Wine and Dine Half Race Recap

This recap is long overdue! It's been 3 weeks since I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon at Walt Disney World. In a nut shell it is probably my favorite race that I've ever run! We went to the expo on Friday at 10:15, which was a huge mistake. I'll never go to a Disney expo within the first few hours of opening. It was chaos! We had to wait in one line to get our 5K packets and then in a separate line to get our half marathon packets. I actually got really lucky, neither of the lines I had to wait in were long. The lines Em had to wait in were insanely long. We looked at official merchandise. but saved our money and didn't buy anything. Then browsed the rest of the vendors and bought just a few things, including my new favorite running accessory: Sparkly Soul Headbands! More on those in another post.

The picture on the right is us in the middle of the madness.

Saturday morning we ran the Jingle Jungle 5K, in case you missed it the recap is here. We then ate a solid breakfast at our resort and napped for close to 3 hours. The rest of the day we just hung out at this hotel and relaxed. We snacked about every 2 hours and were sure to drink a lot of water throughout the day. Old Key West wasn't a host resort so my MIL dropped us off at Saratoga Springs to catch a bus to ESPN WWOS. We arrived at about 7:20 and didn't board a bus until 8:10. It was insane the number of people that were in line. The transportation lady said that traffic on property was awful and the buses were taking awhile to get back. While in line we talked with a pair of sisters from NY who were earning their coast to coast that night!

Start Line from the bus

The race course

I  almost fell asleep on the bus, and knew this was not a good start to a half marathon. I normally go to bed pretty early so this was out of my element. Once we got off of our bus we got in the bathroom line and then headed to our corral. The nice thing about this race was that we didn't have to do the cattle crawl like we did at Marathon Weekend. Once in our corrals we had an hour until the first corral started. About 45 minutes before we started the rain started to fall. Luckily, we had ponchos to put on while we waited.

I had planned to wear a costume, but once I saw the forecast I decided to wear normal running clothes. During the first four miles there wasn't much entertainment and it was only exacerbating my tiredness. I honestly thought I wasn't going to make it to the finish. We then came to Animal Kingdom and there was quite a bit going on in that park which helped to wake me up. We then ran back down the highway towards Hollywood Studios. We were in and around Hollywood Studios for quite awhile. I actually ran in my poncho for 9 miles and it kept me comfortably warm. I ditched it prior to Hollywood Studios because I knew I wanted a picture in Osbourne Lights without a poncho on haha.

We ran through the disco tunnel which was pretty awesome. They were playing, "Shake Your Groove Thing" and "September." We then came to my absolute favorite part of the race and the one I had been anticipating the most. It was all I imagined it would be and more...The Osbourne Spectacle of Dancing Lights! I could have spent a long time just meandering the semi-empty street. 

We then left Hollywood Studios and headed to the Boardwalk area and into Epcot. The path that lead to the Boardwalk was very narrow and was the only part of the course that was crowded. When we entered Epcot I knew we were close to the finish. Right before the finish line you ran through a lit up area with The William Tell Overture playing. 

Our goal for this race was to feel good at the end so that we could enjoy the after party. Well we accomplished that! I have never had so much energy at the end of a race let alone at a little after 1 am. Our time was 2:42:59. I immediately grabbed a Mylar blanket because I was pretty cold and those things are amazing at warming you up!

Finishers!

We grabbed our bag of dry clothes and headed for a bathroom towards the back of Epcot to get out of our soaking wet clothes. After changing we hung out in the Craft Beer area for awhile to relax, warm up and stretch a little. Then we put our ponchos back on and braved the weather to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival After Party. It ended up not raining too hard and was such a fun time. There was hardly anyone out, I'm guessing because of the weather. They had great music playing and had quite a few characters out. The food satisfied my appetite. It was good that we went to the festival on Thursday because we knew what we liked and didn't like from the different countries. We ended up staying until about 3:40 am!

Remy and Emile!

Before I wrap up I want to talk about the INCREDIBLE volunteers that were out on the course! They were out in the pouring down rain and acted as if it didn't phase them. Their energy levels were high and you couldn't even tell we were having bad weather. I took every opportunity I had to thank them for being out there. Thank you to everyone who volunteered at Wine and Dine, the race wouldn't have been possible without you!!

Have you ever run Wine and Dine Half?

That's all for now!