Two of my children (Kevin and Kayli) and I volunteered at WDW Marathon Weekend in 2016 and decided to gradually build up to doing Dopey. This year we tackled the Half Marathon and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to point out the none of us trained effectively and that will need to change before we try Dopey, so we did lots of walking.

We arrived to Orlando on Friday, my son Kevin and his girlfriend Brianne are both flight attendants for American Airlines, so I fly standby and therefore travel requires planning. Sometimes, it means going somewhere a day early if there is something you have to attend, LIKE THE EXPO! Fortunately, flight loads were favorable and we were able to get seats same day.

We went to the expo and checked in and then headed over to go shopping. We got a great deal on compression socks and all 4 of us bought some, at the checkout, there was this glitter sunscreen; I had forgotten to pack sunscreen and being a lifelong Ginger, I needed to buy some anyway. The kids PROMISED they would wear it also, but the next morning as we were getting ready to leave the hotel, they opted out and I was the only sparkly one of the group. My thanks to everyone along the way for complimenting me for the glitter!

Our costumes were; Me - Mickey, Kayli - Duffy; Kevin - Gelatoni and Brianne - Shelly Mae. Shout out to the volunteer near the golf course that actually recognized Gelatoni, that made Kevin's day!

Anyway, we got up and hit the last runner's bus from Art of Animation and got to Epcot in time to walk with the blob of people to the corrals. We were in Corral F on the strength of my 2:36 time in the Detroit Half Marathon. It was already warm which made waiting to start nicer than last year when it was in the 30's while we were in the corrals for the 5K and 10K.

As me made our way to the starting line, the excitement built and as normal, we started quickly and flamed out. Some of us were sick leading up so the event, so our lungs just weren't cutting it, so we decided to start walking, unless we saw a photographer or were approaching the finish line.

We were still in high spirits when we hit the entrance to the Magic Kingdom (photo attached), however the sun came up, it started to get hot and we started to fade. Then we hit Main Street and the excitement re-entered us and we ran through MK with a fury previously unknown to mankind (except for taking a pic in front of the castle and to apply some biofreeze, take a tylenol, go to the restroom, get some Gatoraid, yada yada yada) I know that the Medical tent staff was happy to see us move on.

After leaving MK, our enthusiasm faded again, so the volunteer who knew who Gelatoni was, gave us some juice for about 3 minutes, but that got us to the jelly bean stop, and stop we did, and filled up with as many beans as we could before the volunteers were on to us. Fun fact, some people drop full, un-opened bags of beans about a mile after the stop, if you are paying attention, you can find them, #5secondrule.

Now we were struggling, we hit the green army man on the exit ramp and swore at him to stop judging us! Then...as we were on the overpass near the entrance of Epcot, it happened. We looked down the stretch of highway that we had just exited and there they were...THE BALOON LADIES! How did they catch us? Was it the walking? The bathroom stops? The nap? who knows, but time to stop messing around!

We entered the Epcot parking lot, snaked our way through and saw the finish line, time to run! After all, there will be photographers there. We finished, got our medals, bags of ice for our knees and our box of food.

We boarded our bus and went back to the room, the kids went to bed and I went to the pool...and fell asleep on a chair, fortunately, I still had on the glitter! In fact, as I am writing this 2 months later, I am still finding glitter on me, pure evil!

We are planning on Dopey in 2020 and perhaps some training...maybe!