"Albert skips!"...Princess weekend Enchanted 10k

10k morning dawned bright and early...well early anyway. Another 3 AM wake up call. Got dressed and made my way down to the busses. Transportation was said to start at 3:30, but as I got on the bus at 3:20 the bus was full. In fact I got one of the last seats and we were on our way!

Got to the parking lot and made my way over to the traditional WDWRadio meeting place of the T-Z reunion area flag. It was really odd because on this morning the bag check area and the starting area were in two different areas, most people going directly to the starting line area so it was me and about 10 other people in the reunion lot.  I did actually question if I was in the right place :)  Pretty soon, my teammates started showing up and then the real party got started!

After a while, we headed over to the starting area where we waited for more of our teammates to show up.  Pretty soon it was time to take the traditional team picture before we headed to our corrals.

 I was lucky enough to be starting in corral C (the corrals went up to E or F) with Deanna and Danielle and James.  We were lucky enough to score a bib for Deanna - but the name on the bib was ALBERT and it was a corral A bib. We tried to convince her to run in A since it could be a once in a life time chance to start there but she fell back with us slow pokes.  She did embrace Albert though.  We decided that Albert liked to have fun during races. Albert liked to skip. Albert liked to take pictures.  LOL....oh the things that come out of our mouths at 4:30 in the morning!


Finally its time to head to our corrals and the traditional National Anthem is sung. I don't remember a soloist singing it but I do remember a trumpet and the crowd singing. With the early morning fog and everyone singing kind of quiet it was kind of creepy. But then the quiet was over as the corrals started moving up. For some reason there were 10 minutes between corrals - ugh! Finally it was our turn and we were off!

The first mile was pretty uneventful but as we neared mile 2 we came across what was definitely the highlight of the race. Perched high on the overpass was Elsa from Frozen. As we approached she was singing Let It Go so I assumed it was the recording. But then she started talking and it was relevant - and was it me or did she sound like Idina Menzel? Crazy! Maybe it was her...now that would be AWESOME! (Nicole got a pretty good little clip of Elsa in the video. She starts at about 7 seconds in).  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it started SNOWING! I thought it was cool but some of my fellow runners from up north didn't think it was very funny!

Unfortunately after that the entertainment went down hill. I heard later the White Rabbit was out, big screen with music and Mickey toons. First 3 miles were long and boring....we blamed Albert. We were so over Albert at this point. LOL!

Finally, we got to World Showcase! Hooray!  We made our traditional stop (can you have a tradition after only two races?) in Japan to take a picture and sent Steve a video of how well we were doing.  We made our way around the countries and then it was out to the Boardwalk area!  I was staying at Boardwalk and we had a fantastic room that was right over the route so my parents and our friends decided to cheer from our balcony.

It was pretty cool to be able to see them from way down by ESPN (where we passed baseball Goofy and a Richard Petty race car....but the line was too long to stop!) Deanna,Danielle and I spent our time on the Boardwalk dreaming up things we could ask my family for. Donuts....bagels.... no luck but it was cool to have our own personal cheerleaders!  Then it was over the bridge around Yacht and Beach back into EPCOT.  We made our way into the gate outside the International Gateway greeted by Disney music and the giant Genie and Lumiere puppets. Total Disney goosebumps! THIS is why I keep doing these races!

It was a lot lighter when I got there!

At this point the humidity was getting to us but as a wise man once said we kept moving forward!  We did stop and see Figment's autograph in the cement in the off stage area.  We continued on through Future World (where we got a couple of AWESOME pictures)

 and then....we were done! We got our fancy new Inaugural 10k medal (with a teeny tiny "diamond" LOL), got some pics (pro pics and a couple courtesy of our awesome teammate Scott).

It was REALLY warm that day but we made good use of the water stops and I am so grateful to have been able to run this race with Deanna and Danielle!  The January 10k I wasn't feeling so good so my only goal was to finish feeling good - and I did! And thanks to these ladies with a smile! Because I was participating in the Glass Slipper Challenge I had to make a stop at the GSC tent to pick up my wristband where I was happy to find my friend Beatrice handing out wristbands!

After the 10k, I went back to the room, showered, relaxed and then I was hungry. I had two choices I COULD stay in the room and eat the bagel OR I could go to Magic Kingdom for a Nutella and fruit waffle.

 Well, since it didn't look like it was going to rain right at that moment, off to Magic Kingdom it was!  I got to Magic Kingdom, used my Peter Pan FastPass, enjoyed my waffle with a view of the castle, then it was off to EPCOT for the WDWRadio meet of the month. Unfortunately, the rain decided to show up...but luckily I found shelter in the Yacht Club lobby.

Due to the weather, the meet got moved from the United Kingdom to the French Bakery (oh, darn) but we still had a great time and it was awesome to see so many friends. After the meet, a group of us went to Morocco for some food (final scene of Avengers anyone? Shwarma anyone? LOL) - a great time to eat because of my early wake up call the next day.

Avengers Assemble!

Afterwards, I headed back to Boardwalk and ran into the last stragglers of the Mickey Miles meet so I stopped by to say hi to Mike and Michelle and then it was back my room, get set up for the next day an then early bedtime! I was surprised how early I fell asleep - I know I was out before Illuminations which was a good thing since the alarm was set to go off at 2:20 AM!