After Test Track, Laura and Cathy decided it was time for a coffee. They found a Joffrey’s stand close by and found a spot to sit down to enjoy. The other four of us – Jill, Devin, Larissa and I – went and jumped into the standby line for Mission Space: Green side.
After our trip to Space, we went and watched marathoners for awhile, cheering them on. We were predicting Luke to finish sometime between noon-1pm, so we still had time before he’d be making his way into Epcot, so we decided to grab some food and headed over to Sunshine Seasons. When we got down there, Cathy made a comment about Soarin’, and how it was one of her favourites from her previous trip years ago – I had intentionally not scheduled a Fastpass for that for anyone, as we had a special surprise planned involving that ride so I just made a nonchalant comment about the long wait time haha.
After checking out the menu, Laura and Cathy decided they weren’t hungry, and left to go wander around. The rest of us ate though – Larissa is a vegan and Sunshine Seasons had decent options for her, which is why I suggested it. You can read about my meal over here.
Once we finished eating, we noticed that Living With the Land was a walk-on. I knew that Larissa would love this, so I led the way over. Laura and Cathy had rejoined us, so all 6 of us went on this.
While we were riding, Luke texted me. He was unfortunately not going to finish the marathon, and been swept from the course around the 32km mark for not maintaining the minimum speed required. He was currently being loaded onto a bus which would take him to the finish line (just past Epcot). While training, he had a knee injury that set him back (he was actually diagnosed in 2021 with severe arthritis and a torn meniscus in his knee – which I’m sure dates back years), and he was sick in December which derailed his final month of training – so he knew this would be a possibility. However – he still ran 32km that morning! 32! I was so proud of him! There’s no way I could have accomplished something like that today.
The 6 of us set off to go meet him by the finish line. Once we exited Epcot we were basically walking just beside the actual race route, so we watched dozens of people in the final km of their full marathon. By this point all of the true athletes had long since finished, so these were just regular, everyday people accomplishing one of the greatest achievements – I always find it very motivational to be near the finish line of an event like this!
The walk was actually farther than I thought it was going to be – but there was no way I was about to complain while seeing all these people who were about to finish a full marathon!
Eventually we found the area just past the finish line, where Luke had been dropped off. Even though he didn’t finish, he still received the medal and the special marathon ears, and we made him pose while we all took pictures of him haha
Also – I can’t seem to find any of Luke’s Photopass pictures from the marathon, and now I’m questioning if I ever downloaded them – major fail on my part. I feel terrible if that’s the case… He didn’t really stop for any of the characters though because he felt like his pace was off right from the beginning, and he wanted to make it as far as possible, but there should have been photos of him actually running. The only picture he has on his phone is this one – Richard was out cheering on the racers so Luke stopped for a selfie. For those who don’t know, Richard was a long-time greeter at the Grand Floridian, and he was a very well-known man in the Disney Wedding community. He sadly passed away a few months after this trip, at the age of 92.
After congratulating Luke, we all split up. Luke went alone to catch a bus back to Old Key West so he could shower, eat and have a nap. Devin and Larissa headed back into Epcot, walked over to the International Gateway and exited the park. From there, they caught a boat over to Hollywood Studios (this was their only real option to see that park, so I had set up their fastpasses for that park). Laura, Cathy, Jill and I went in a different direction, and hopped on the monorail. It was time for us to park hop, and introduce Luke’s family to their second Disney park!