2012 Tower of Terror 10 Miler Race Report

Pre-Race Rambles

After Mickey’s Happy Haunted 5K we went back to our hotel to have some breakfast, shower and relax. Our game plan was to stay off our feet as much as possible, have a light lunch and snack later in the afternoon.

Right around lunch time we made our way to Hollywood Studios for a bite to eat at the Hollywood Brown Derby. We figured a Cobb salad would be a good in between race meal to have! The parking lot of Hollywood Studios was all set up for the race so we stopped for a few photo ops.

We spent the rest of the afternoon napping before it was time to make our way to the race. If you stayed at a “host” Disney hotel there was bus transportation to the start line. Since we weren’t at a host hotel we had to make our way to buses at the Wide World of Sports that would take us to Hollywood Studios. This was all to eliminate traffic congestion heading in to Hollywood Studios, something that had been a real issue back when I did the original race in 2007!

We got on the buses as soon as they started running at 6 pm. Parking at WWOS was easy and it took no time to get to Hollywood Studios. We had plenty of time to waste before the race now. Picture time!

There was also a DJ to keep us entertained.

This guy was awesome! He played some great tunes and taught us all dance moves to go with the songs. I was having a great time shaking my bootie, but eventually I had take it easy or I was going to expend all of my energy dancing with nothing left for racing! It really helped the time before the race fly by.

Tower of Terror 10 Miler Race Report:

Soon we were lining up by the parking booths for Hollywood Studios for the start of the race. I downed a gel with about 15 minutes to go time.

They had fireworks to send us off!

Hubby and I had a plan to run together and to just have fun. Initially we were thinking that we’d run from water stop to water stop and stop for all the character photo ops. The water stops wound up being about 1.5 miles apart and there weren’t very many characters along the way either. It was way more humid than what we were used to so we had to modify our plan on the fly to include some more walk breaks.

The majority of the course was along the highways connecting the parks. Even though there wasn’t much to see (and despite the fact that we weren’t running very fast thanks to that heat and humidity) the miles were clicking by quickly. When we ran in to WWOS things got interesting! We got to say hi to Stitch!

We also ran around the ball diamond at Championship Stadium! There were so many people cheering us on, and there was a video of us on the big screen as we ran around the stadium. This is the where the mile 20 spectacular celebration will be at the WDW Marathon so I can’t wait to see what they do with that!

On our way out from WWOS we ran in to the Big Bad Wolf.

By now we had only 3 miles left to go. We were almost there! It was back on boring highways for awhile before the final mile through Hollywood Studios. We made our way through the back lot of Hollywood Studios…

…before running through the Lights, Motor, Action Stunt Spectacular, down the Streets of America and past the Sorcerer’s Hat.

There was a DJ there and it felt like there was a party going on! We had to keep running though! Side note, you can probably tell how humid it was by how soaked my running skirt is. Even though there wasn’t very much left to go the finish line felt so far away. I was really feeling that 5K run earlier in the day. Then we turned a corner and we were crossing the finish line!

I had so much fun running the the hubs. He was so strong out there and ran such a great race. I’m so proud of him!

We crossed the line in 2:14:38.

We were certainly proud of our awesome medals! (See, skirt…drenched.) Time for the after party! We made it on Toy Story Midway Mania once where I seemed to suffer from motion sickness…so that was it for rides. We were exhausted though and ready to call it a night. All in all I really enjoyed the race. Sure, the course wasn’t super exciting save for a few parts. There could have been more characters out there. It was really well organized though and the after party seemed awesome. Hubby had such a good time he wants to go back next year!