim and I intended on taking advantage of the character stops so that this run would be mostly about FUN, rather than racing, but once we stood in line for Jafar for 5 minutes to have him “take a break” when it was our turn, we bagged that idea and kept running.  I was a bit frustrated by that.After our pictures we went to our Corral.  I tried to get into the same Corral as Kim, but Disney was policing it very tightly.  So Kim went with me to Corral F.  That was a bummer; but not a big deal.  As we waited in the Corral I was starting to feel that sleepy feeling I get at that time of night.  I wasn’t moving around much and it was 9:30.  Luckily, I didn’t sit there for long, and we started to walk to the starting line.

We continued on running, with a 2 minute/30 second interval.   My legs were feeling great. All the work in physical therapy was finally paying off.  I was running pain free.  We continued through the miles towards the Animal Kingdom and near the 5K mark.  We snapped photos of the mile markers and sites along with way without posing for the photos. It was late and we had early flights, so our mission now was to finish the race at an earlier hour.

I was really enjoying the race.  Even though it was very humid and warm, my body seems to be ok with that when attending the runDisney races with extreme weather conditions.  It was a lot of fun running at night, the entertainment on the course was great and there were plenty of water stations to keep us hydrated with the excessive heat and humidity. Towards the end of the race, Kim was overheating so I told her to take her wig off and there was immediate relief for her.  We walked for about 1/2 mile towards the finish line so that she could cool down and settle her stomach.  As we approached the finish line, Kim put her wig back on and we ran towards the finish line for photos.

I LOVED this race!  I enjoyed the night race, the theme, the excitement and all the run that comes with a runDisney night race! I am planning on doing this race again next year for sure!