Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Race #20--Princess Half Marathon- February 24, 2013

The 2013 Princess Half Marathon  marked the 2 year anniversary of when I started to run (although then it was the 5k).  I knew then that I wanted to some day run the Half.  It just looked so fun!  And this was the year!  I convinced Cori to dress up again and we found some amazing costumes.  Our shirt and skirts are by iGlowRunning and the arm sleeves are by GroovyBabyActionGear (both on Etsy).  Belle for me, Ariel for Cori.

  Our 10k time from the Winter Garden 10k was 1:08:20 which was good enough to bump us up to Corral B.  The expo was moved from where it is normally held at the Wide World of Sports to the convention center at Coronado Springs Hotel.  This area was NOT big enough.  There was a line to get into the RunDisney merchandise tent.  It was crazy!  It didn't stop me from buying a ton though!

My alarm woke me up early at 3:00 on Sunday.  Cori picked me up at 3:30 and we went across the street to meet up with a fellow teacher so she could follow us.  We drove over to Epcot, parked, and took a quick picture together and then she was on her way.  She was in corral A and a lot faster than us.

 
We headed into the crowded area to wait for the race to begin.  There was a picture of Belle's rose so we had to stop.
 
 
We met up with one of my high school friends, Kristin.  This was her first half and her first Disney race.  She was in corral A but dropped back to B to wait with us.


It was great to see her.  We started our walk to the corral.  It's about a 20  minutes walk but we were talking the whole time and looking at everyone's costumes so the walk went by fast.  We lined up in the corral for a little while.  I don't know exactly how long but it didn't seem bad.  Before we knew it, they were counting down for the first group of runners and the fireworks went off!


A couple of minutes later, and the fireworks for our own corral went off!




 
And we were off!  We chatted with Kristin for a second and then she went on her own.  She was planning on running straight through and we're run/walkers and planned to stop for a ton of pictures .  We had planned on our race being about a half hour longer than our previous half (1 hr 45 mins).  This was the first time I ran holding my phone.  Usually I keep it in my armband, but its such a pain to take in and out and I knew that I would be doing that a lot so I decided to try running while holding it.  It didn't bother me at all.

Before we knew it, we were at mile 1!  (Please excuse the random blurriness or people in my mile marker pictures.  For this first mile, it took me a while to get it right.  I was too far away and it was too dark to see, I tried to wait for people to get out of the picture, etc.  Wasted time!)

Mile 1: 10:48 pace

Up next: Mile 2

Mile 2: 12:20 pace

We came upon a Princess sign.  Princess Half, Princess sign=had to stop for a picture! (no, that's not us in it).



Then we saw the line for the picture that I most wanted:  the heroes!  We jumped in line.  There was Li Shang (from Mulan) by himself that we could take a picture with while we waited.


The line for the guys was LONG---more than 11 mintues LONG!  Holy cow.  I knew I wanted the picture, but that was a whole mile's worth of running that we spent waiting!


Then just a little bit up the road was the tollbooth for the Magic Kingdom.  I drive through this all of the time, but there was something different about running under it.  So we stopped for a picture.




Mile 3: 25:07 (ouch!!  Both in time and the fact that the wait in line had already started to make our muscles tighten up.  I knew making up time was going to be tough.)



Mile 4: 11:45 pace (that's more like it!)

Then we ran down the dreaded ramp that goes into the incline by the Contemporary.  Gotta love the RunDisney logo and the DJ!


At the top of the incline were some huge puppets: Genie, Lumiere, and Sebastian ( we didn't want to wait for pics, but I still wanted some so I snapped random people :)  )





Mile 5: 12:12 (not bad considering this mile has the incline that most people walk and cause congestion)

Then we ran into the Magic Kingdom.  It's amazing to run down Main Street.  The actual running path is pretty narrow but the sides are filled with cheering fans.  And then you see the castle.  Such a great feeling!  We knew from the Half in January, not to stop because there was a picture place after you run through the castle.

I knew this was where we would see all the princesses so we planned to stop a lot.

My princess!


About to run through the castle..you can kind of see the trumpeters up on the castle.


I realllly wanted the picture of Prince Mickey and Princess Minnie but the line was even longer than the ones for the heroes so we sadly decided not to wait in line.  I still snapped a random pic though.


Our castle picture!




Mile 6: 17:03 pace (so many pictures!)

Then we saw the parade float and I knew there had to be at least one Prince/Princess couple up there so we got in the loooong line.  It turned out to only be Aurora and Prince Phillip.



