Expedition Everest Challenge

It was amazing! Like nothing I have ever done before. It was a 5K adventure run with obstacles along the way followed by a scavenger hunt. Very intense but super fun. I would love to do this one again.

We headed out to Orlando and arrived just before 8pm. Got our bibs on, red bulls drank, and bag checked. Made our way around just taking in the sites and listening to the DJ. Everything was set up in the parking lot of Animal Kingdom. There were people everywhere! All shapes and sized ready to take on the challenge.

We warmed up, quickly downed our shot bloks and headed for the holding corral. Fortunately we were in wave 1 out of 8. John and I made our way up to the front of the pack. Everyone was packed in the holding area like sardines waiting for 9:30. The excitement and adrenaline was building. They did drag out the opening a little bit and we didn't start until about 9:40. And then the horn blew!

We took off fast. Much faster than I have ran a race before. And it was hot and humid. Gotta love Orlando weather. I was feeling pretty good for almost the first mile. I knew we were going fast but the pace was ok for the moment. We ran around the parking lot and into the actual park. About a mile in the cramps hit me. My whole stomach knotted up. I tried to push through it the best I could. I just kept praying they would go away.

John did a great job encouraging me to keep up the pace and fight through the pain. We were rocking the whole way. We were on pace to crush our 30 minute goal. There were three small obstacles along the way. The first was jumping over hay bales. The second was running through tires. And the last one was crawling under a net. The last one was the worst because it was smack dab at the end of the three miles. I'm pretty sure we came in around 29 minutes. The final times have not been posted yet.

Immediately following the 5K you grab your first clue for the scavenger hunt. John and I ran as individuals so we did not have the same clues. The clues were not easy. And after running my body and mind were shot. I could hardly even read my clue card. I had to quickly get it together and trek on. There ended up being a series of four clues. You had to solve each one in order to move onto the next. Once you solved all four clues they revealed the secret word you needed to finish the race.

The way they had the clues set up John and I were able to stay pretty close even though we had different cards. We finally solved everything, said the secret word, and kicked our run into full speed. We hit the finish line together at around 50 minutes. It felt amazing!

We got awesome medals for completing the race. They also had a few rides and parts of the park open for us. It was a very cool experience getting to run around Animal Kingdom at night. I feel extremely accomplished after this one. I ran my hardest and fastest ever. I pushed my body through humidity I'm not used to. I ran a 5K and then another 1.5-2 miles to solve the scavenger hunt. I've never sweat so much in my life. It was tough but well worth it. I love getting to share these huge feats with my wonderful husband!

*Update our final times are in! We finished the 5K in 29:01. Our final time for the 5K plus the scavenger hunt was 51:42!! I came in 14 out of 522 female individual runners. John came in 41 out of 293 male individual runners. Pretty frickin good if you ask me :)