Dave's Marathon 2011

So 18,000+ people ran the Disney Marathon...I knew 2 of them. Our dear friends Tara and Ben traveled from Maryland. Ben ran WAY TOO fast and finished in 3 hours and 50 minutes...Dave took a bit longer but still had a great time AND let us not underestimate the fact that he ran 26.2 miles...crazy. He is in a very small percentage of people. 1/10th of 1% of people in the world can say that.

I believe that there is only one person on the planet that ran the marathon like Mr. Steven Davis did. He has run a lot of Disney races (of course, the 5K just 2 days before) so he knew that Disney treats you well. He knew there would be characters cheering him on, live music and plenty to see. He didn't really plan on stopping to take pictures unless the character sightings were really rare. He runs with his phone so I was getting texts the whole race. We were both surprised by how many cool characters were out!

Without further ado, I give you "The 2011 Disney Marathon" through the eyes of Steven Davis (keep in mind he turns into a 5 year old boy when we enter those magical gates).






He and Ben left our cabin at Fort Wilderness at 3:00 in the morning to catch the bus and stand and wait for them to say go...they said it with style, though! Lots of fireworks and cheers...



I got this text at 6 AM. Don't know who this guy is? Well, his name is Duffy Bear and quite frankly it seems that the Disney folks are trying to sneak in a new character with no movie or story really to make it believable. Apparently, he is Mickey's bear but I'm not buying it. We don't really believe in Duffy Bear so Dave thought it was hilarious to get his picture with him...



Of course, there were some fairies around.



They had a whole field of hot air balloons.



Alice, The Mad Hatter, and The Queen of Hearts all together?! Never happens...



Cinderella's Stepsisters and Stepmother are never out and about...



Still with me? Almost done, we're running through the castle...it is 26.2 miles remember!



Cinderella's Fairy Godmother



Tiana and her prince and Lewis from Princess and the Frog---we had never met them before---but don't worry, we did run into them again the next day at Magic Kingdom.



Peter Pan is HUGE in our house...we've never seen the whole crew together...or even Wendy and Peter at all.



Phineas and Ferb make Dave laugh...



and this is the medal he earned for all that hard work. There was a lot more sweating and muscles hurting than is depicted in the pictures but these are just the highlights...don't forget to stretch! :)