And then we ran out of the Magic Kingdom. 



Mile 7: 17:04 pace (that long line hurt us but we were over halfway there!)

These nice gentlemen found my glass slipper!  I had to take a picture with them to thank them.



Mile 8: 13:51

This part is where I got frustrated.  It's our own fault but since we had stopped for so many pictures, we were back with runners from the later corrals who were slower.  And we couldn't get around them.  I kept running on the grass to pass them.  People probably thought we were crazy.

We also stopped for a bathroom break.  Gross.  This was the first time we had ever stopped during a race and will be the last unless we go in an actual bathroom in one of the parks.  I did find it hilarious that there were girls passing toilet paper around before going in.


Mile 9: 18:02 pace.

This was around when Kristin texted me that she was done.  It was about 2 hours and 20 minutes in.  I remember thinking.  Wow, we still have 4 more miles to go.

We saw Dot from Bug's Life and I don't have any pictures of her at all so we stopped.




Mile 10: 12:57 pace

Not much happened on the road between mile 10 and 11.


Mile 11: 11:52 pace

Mile 11 is where I usually get this huge burst of energy and try to get Cori to go faster.  But honestly, this time it took everything in me to keep up our run/walk pace.  I just wanted to walk the rest of the way.  But we didn't.  And there's a lovely overpass here too I think.

Up next was Mulan.  I was more interested in the statues by her since Cori and I traveled to Asia this summer!




Mile 12: 12:21 pace

And this next character confused the heck out of me.  Glinda?  I mean, I know we have The Wizard of Oz in the Great Movie Ride, but she's not a Disney character!  She had a microphone on and everything!





As you're running you see some great signs (Until this one below, my favorite had been "Worst Parade EVER!!)  but this one is now my favorite (shout out to my trivia team "That's What She Said!")


Somehow I didn't get a picture of the Spaceship Earth!  I think I was too tired.  Oops.  But then we rounded a corner and saw the gospel choir and I knew we were almost done.



Mile 13: 12:36 pace

We could see the end!  Normally at this point I can convince Cori to really take off running but I was so tired that I didn't even bother trying.  We were jogging slow enough that I could even take a picture of the finish line.



And we were done!


Last little bit: 12:34 pace.  Runkeeper said we ran 13.67 miles in 3:16:21 with an average 14:22 pace.  RunDisney had my chip time at 3:16:16 so it was pretty accurate.  And I was right that we would be running for about a half hour more.





After we got our medals, we picked up a banana, powerade, and goody box which has yummy thing like nut mix, crackers, hummus, and chocolate in it.  We walked over to get our medals engraved.  The first two times we did this (the Tower of Terror 10 Miler and Wine & Dine Half), the wait was long to get it engraved but there was an after party so you could walk around.  After the Princess, the wait was maybe 5 mins tops.  This time, it was an hour!  Our muscles were sooo tired!  We had run our longest time yet (even though my longest distance was 16 miles, I was still 2 mins shorter on that!)

We headed home and my hubby had my favorite post race breakfast waiting for me--chocolate milk and donuts!



We had an absolute blast but we learned that we won't be stopping for a lot of pictures again.  Maybe one or two, but it's not worth standing in the long lines while our muscles are tightening up or getting stuck behind slower runners.  That didn't stop us from loving it though!  I'm addicted to RunDisney races and can't wait til our next one!  Right now our next one is the Dumbo Double Dare in September in Disneyland (10k on Saturday and Half on Sunday).




Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Race Recaps--2

Race #11--Dawn Brancheau Dream Big 5k, April 21, 2012


Race #12--Disney's Expedition Everest Challenge, May 5, 2012.  We came in 39th place in the female team division out of 701!  We are kicking ourselves that we didn't sign up for the 2013 race in time!


Race #13--Disney's Tower of Terror 10 Miler, September 29, 2012 (our first long run)





















 
 
Race #14--Disney's Wine and Dine Half Marathon, November 10, 2012 (our first half!)










Race #15--Reindeer Run, Sea World, December 15, 2012














Race #16--Walt Disney World Half Marathon, January 12, 2013























Race #17--Dick Batchelor Run for the Children 5k, Universal, January 19, 2013







































Race #18--Lady Foot Locker 5k, Winter Park, February 2, 2013

 
Race #19--Winter Garden 10k, February 16, 2013
 
 

Up next will the Princess Half Marathon.  I can't wait!