Today was rough for me, but I'm proud that I finished, and so happy that I did the dumbo double and not the half, because I love the medal, and I doubt I'll be back to DL for this particular race. I love DL, and will do my best to be a Tink Legacy runner as long as I can keep it up, but I am just not cut out to run in the heat, especially the humid heat. I'm normally not an interval runner, because mentally, I do better if I can just keep running instead of stopping to walks, but after I got out of the park this morning and the sun started to come up (around mile 5, I think), I switched to 4:1 intervals, along with walking during water stations, and that's the only thing that got me through this race. Both my body and my mind just react poorly to heat.
I actually enjoyed the 10K yesterday, though I wish they'd had more characters out, or more main characters, I guess I should specify. My plan to keep my pace down was to stop for photos along the way, but really the only ones I wanted were of the Wonderland Gang. Other than that, though, I enjoyed that so much of the course was in the parks and behind the scenes. It felt like we got to go everywhere!
As for the expo, I usually end up going on Saturday afternoon, so I've never had to wait in line before. I just assumed that since I showed up at 11am on Friday, that's always how it is when the expo first opens. It took me an hour to get my bib, then another 20 minutes to get my shirt, then I walked around the merch booth, but when I saw how long that line was, I knew there was nothing I wanted that badly to wait in line. I left and grabbed lunch in the parks, then went back to my hotel and cooled down and took a little nap, then ran back over the expo about 6:30pm. The merch line was down to a 15 minute wait, and they still had what I really wanted: a Dumbo pin, a half marathon pint glass, and a little medal for my runner Mickey vinylmation.
So sorry to hear about the extreme disorganization of the kids' races! I have no kids, so no experience with those, but from what you are saying, I can see why you'd be frustrated and upset.
I hope that overall, everyone had an experience that made their trip and this weekend worthwhile. Now I'm off to sleep, because I've been up since 3 and I'm exhausted.