Tower of Terror 10 miler

I LOVE Disney! I love running! So, what could be better than running at Disney right? I have done a couple Princess Half's, I am going to do my first (and probably only) marathon at Disney in January, I did the Tower of Terror 13K and the Wine and Dine half a couple of times as well. I have to say though, I was extremely disappointed in this race. Not because of the actual run. I ran this race with my husband (he isn't a runner, only did it with me for my birthday) and we didn't have grand plans for PR's , we just really wanted to have a good time. The race started at 10 pm and usually they start at Wide World of Sports or Epcot, well this race started and ended at Hollywood Studios. Dave and I (being the Disney freaks that we are) had the very bright idea to park at the Swan and Dolphin and walk over to the race...best decision ever!!! If I do this race again (it is a Disney race even if it wasn't the best), I would totally recommend doing this. Not only do you not have to take the buses with all those stinky runners afterwards but you don't have to get there 3 hours ahead of time either. We were meeting up with some of my running peeps, so we did get there early BUT we could have gotten there at 9:15 and still been totally fine. The positive things I have to say is the pre-race. Disney did an excellent job at changing things after last years Princess (almost couldn't get to the corral because there were so many people), They had the corrals right there where everyone was hanging out. You walked into the corral and were grouped together to walk to the start. This made things so much easier and a lot less chaotic. They also had porta potties in the corrals and some at the starting line as well (great job Disney!) We lined up- really really close to the starting line (huge mistake for us!)

We started and I really wasn't trying to run very fast, apparently though I was. I usually use Runkeeper but since the Princess where my phone died at mile 12 I decided not to use it, another mistake. In the past Disney races, there have been character stops within the first mile or right past it- not so with this race (and we were planning to stop at them). We went up the on ramp (sorry Tracy) and once we got to mile 1 I started looking for characters - ummmmm didn't have any. This race took you to Animal Kingdom, where we did see stilt characters from the Lion King (I think) this was at almost mile 3, then you run around the parking lot (not into the park) circle around and head toward Wide World of Sports. Now, technically this was an inaugural race because they added a bit of distance to the 13K- but the course was extremely similar, so I KNEW we were going to be running down a trail and I still disliked it. I did see the witch doctor from The Princess and the Frog between Animal Kingdom and Wide World of Sports, but I didn't think that was a character I was willing to stop for. The trail road was decorated "Halloweeny" but nothing too spectacular. We ran through WWS and ran around a baseball field and a track (woot woot) and then we were headed back to Hollywood Studios. On our way back we saw the Big Bad Wolf (what movie was he in?!?!?!) Running into Hollywood Studios (or any Disney park) is always a very special time. The music was good and running through the back lot and having our pictures on the Jumbo Tron was okay, but once again, there were NO characters out!!! When I did the 13K the finish was up the hill behind Tower of Terror,  they took that hill out for this race and before I knew it the finish was ahead of me and we were finished.  Not one EVIL QUEEN to be seen!! This was advertised as a race with villains and I was very disappointed to not see any!

I would have to say that it was nothing like the Princess, so I if you are thinking that it may be the same, it isn't. I still love runDisney, but I may have to save my money for a race with a little more. More what? More everything. My next race is the WDW Marathon and to say I can't wait is an understatement. 

RunDisney, if you are listening next year, please have some Evil Queens or Pirates- please ??