Well as with all of my TRs, I like to start when the seed was planted and for this trip, it was wayyyy back an entire year before we ever left home to run Dopey’s Challenge.
Cast your mind back… It’s a cold winter day in January of 2013. My wife and I had just finished running the hardest race I had ever imagined possible: The 20th anniversary WDW Marathon (presented by Cigna). I swore (on more than one occasion) that that was the only time I would ever run 26.2 miles again—no more no how no WAY. I was a one and done. Been there, done that, got the tattoo…
And then…then they got me. They came out with Dopey’s Challenge: A 5k, 10k, half and full on four consecutive days. Insanity, right? Right! I told my brother that his first full marathon should be part of Dopey—he laughed. They all laughed. Shoot, even I laughed! …until April.
My wife, my brother and his wife talked about, “Why not?” Then we all said it was crazy. Then we talked ourselves into it. I announced: I’m out! They could do what they wanted, but I was just going to run the half with my brother, NaCler. Everyone agreed—no way, let’s pass.
But it’s the inaugural race!!! C’mon everybody! Nope—this dude was out.
Then sometime in April I told my lovely wife, “Hey if you are going to do this—I need to sign you up the day it opens it WILL sell out.” So around Noon (right in the middle of a meeting at work) I signed us BOTH up for it. Why you ask? I don’t know… Mary said, “Let’s just do it—we’ll figure out the details later.” Maybe it was my wife’s beautiful blue eyes winking at me; maybe it was another trip to the World; maybe it was all the taunting from my Brother (my biological brother
) Who knows…
All I can tell you is that I spent $1,000 with two mouse clicks for some ridiculous race that I swore I would never do ever again. My Brother signed up for it also, but not his wife. She decided to pass and take care of the kids (oh yeah—someone had to stay with them
).
The race eventually sold out in about a week. The 10K (also an inaugural race) sold out really quickly as well. My other brother, NaCler, signed up for the 10K and the Half.
You all know me, the eternal planner…I started with the plans right away. The three of us decided to stay at POR from Weds through Monday and then we would all move to my brother’s time share and stay until Friday. Like all of my trips, things changed and dates were added and subtracted, but that was the plan from the get-go.
We trained and we trained and we trained. We trained so long that when our training started it was about 102 in the shade and the last long run it was 35! The real challenge in our minds was running a full marathon…the day after running a half! We knew we could do 26.2 alone, we had done it the year before…but throw in those other races and lots of doubt starts creeping in. The main plan was to do several back to back long runs. On Saturday we would do 5 and on Sunday do 10, etc. The longest training we did was 12 and 20. 22 was the plan, but it just didn’t happen.
But you know what? We trained so hard for this, when we ran 20 that day, the 12 the day before really weren’t a factor. I guess that’s a good thing—either that or we are crazy!
And so begins the long wait… Training passed the time as well as the trip to WDW for Wine and Dine, but all the time I spent scouring the web for Dopey info---you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.
Anyway…our final plans were as follows:
Arrive Tuesday the 7th in the evening (we were flying on Southwest) and stay at POR with my Brother in a Royal Room. Wednesday was the Expo and packet pickup. Thursday-Sunday-RUN, RUN, RUN!! Kick my brother out on Sunday so we have one night alone. Check out and transfer to Bonnet Creek on Monday. Mary’s brother was set to arrive Monday and stay with us until we left on Thursday. So for those keeping score---on Monday through Thursday, we were going to fill up that timeshare! 9 of us in a two bedroom room.
Here is the “Royal Room.” We really dug the fireworks in the headboard---the kids hit the button about 1000 times.
I apolgize if any of these are sideways---picture site is giving me fits. What else is new...
This was going to be the longest trip ever to WDW for us, as well as the most I would ever run over 4 days (or ever will!).
OK so let’s get running everyone!
Tuesday Jan 7th 2014
There were bad storms all over the country on that Tuesday and while we weren’t affected, we were worried about all the cancelled flights and how it would trickle down to us. Well, it set us back a few hours, but we got there eventually.
