Disney World Dopey Challenge - Day 2, Friday, January 8, 2016 - 10K

After all my checking, watching, and fretting about the weather for the past few weeks, this morning was what I had been most worried about - it was raining and cold.  We had the good sense to grab some RunDisney mylar blankets after the 5K yesterday which really came in handy to at least try to stay a bit drier in the rain and warmer.

I woke up about 10 minutes before my alarm went off and got up to go through what was becoming a familiar routine.  Putting on running clothes (I'm glad I had brought along a pair of calf length running tights), putting KT tape on my right foot which had been having a couple of issues with both plantar fasciitis and tarsal tunnel syndrome, having something to eat (a banana and protein bar), putting my hair up under a cap, and taking a zyrtec and about 800 mg of ibuprofen.  One last potty stop and we were headed out the door around 4 am.

Since we knew there was going to be a bit of a wait with 8 minute corral starts and we were in the same corral again, we had arrived a little later and didn't have as long a wait before heading out to the corrals.  When we reached our corral, we found 2 spots on the ground to sit and wait for the start and try to stay dry and warm.  The rain wasn't a downpour - thank goodness.  It seemed to come and go in waves.

Seth under his mylar blanket and cap trying to take a nap

When we got around to the start line - it was still raining and they warned everyone to remember to not cover their race bibs with the mylar blankets because the readers wouldn't pick them up.  We power walked most of this race and finished the 5K faster than the day before and, in the end, did a little interval running which actually felt really good.  I didn't really train much with power walking so it wasn't super comfortable for me to walk that way for so many miles - my back hurt the most.  It was a relief to do a little running.

We snapped our 2nd selfie near Spaceship Earth and ran the rest of the way to the finish in 1:36.  

What was nice about the 10K was that the text alerts that I had signed up for from RunDisney finally started showing up which gave us some nice information:

This time, we stopped to pick up a banana and RunDisney food pack before heading over the race retreat tent for breakfast.

We had a leisurely breakfast and took a few photos - the characters today were Briar Rabbit, Briar Fox, and one of the bears from the Briar Patch.

This time, we used the porta potties at the Race Retreat before getting on the bus to SSRS.  It was still raining and we had each gotten a new RunDisney mylar blanket to use.  We hung them up in our villa to dry so we could use them again in the morning.

We did another load of laundry - it felt great to get out of our wet stuff.  I had read online sometime ago a recommendation to bring an extra pair of race shoes - that recommendation paid off as we had a fresh pair of dry shoes to wear for the next 2 days.

We headed to the Magic Kingdom after showering and getting cleaned up.  We had fastpass+ for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so we headed there first.  I was a little worried it would be down in the rain, but the rain had slowed down quite a bit now and we got on without much wait at all.  I had also read an article online about hidden gems (food) to eat at the Magic Kingdom.  My favorite pre-race meal is a baked potato so we headed over to the Liberty Square market where we each had a baked potato - not too big - with cheese, butter, and sour cream.  It hit the spot.  Afterwards, I wanted to find the cart near Aladdin's Magic Carpets that sold Cheeseburger Spring Rolls.  It didn't take long for us to find the cart and we were pleasantly surprised at how much the spring rolls tasted just like a cheeseburger - beef, cheese, even the taste of onion and mustard.- they were delicious and rounded out a nice, lighter lunch.  I really didn't want to have a large lunch since we had dinner reservations at the new Morimoto restaurant at Disney Springs fairly early....5:15 pm.  This was, by far, the cheapest lunch we had at Disney.

We had some time to kill before our Buzz Lightyear fastpass+ time slot so we made our way across the bridge to Tomorrowland and stopped in at the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, and then rode the People Mover.  It felt good to put our feet up.  My legs felt great but my right foot was bothering me a bit as expected.

We always enjoy the Buzz Lightyear Ranger Spin.  Seth didn't want to ride Space Mountain so we headed back across the bridge and stopped for a photo op with the Photopass cast member.

We went ahead and headed back to SSRS for a short siesta and then walked over to the boat dock to take the boat to Disney Springs.  On our way to the dock, we were surprised to run into a couple of friends who were also staying at SSRS and were planning on doing the half marathon in the morning - Laura and Katelyn Mehlhaus.  We had met the Mehlhaus's a few years ago on an Adventure by Disney and had a few things in common with them including kids close in age and Laura's husband who is also a family medicine physician.  We rode the boat with them to Disney Springs where they were having dinner at the House of Blues.  We stopped for a selfie before parting ways.

We headed over the Morimoto Asia for our 5:15 pm reservation.  This new restaurant is pretty cool looking and we were seated in an enclosed area that felt a little more private with only one other couple in our area.  At first when I saw the menu, I was a little disappointed.  It seemed pretty ho-hum for an Asian restaurant.  My favorite pre-race dinner is either pasta or Asian noodles so I ordered the ramen noodle soup with BBQ pork.  Seth wanted to share their spicy tuna rolls and to try the Morimoto ribs.  I was a little hesitant to try the ribs because the sauce had cilantro as an ingredient but I tried some and it was absolutely delicious - perfectly cooked.  We also had the steamed pork belly bun which was actually just a strip of pork belly wrapped in a steamed bun - this too was excellent.  My ramen soup was fantastic - it was obvious that the noodles were handmade.  So, all in all, I loved this new addition to "Downtown Disney" and we will definitely be back in the future.  We read through the dessert menu but were too stuffed to try any of it.

We got back to SSRS for another early night.  Since we had to be at the Race Retreat in time for our "private VIP walkout" to the corrals by 4:15 am, the alarm was set at 2:30 am.