Well I LOVED the Disney Princess Half Marathon!
It was such a great experience....I went into it feeling confident because just three weeks before I had run 13.1 miles on my own. I knew at this run that I would be doing intervals, and I'm not going to lie, knowing that I had trained more than my mom and sister made me more confident. I think that is why I didn't feel too nervous about the race. Unlike my first one where I was really nervous.
I think I was more excited than anything. We spent the day before at Epcot and came back to our hotel at 5pm. We planned to have an early dinner right around 5:30pm, but we had some complications with our resort restaurant, so we ate a little later. Anyways, we got back to our room, took showers and set all of our stuff up. It was nice to have everything ready to go. The next morning it took me about 5 minutes to be fully dressed and ready. (other than braiding my hair :-)) But just a TIP, when running a race set all of your clothes including your under garments out. Have all of your GU or Energy essentials in your packs. Have your bib pinned on your clothes, and anything else you are taking in a bag. It really makes race morning stress free, quick and easy.
We needed it to be an easy morning since we were getting up at 2:30am to be at the race and in our corrals on time. As I said I was not nervous before the race, but I must have been excited or something because the night before I could not sleep at all. It took me an hour of rolling around to finally fall asleep...then when I woke up I felt like I had never slept.
Anyways, on to race day! We got to our corrals and we were so overwhelmed (in a good way) at the amount of people that were in this race! It was insane, and hard to even explain! Oh and just a side note: there were more porta-potties there than I had ever seen in one place in my whole life!!
Anyways, it was so much fun because Fairy-god Mother counted us down and told us to go, and they shot fireworks off for each corral's start time! You felt very special, and kind of like a big deal since they had MC's talking throughout the start! People were dressed up all over the place. Some just in tutus like us, but others in a full git-up of a Disney character! It was so fun, and I have to admit, more tutus than I had ever seen in my life!
So we started the race doing a 2/1 run-walk interval. It wasn't bad at all. The race was really fun seeing all the neat setups they had on the side of the road. Like a big pirate ship, bands, characters...some of my favorite characters on the sides were all the Princes in one place, and all the Villains in one place! I thought those were fun! We didn't stop for any photos if the line was long.
I did get one with Pocahontas though!
Some people complained that for Disney there wasn't as much action throughout the race as they would figure. I kind of agreed...especially on the hard miles, or the roads that were plain (not through the parks) it would've been nice for more entertainment to take your mind off of the race.
Along with that, although a great experience, there were SOOO many people running. Literally the road was packed from side-to-side the entire race! There were no gaps. So for this being my first BIG run, it was cool to experience, but if I was really trying to run the race, and maybe work at PRing, I don't feel like this was the ideal race to participate in because it was so hard to run a consistent pace without weaving!
It was amazing to get to run through the Disney parks though. And to run under the castle at Magic Kingdom! Here we are out in front of it!
My Favorite Picture!
So we ran together and kept our 2/1 pace through about mile 8. That was when Big Sis needed to slow down some so she told me to keep going and help my mom finish. So, trusting that she was doing okay and would finish, I caught up with my mom and we kept running and walking throughout the last 5 miles.
Starting this race though, my sister told me that I could run ahead and do well since I had trained for it. I told her "No...!!" I wanted this race to be about the experience with my mom and sister. It wasn't about running and getting a good time to me, it was about having fun and experiencing this with my mom and sister!
So my mom and I ran to mile 13, and for the last .1 miles of the run, it was around a corner and up a slight hill. We decided to stop and wait for my sister to catch up. She was about a quarter of a mile behind us. So when she caught up we all ran and finished the race together!
It was overall a wonderful experience! And although I loved the Disney run, it was an expensive trip...so I don't know if I would continue going back to Disney runs because like Big Sis and I talked about, it's fun to experience new things. So if I was to pay for another big run I would want to go somewhere else and experience something new and exciting!
1/2 Marathon #2= FINISHED!!! What's next?!?!
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