Wine & Dine Overview

 

This race was absolutely amazing. Not only did my knee behave for the entire race, but I also ran into a sorority sister of mine & had a friend to talk to while we ran through Animal Kingdom, Disney Studios & Epcot! 

Fun Facts: Participants in the Wine & Dine Half Marathon were 65% female, the youngest runners were 14 years old, the oldest runner was 76 years old (remind me to be that awesome when I’m 76..), & I have never seen so many people running with fairy wings on in my life (or Tron, Superman & Minnie Mouse costumes at that).

As soon as my dad and I arrived at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, we explored the running expo where we got an IT band stretcher/roller (which is AWESOME & very helpful), a 13.1 sticker for my car (to go along with the other one I have), an adorable coffee thermos also adorned with the wonderful numbers 13.1 & tons of free goodies. Then we went to explore the Disney All Star Sports Resort where I proceeded to load up on carbs & pee every five minutes from the massive water/Powerade/Gatorade consumption. The only bad thing was by the time we were done with all that it was only 6 pm & the race didn’t start til 10. 

Three & a half hours later I was in the Corral anxiously stretching & waiting for the third set of fireworks to go off signalling our start. I started my playlist on my phone via the Rhapsody app, and since I had registered to receive text notifications of my mile times I had to restart the music every so often (I only made it to track 31 – “Santa Monica” by Everclear). The first half of the race was not bad at all (and considering my limited training time due to injury, 6 1/2 miles was about as far as my “long runs” were anyway), but the second half was far more strenuous. Some how I managed to do all my miles under 10 minutes each, which I was not expecting. My final time was 2:08 — my best time ever is 2:02, so considering the state of my knee I was VERY pleased with this time.

This is me sweaty, relieved & in major pain. By the time I was done my legs (and knee especially) were killing me and the thought of drinking wine slightly made me want to vom my guts out (which I saw one guy do by the way), so we skipped out on the wining & dining part for bed time. It was 2 am by the time we got back to the hotel room & raided the vending machines. 

Hopefully next year I’ll be in better shape & my knee will be healthy again so that I can truly enjoy the Epcot food & wine festival, but I was perfectly happy with the way it turned out. (The Gator game, not so much..)