Part I: The 2015 Final Expedition Everest Challenge
Saturday night my sister completed her first runDisney event! I always wanted to sign up for the Expedtion Everest Challenge and when I found 2015 would be the final year, I jumped on the chance to compete.
We named our team Staten the Facts, appropriately. A few of the pre-race instructions were a little unclear, but overall it was a great event.
Ready to chase the Yeti at the final Expediton Everest Challenge!
If you're used to the normal spectacle of runDisney, you'd be disappointed by the expo they hosted. I'm unsure if the lack of vendors was due to this being the last race or if it's just because the EE Challenge is typically a smaller race. One thing that I greatly appreciated was the opportunity to purchase the limited edition runDisney New Balance shoes! I was tempted to buy two pairs, but ended up getting just one. Luckily, they had my size in stock and we didn't have to wait in any crazy queues to get them!
The 2015 men's New Balance runDisney shoe. I'm so anxious about getting them dirty!
Aside from New Balance, Champion was on hand with "I Did It" t-shirts and Fit2Run had some shoes and running accessories. I bought the shirt and pin, but was surprised at the lack of other merchandise. No big deal, though. The shoes were my priority.
This was the Expo! There were more Porta-Johns than vendors!
The day of the race, we slept in pretty late! Our travel day started early and ended later than we wanted, so we slept in until about 11 AM on Saturday! Once we woke up and got ready, we headed out to Epcot for a little while. About 4 PM, we returned to Animal Kingdom Lodge and took a nap.
Sarah sporting the coveted New Balance runDisney shoes!
My sister was a little nervous with this being her first race. We didn't really stick to any training plan and we didn't monitor what we eat in the days leading up to the race, with the exception of foregoing alcohol – more on that later. Two hours prior to the race, we headed down to The Mara to grab pre-race fuel. The line at Mara was about thirty minutes long, but we made it through!
I had the grilled chicken pita with fries. It was a great pre-race meal. It had cucumbers, spinach, sundried tomato hummus and big pieces of grilled chicken. If I was running a longer distance, I would have skipped the fries. But hey, carbs right?
Pre-race chicken pita from The Mara at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge.
After dinner, we got ready and headed to the busses so we could make it to our corrals. We didn't really plan an outfit for the race. I purchased some awesome Lululemon running shorts that I thought for the theme of the race, and when we saw the white running shirts runDisney gave us, we decide just to match in those! This shirt is probably one of my favorites I've ever received from running a race. Love the graphic, and white is my favorite athliesure color.
Starting line selfie!
The preparty was the typical runDisney preparty, but if you listened closely, there were some hints dolled out that helped later on during the scavenger hunt.