It's Registration Day!

No, I'm not talking about school classes registration, I'm talking about WDW Marathon Weekend Registration! Though people do get schooled with the lessons learned from that weekend apparently. I wouldn't know, I've never been...until now!

I had talked about it during my post last week about how I registered for a big event during the WDW Marathon Weekend, but didn't go into much detail. Now that registration is opening today for the general public, I will talk about what it is I registered for.

I can't remember the exact date this conversation took place, but it was over the course of a day and it was definitely over social media. A good friend of mine whom I had met through running Disney, suggested a wild and CRAZY idea. 

"Why don't we run the marathon at Disney?" 

Ppppffffttt...yeah right. Run a marathon? I just started running half marathons last year, are you crazy? Then the more we talked about it and other people chimed in with their experiences of doing their first full at Disney, the less scary and more realistic it seemed. 

Wait...was I really considering this? Am I really ready for it? Can I do it?

My best running friends said yes...to all of the above. We agreed that we would do it. We would sign up for our first FULL marathon at WDW Marathon Weekend 2015...and we would run it all together in a big group, no one left behind. We would race for completion not for time and have fun the whole way through!

So when April 16th came, I was SO NERVOUS! My family are DVC members so I had access to the early registration links. They went live about 5 minutes before the registration time and I clicked on it immediately. I knew that if I waited one more breath I just might chicken out.

My hands were trembling, heart racing, breath quick and mind racing. I felt like I was in a race to get my registration in before they sold out. All these damn runDisney races selling out within an hour or so has me trained to make super quick registrations. And hyperventilate! But there were plenty of spots, I didn't have to worry about it. 

I got to the point where you click the button. That button. The button to complete your registration. My face got all flush and I was hot all over. I stared at the screen not completely understanding what it is that I was doing and not believing that I was at this moment. I moved the cursor over the button. 

It hovered. Shaking slightly because my hand was trembling.

I took a breath in. Closed my eyes.

And clicked.

When I opened my eyes my confirmation was sitting there on the page. Staring me in the face in full glorious view. I couldn't hide from it, it was confirmed.

I'm running...a FULL MARATHON!

Yeah, I just said that. I'm running my first ever FULL marathon in January at WDW Marathon Weekend. When I finally accepted it (and the money was taken from my credit card) I became giddy with excitement. I was going to do this. I really am going to do this. I will run 26.2 miles in one day, consecutively. I'm still excited about it!

My awesome friend Jill got this for me at the 2014 WDW Marathon Expo!

Another exciting part of registration for me is that I got to sign myself and my hubby up for running the 10k! It will be his FIRST 10k and I'm SO excited to be running with him on this course! People talked about how much they loved running this race, so I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to run it. This race will be a nice shake out run before the marathon for me, and better yet, I get some bling too!

The only thing I have to figure out now is whether I should sign hubby up for Platinum ChEar Squad while I'm running the marathon. What do you think? Have you had experience with this? Is it worth it for the spectator? I want him to be comfortable and have access to the race while he is waiting half the day for me to finish the marathon. (Well not half the day, but you get the idea.)

Now, it's time for the registration to open to the public (and see the feeding frenzy for registration!) and I can't wait to see how it all goes. This year is the 10 year anniversary for Goofy, so I'm anticipating this one to sell out first, anniversary bling makes people crazy and everyone wants a piece of the action. After that, I'm thinking it will be Dopey, the 10k, half marathon, marathon and 5k to sell out, in that order.

I'm just giddy with excitement knowing that I will FINALLY be a part of this epic week(end?) of racing. I've seen so many pictures and videos, heard so many stories and followed along religiously via social media for years and now...now I will be a part of it. I can't wait for this weekend to come, but then again, yes I can. I've got LOTS of training to do still. Oh man...what am I doing gabbing on here? I need to go for a run!

Happy Registration Day!

Now it's your turn: Have you or a relative of yours ever done ChEar Squad for Marathon Weekend for any of the longer races? What was the consensus? Was it worth it for the spectator? Were they able to view along the course WITHOUT being in the ChEar Squad?