Here we are nervous and excited:
A quick DME trip and we were at POR in no time. It was just enough time to have a beer and relax before bed. The only problem was that since we got in so late, our luggage could come anytime up until midnight—yikes. It’s well documented that anything past 9 and you risk losing me to sleep.
Sure enough we fell asleep about 10:30 and I woke up to Mary kicking me to answer the door. Luckily I had set out a proper tip because in that haze who knows if I would remember to tip or how much! Back to bed—we had to get up and go to the expo…Hopefully avoiding the mess that was the Wine and Dine expo, when we waited forever for everything.
Wednesday Jan 8th 2014
We slept in just a little because we had nowhere to go until 10. The busses didn’t start running to the expo until 9 according to the info we were given. We got restless and decided to hit the store and see what we could buy when a bus rolled up at 8:45 or so. We hopped on and away we went! It was about 9:30 before we go there and walked to the expo proper—well guess what? It was already rolling and no one was in there—gotta love Disney! We got in and got out in no time. We bought a few Dopey-related items, but nothing crazy. Since my brother wasn’t coming in until that afternoon, we agreed to get his bibs and shirts. So we left there with 18 shirts plus 6 bibs and assorted other swag. (The shirts we got were one each for the four races, plus a Dopey and a Goofy one.)
Here is the Dopey one:
We got out of there so quick that my sis-in-law texted us while we were on the bus headed back to get something for her—too late!!!
We dumped our stuff at the room and headed off to Epcot! We crushed some Club Cool—we like the new flavors! We miss the mezzo-mix, but these replacements are OK. The pineapple one is my favorite (except Beverly of course
)
It was empty!
We wandered around a little bit—we watched Captain EO, rode Test Track and then headed into WS. We got back to America and there was a random assortment of characters just standing on the walkway—it was awesome and there was no one around. I had a picture made with several of them. Mainly the Peter Pan characters because my nephews like them so much.
Here we split a brat and a beer (ok so maybe we didn’t split a beer…) Extra Kraut for Amy!
After awhile we boarded a bus for POR to meet with my brother. We really took it easy these first few days—we didn’t want to walk too much before all the races. The 5k was tomorrow.
Our palace for the week:
We hunkered down in the room and I think we were in bed by 8. We had to get up at 3am all days except for the 5k—I think we slept in until 3:30 that day. Trust me; the four early days in a row were part of the challenge!
Thursday Jan 9th 2014 Day 1 of the Inaugural Dopey Challenge!
3:30 comes early no matter where you are…
The 5K wasn’t anything to be afraid of—if you train properly 5K should be a 2-3 times a week run for any long distance training. But still getting up at 3:30 and going through the motions is enough to wear you out. We finished it and I think we were back at the room by 8!
Day 1: Easy Peasy:
We had fun during the 5K:
Mary trying to get a funnel cake during the race—silly Mary!
Me trying to get into Club Cool---:( not open at 7am.
The plan today was to meet up with NaCler and then Mary and I had ADRs at Mama Melrose for an early dinner. Honestly, I have no recollection as to how it all went down (what order) but at some point NaCler came by and brought us a case of water and a case of beer. Wasn’t that nice of him? I won’t tell his tale—he can in his TR (hint, hint) but I was glad to see him and we had a beer together before he left to go back and hang out with his Mom.
She hates when I take pics of her at restaurants. Shhhhh
Mary and I went to MGM in the rain—it was a light mist mostly but it got stronger at certain times. We rode Star Tours a few times (one of our favorites) and then we checked into Mama Melrose’s for late lunch. We really like MM---for one it’s always available—if you look at your schedule and say “uh oh I never booked a meal for this day” you can almost always get an ADR there. Also the food is good and the atmosphere is quaint. The only drawback is that the service always seems to be slow. This trip was no exception… We split a “flatbread” (pizza) and the seafood pasta. We enjoyed each other’s company and made our way out of the park. Another early morning.
We had a couple beers and hit the sack. Oh one item of note: We had a fridge! You probably heard about all the fridge problems they were having, as did we, so we packed a few soft side coolers just in case. Well we used them anyway and made several (many!) trips to the ice machine for ice cold beer.
