The day started early with a 2:45 wakeup call from my ringing Android phone. The dogs could not figure out why I would want to get out of bed that early and gave me a strange look before closing their eyes and going back to sleep. The taxi showed up at 3:30 and took Matt and I on a quick quiet trek to Terminal 1 at O’Hare.
Instead of the usual United flight that I would take I decided to use my frequent flyer miles on first class seats as Matt had never flown first class before. The upside was that I could get the first class seats on Continental going out and US Airways coming back as I could for coach on United. the bad news was that we had to fly through Houston going out and Charlotte coming back. But that early in the morning we were going to do a bit of sleeping on the plane anyway so what the heck, more time to spend with my son.
He could not believe that we were served real food on real dishes with real silverware, twice (once going to Houston and once going to Orlando). He also was able to get as many drink refills as he wanted and was even offered a drink as soon as he sat down, not having to wait till takeoff. It will be hard for him to go back to coach after this vacation.
We arrived in Orlando at about 12 noon eastern time and jumped on the Disney Magical Express for our ride to the Disney Beach Club Resort. This is the same place we stayed last year and like the central location especially for the marathon weekend. After finishing either of the races, we can just walk right through Epcot back to our hotel instead of waiting for a bus back. (Note that you must have a park pass to get through just like any other visitor.
We checked in to the Beach club which is still 
decked out in Christmas decorations including an amazing gingerbread carousel in the main lobby, before we took another bus over to Disney/ESPN Wide World of Sports for race check in, packet pickup, chip timer testing and my meet up with the Cliff Bar Pace Team who I will be running with tomorrow. this year the check in went very fast and we were in and out and back on the bus within about 35 minutes, back at the hotel within 50 minutes and over to the boardwalk for a late lunch with an hour. Funny enough our waiter at the ESPN zone was from Lombard, so we talk a bit about the Cubs, the Sox and the Bears.
We decided to take it easy tonight and not burn a full days park pass on just a half day. Instead we did our usual tradition of playing catch out on the lawn by the lagoon (guys you are never to old to play catch with your son) and took a walk over to the Epcot back entrance then over to the Hollywood Studios to stretch our legs. One of the other benefits of the Beach Club or the Boardwalk Resort for that matter is that they are situated between both parks so you can walk to then or take a nice boat ride to either.
Well the fireworks just ended at Epcot (we can see the form our balcony) so the means it is bedtime for me. I have a big day ahead of me and I need to start to wind down.
More tomorrow.