Oy. So, I was all set to write my post yesterday when I crashed. Pretty literally. On the sofa. I awoke to the news, and thought, “That wasn’t so bad. The news is on. A couple of hours worth of napping.” Until I noticed G was home. The news was actually the early morning repeat of the news. Oops.
So, I was feeling a little badly about missing a post. Then, I realized that I totally miswrote in my previous post. NaBLOWriMo. Jeez. You’d think I’d never wrote a blog before!!!
I promise I will improve.
So, in that spirit, I am moving on to one of those posts I have put on the back burner for a week. the first post of the official 2009 birthday week recap!!!
A little background. When I was in the process of training for my half marathon earlier this year, we discovered that WDW had a Tower of Terror themed race that was run at night. We were a bit chagrined, as the 2008 race would have fallen on my 30th…erm…25th birthday. I decided I would run it this year! Then, my stupid back decided to act up and I had to halt training for a while. Boo. On to plan B. I would run it in 2010. It was gonna be awesome! Until I got the update e-mail from Disney racing. The 2009 Tower of Terror race was to be the final ToT race. I was so bummed out. I teared up from frustration. Thanks to not being able to train, I was going to miss out on that super cool Tower of Terror replica medal complete with moving elevator! G told me I could still do it. I could walk it if I had to. That was totally the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to RUN the WHOLE thing. I wanted a PR. However, G talked some sense into me, and even promised to do it with me.
My new goal became to simply cross the finish line with my sweetie. The bonus was that I would get to spend my birthday in Disney World. So, we commenced training. I restarted the C25K and G started it for the first time. It was some bumpy training, and we were barely gonna finish the week before the race. The 13K race! Our final training run was to be the day we were flying down, and would be six miles.
Think we’re all caught up.
I get home from work, do the math, and realize that we would be cutting it close at best to cram our run in and still make our flight. I told G that we would just plan on doing it at the resort at WDW. He set off to do some errands, and apparently my spidey senses were a-tingling. He called, remembering that he still needed to drop off his karaoke set for the guy who would be filling in for him. There certainly would have been no way for us to make that happen with a run!
With the time change, our ride picking us up, finding food, etc….we didn’t get back to the hotel until after midnight. Having been up since 5:30, I was wiped. The run was postponed until the morning. Now, when we planned this trip, we were thinking of standard Florida weather for October. We were so wrong. The weather that Friday matched a previous record high. D’oh! Let’s just say that wasn’t so much a training run as a training walk. We tried to run as much as we could, but the 88 degree weather wasn’t cooperative. We did hit our goal distance and decided we were as ready as we were gonna be for the race. After soaking our feet in the pool, we got ready and hit the parks. We decided to catch a bit of Animal Kingdom, riding Everest, and seeing whatever other sights we could. Upon arriving, it was decided food was in order. G pointed out that the Yak and Yeti seemed to have a menu containing food that I could eat. We found it and after perusing the menu, it was confirmed. We went inside, and the host seated us in a primo spot. The parade was starting, and we were right above it! I’m not huge on the Disney parades, mostly because I don’t like the crowds, the screaming children…ugh. However, watching it from an air conditioned table whilst sipping a delicious cocktail gave it an all-new appeal! I decided to try a Yak Attack. I was concerned it would be too sweet, but upon its delivery, I figured its looks would at least make up for that. It was gorgeously swirled in red and orange, topped with a cherry. I took a sip, and discovered that not only did it look fabulous, it tasted fabulous as well. I looked over the Julie Taymor/Lion King inspired parade and grinned. We sampled wok fried green beans (thumbs up), and I chose tempura shrimp for my entree. So delish! I definitely give the Yak and Yeti a thumbs up!
Our bellies full, we went for a go at the Safari ride. Pretty low key. Of course, being Disney, every ride has a gimmick. In this case, it is a two week safari in which the riders must keep their eyes out for poachers. Our driver was mediocre in terms of tour guide talent, speaking a mile a minute, saying um, and so on. However, the animals were awesome! The elephants chose to stay in the distance, but just about everyone else was out and proud! I don’t remember all the names of the animals, but some adorable little critters were close, the hippo was swimming about, and the wildebeests were strolling around. One came so close to the truck I could have touched him! He even had a bright pink flower casually tucked into his ear. We did come upon a recently abandoned poacher camp, but were relieved to find out that they had been caught. I generally like the silly things The Mouse does, but I thought that in this case, they could have just let the animals do their thing. At the end of the ride, we were collecting my MIL’s wheelchair (she recently had surgery and the walking was a bit much), and there was a man and his young son also collecting a wheelchair. We noticed that, like me, the boy had a birthday button on. Wishing him a happy birthday turned into the dad insisting that we (the boy and I) could date. I laughed slightly uncomfortably. He said something about me probably being taken…I told him that it was too bad, I was married. Yet, he kept going. Gross. My MIL mentioned it was probably the guy’s way of saying I was attractive. I still thought it was creepy.
We did a bit more walking about, and parted ways. The In-laws headed back to the hotel, and G and I went off to ride Everest. Still fun!! Then we had to head back so we could go pick up our race packets. The In-laws took us to the Wide World of Sports, where we grabbed our packets. I was expecting an expo, similar to what I experienced at the half, though perhaps smaller. Nope. It was pretty straightforward. Pick up the packets, pick up our shirts, get our party wristbands, done. There were a few souvenirs for sale, but no vendors or anything. I decided to get a long-sleeved race tee. On the front it has Goofy running in a Tower of Terror bellhop uniform with the ToT 13K & 5K titling. Down the sleeve it says, “The Final Race.” G invested in a track jacket, with the same thing all on the back.
Armed with our purchases and packets, we met up with his parents, and headed over to the local supermarket to pick up some food to keep at the hotel. I opted to stay in the car while G and his ‘rents went inside. I looked at my packet in more detail, and noticed an envelope inside with my name on it. I wondered what it was, after all, G hadn’t mentioned seeing it in his packet. I opened the envelope to find a birthday card from the Disney Endurance Team. Hand-signed, none-the-less! I thought that was pretty thoughtful that out of the thousands of race packets they had to assemble that they noticed the race was the day before my birthday and put a card inside. It really made my day!
So far, the birthday week was off to a good start.
Would we finish the race? Would the temps begin to climb? Was terror waiting just around the bend???
Stay tuned for further installments of the birthday week recap!!