Expedition Everest 5K

After his first successful 5K in decades, J. R. signed up for the runDisney Springtime Surprise race weekend. He convinced Janie to attend the 5K, where they would just walk, while he ran the 10K later in the weekend.

Following work, we headed to Wide World of Sports to pick up our bibs and browse the Expo before driving to Coronado and our favorite bar, the Dahlia Lounge. We had a drink and then a disappointing dinner at Rix. (They had removed the hot dog Janie liked from the menu and her French dip replacement was over-cooked. The burger J. R. always had was missing the ranch sauce this time.)

From there, it was off to the Animal Kingdom, where the park had just closed. We had to walk all the way to the park entrace and queue there before heading to our race corrals. There had been a looming threat of storms so the race officials announced the course would be shortened. We waited around and listened to the DJ and the corny race hosts before we finally shuffled our way to the starting line. We kept up a good walking pace for mile 1 through the parking lot but had to slow down through Pandora due to tight spaces and then headed past the Safari and the idle Everest before looping back out of the park. The race ended up being around a 4.6K. We didn't stop for photos because we wanted to get out before the rain, which was a good choice as lightning appeared on our drive home.

Race for the Taste 10K

On Saturday morning, it was time for the race J. R. had been anticipating and dreading. A bout with a non-Covid illness (supposedly, according to negative tests, which he still thinks were wrong) had knocked him out of training so he feared keeping pace ahead of the "Balloon Ladies" who signaled the sweep vehicles.

Getting there early meant being near the front of corral 4 which buoyed his confidence as did talking to several others who were also running their first 10K. He set off at a good pace through the first almost two miles outside the park, stopping only to walk at the water stop past mile 1. With his head start and a 46:00 5K split (a 14.84 pace), fears of being swept were gone. But he decided to press on and try to run the race rather than stopping for photos. Other that a few walking moments at the water stops and the hill coming back into Epcot from Boardwalk, he did, finishing in 1:34:20 and a 15.16 pace that would have been the Balloon Ladies easily. That was good for 228 out of 351 in his age group, 1814 out of 2988 men and 4742 overall out of 6583 finishers.