Day 1 - Heading to Disney

Friday I went to boot camp as planned. I knew waking up early to work out would be good for me, but also would help me sleep Friday night. I knew we had an early wake up call on Sunday AM and I don't typically sleep well the night before a race. That made Friday night all that more important.

I headed up to BWI in the morning, tiara packed and ready to go. I managed to get in a work call despite all my excitement and arrived at the airport in perfect timing for my noon flight. Unfortunately, Airtran had other plans and we were delayed. I got some lunch and hung out at the terminal.

So fun to hang out in the rockers at BWI

I was bummed out about the delay, not just because I wanted to be someplace warm, but because we had a tight schedule to get to the hotel, the expo and then the Pasta in the Park dinner. Once the plane arrived, we loaded up quickly and were on our way.

Finally made it to Orlando. Mickey is ready to give me a high five. 

I ended up landing within minutes of Laura, my running buddy from Ohio. We found the Magic Express and made our way to the Pop Century hotel.

We had fun with all the cool things they had at the hotel representing the various decades. We were in the 70's building, which was perfect as we both have great memories of the toys. The hotel was really cute and we had a room at the end of a hall, which looked over a very pretty lake. So peaceful and it was WARM.

The first thing I did was change out of the long pants I had on. We gathered up Sandie, who had flown in from CA on Thursday and headed to the expo.

I was a little worried as I had been reading poor reviews of the expo on facebook during the afternoon. In the end the I thought it was pretty typical of an expo. The bib pick up was easy peasy and the tshirts as well. The rows of vendors were fairly packed and we only had 30 minutes before the expo closed. Plus we had a date with dinner, so only a quick run through was in the cards. Laura and I had bought tickets for the Pasta in the Park party. Sandie had hooked up with a runner in St. Louis who had an extra ticket. The runner was delayed due to the snow in the Midwest, but had the ticket transferred and waiting for Sandie at will call. Not the last time the weather would play a part in the weekend!

We headed to Epcot after a lot of walking, both to the buses and then to get into the park.

We arrived about 7:30 and there was plenty of food to go around. It was pretty typical hotel pasta, tasted fine after a long day of traveling, but nothing too exciting. The DJ had the dance floor going and there were lots of kids there with their running moms.

After dinner and a glass of wine, I caught sight of some princesses. We headed over and got pictures with Tiana and Aurora.

Then we headed outside for the Illumination show. It was ok. I would have preferred to walk around and see what Epcot had to offer, since I have never been there. After the show, we headed back to the hotel. We had plans for Magic Kingdom on Saturday, so wanted to get our sleep on.

Come back to hear more about our weekend and the race!