To begin with this blog post I’ve to say that this was an amazing day, our alarm clock woke us at 4:30 to make sure we were on time for our very first RunDisney event, the Mickey’s Jingle Jungle 5k. At 5:05 we were in our car on our way to Animal Kingdom where the event would take place and we arrived at 5:20.

We started with waiting in a line for a picture with Mickey and Minnie before we went to our start corral at 6:40. At 7:00 first the wheelchair participants started, 30 seconds later corral A was on its way and 2 minutes later our corral would start the 5 kilometer run trough the Animal Kingdom. After about 12 minutes we passed the first mile marker and got a pictures with Baloo from Jungle Book.

After we got our picture taken we followed the course and we already overtook a lot of slower running or even walking participants. We passed several Characters and got pictures with King Louie from Jungle Book, Chip and Dale, Donald Duck and Pluto. After the last picture Danielle felt that she became tired but after I told her it was only 500 meters to go she was surprised and we almost sprinted to the finish line. We finished with an effective running time of about 35 minutes. We both had a blast and are already planning the next run and hope that we can subscribe on time for either the Tower of Terror 10-Miler or the Wine & Dine Half marathon.

After we finished we got our medal, a banana and a gift box with all kind of food. From the finish we walked back to our car and went back to our hotel for some refreshing before we went back to the ESPN Wide World of Sports to have a look at the Disney related merchandise.

Afterwards we left the location towards Ellington where Danielle was lucky to find some new Tommy Hilfiger clothing and I got a new Ray-ban Aviator sunglasses with lighter lenses and a silver frame.

Soon it was time to get back in our car towards Richy and Denise in Bradenton. You might remember them from our 2009 trip to Florida, we had a Thanksgiving dinner at their place as guest from Glenn. This time we had a delicious homemade spaghetti from Richy with delicious homemade vanilla ice-cream from Denise, thanks. Time flew by and before we knew it was already 23:30. And yes Richy, next year we’ll make sure we stay over at your place! 😉

At about 1:30 we arrived back home from an event full day and here we are updating our blog again!

An early morning tray because we needed to get our runners package at the ESPN World Wide of Sports for the Mickey’s Jingle Jungle 5k we are running tomorrow.

Within 15 minutes we both had our bib and our special event pin and we moved on to the merchandise section. Danielle instantly found a new running jacket saying “Every mile is magic”. Afterwards we learned that it was from the new Run Disney collection.

With the first merchandise bought we went on to the expo to get our runners package. It was a bit confusing for us first timers but if you follow the crowd you’ll be at the right place at the end. With our transparent bag and a t-shirt we checkout the expo floor where numerous booths with running merchandise were selling their stuff. There were some really beautiful outfits available although most of it was designed for women. I ended up with a shirt with short sleeves from the Run Disney collection of this year and Danielle went for a full Disney style outfit for the race tomorrow. And before we left we got a free digital photo for usage on Social Media.

After we had seen everything we left and went for something to eat at a Firehouse Sub on the way to the Mall at Millenia. At the Mall at Millennia we browsed to some upscale stores without buying something, yes we can do that! After shopping we went back to our hotel to get something to drink, drop of the new clothes and get our vests.

So why would we need vests in Orlando? We had tickets for THOR: The Dark World, the newest Marvel movie which was released in theatre yesterday. We had our ticket reserved through the Fandango App for the AMC Downtown Disney 24, in the Auditorium 1. Never had a better sound experience. And the movie itself did exceed our expectations.  In addition I was lucky enough to find a new better fitting and fully black colored running short at the new Fit2Run store.

After the movie we wanted to grab some sushi for take-out at the Kobe Japanese Steakhouse along the US192, but the wait was 35 minutes. That is way to long for take-out which make us drive to the Kobe nearer to our hotel. At 21:00 we were done eating and started preparing for tomorrow morning and finishing todays blog. And off course we went to bed early because tomorrow at 6:15 we need to be standing in our starting corral at Animal Kingdom for the start at 7:00!