Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-miler

This race was a blast even though it was my first night race and I was already exhausted! From not really getting any sleep the 2 nights prior, to running the 5k that morning, and walking around Magic Kingdom that afternoon, I knew things were going to be interesting. But it all worked out!

Marty, Heidi, and I decided to dress up as characters from Peter Pan. I was Mr. Smee, Marty was Hook, and Heidi was the Croc.

We got to ESPN around 6:45 and got on the shuttle to Hollywood Studios. Upon arrival, we waited in line to get our picture taken with the logo, and then found a spot to sit and wait. The race didn’t start until 10pm, and we didn’t have to be in our corrals until 9:15.

There was a lot of energy while we were waiting. A lot of people were sitting around relaxing, but there were still a lot of people up and dancing to the DJ. I don’t know how they had all of that energy to waste!

After a trip to the port-o-potties (ridiculous lines…), we got into Corral E. A little before 10, they led us to the start line by corral. It was a lot of standing, and a lot of walking to the start before even the race began. Once all the corrals were lined up, we were released every 2 minutes to begin.

And we were off! We ran to the first on-ramp, and it was so hard to run on because the surface was not even. It is painful for one leg to be running higher than the other! So we walked up the ramp and came to the Witch:

We decided we were going to try and run most of the way between characters, with a few intervals thrown in when they were far enough apart.

Jack and Sally were located just after the turn around from Animal Kingdom. While we were waiting in line we saw the balloon ladies and pick-up vans on the other side of the street. We started to get a bit nervous, and as soon as we finished with our picture, we booked it and ran ran ran!

After Jack and Sally we decided only to stop for the characters that we really wanted to see. We skipped over Hook and the Queen of Hearts.

We got to the ESPN trail around mile 5. It was so crowded that we had to walk that entire portion. There was just no way we could run.

Once we go to the baseball field (with the scary loud Tesla coil), we could get back to our running.

Of course we stopped for the Big, Bad Wolf because there was no line!

We made it back to Hollywood and entered through the back near the Stunt Show. We saw Mike from Monsters, Inc. and ran through the costume area.

We ran by Toy Story Mania and stopped to say hi to Lotso. He was very pleasant to us. I guess he wasn’t feeling very villain-ish that night. Again, at this point there was no line.

The last mile was a bit tough because everyone was super tired. It was after 1am. It was fitting that Hades was right before the finish line. Super appropriate.

The race ended backstage at Fantasmic. There was such a long walk to get to the front of the park to where bag check and the “party” was (more on that later). I don’t know why the finish was so far away!!!

All in all it was a great race. The weather wasn’t terrible, the entertainment was great, and the company awesome! Thanks Heidi and Marty for running with me!!!