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Amy Mullins

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Celebrating Big 4 -0 Walt Disney World Style

Turning the Big 4 -0 + Walt Disney World + EPCOT’s International Food and Wine Festival + the Wine and Dine Half Marathon with out a doubt adds up to one fabulously magical way to spend my 40^th birthday, oh and to note this will be my FIRST half marathon.

This whole crazy thing started back in 2011 when the running bug bit me unexpectedly. My friend Melissa and I needed and excuse to tell our husbands why we needed to headed back to Walt Disney World, AGAIN! So, we used the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Relay as a cover to head back to EPCOT’s International Food and Wine Festival, which has become one of my favorite events to attend. I naturally ran the shorter portion of this relay, while Melissa was the rock star and pushed through the final 8.3miles. As soon as those medals went around our necks, we were hooked. Ever since then we haven’t stopped running, and even recruited our friend Juli to start running. We have continued to run 5k, 8k and 10k races and it’s turned into a Girl Power thing for us.

Last year in 2012, runDisney moved the Wine and Dine Half Marathon from October to the beginning of November to make way for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-miler race and my magical Disney thoughts started wishing on a star that it would stay on the same weekend because it would mean the 2013 race would fall on November 9^th, my 40^th birthday. You can only imagine my excitement to learn that my wish came true.

Registration opened March 12^th and on March 15^th my husband surprised me with a completed registration form to run the Wine and Dine Half Marathon along with my two best friends, Melissa and Juli and my brother, Adam and my most fabulous sister-n-law, Kari. And so the next adventure begins, training for a half marathon.

As Walt Disney once said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” and at this point that is my motto. Now please don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it truly is IMPOSSIBLE, but I know me, I like to believe I can stick to a schedule and say I will follow Jeff Galloway’s plane “To Finish in the Upright Position” but, LOL, I know I will be crawling across that finish line because every week there seems to be a hiccup in my running schedule. Family, life, work and trips to Walt Disney World, like to get in the way and slow me down, but I WILL DO IT!!!! And out of curiosity, am I the only one training, who after finishing 3 miles starts thinking, I would have to run this course 3 more times to even come close to a 13.1 mile run. AHHHHHHHHHH, what have I got myself into?! That’s okay, I will distract myself with the anticipation of the Wine and Dine Half Marathon medal and the bragging rights of saying I did it on my 40^th birthday and then will reward myself with eating and drinking Around the World because truly isn’t that why we are all going?