If you missed my other recaps, you can find them here!
Disney's Fit For A Princess Expo - Day 1
Disney's Fit For A Princess Expo - Day 2
Disney Princess Half Marathon - Part 1
And now...the conclusion of my first half marathon!
Once I sent Amanda ahead, I stopped at a medical tent for some Biofreeze and kept on going. I finally began to follow my run/walk intervals when we came to the halfway point.
A couple of weeks before the race runDisney asked on the Facebook page what song you wanted to hear at that halfway mark. People gave recommendations, and about a week before the race, the final choices were posted for everyone to vote. I didn't really have a preference, but the winner was "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys.
I even decided to take a little video clip of the halfway point -
When I got to mile 7, I decided to text Sharon to see how far back she was. She was only about half a mile, so I decided to wait on her so we could run together for a bit. We started off and in the sea of people almost immediately got separated. Amanda had texted me earlier to let me know Lilo and Stitch were close to mile 8, and since it's one of my favorite movies AND having just gotten home from a 2 week Hawaiian vacation, I wanted to get a picture with them.
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| Giving the "shaka" |
Shortly after I saw Genie from "Aladdin", and since he didn't have a long line I jumped in for another photo op -
Between miles 8 and 9, an accordian club was playing some fun tunes.
After the water station at mile 9, I saw this, and it just cracked me up-
My dear friend, Jessica, had big plans to come down and watch me run, but it didn't work out that way, but she followed me through the texts from the runner tracking and texted me words of encouragement, so I sent her this lovely picture of me in return -
At mile 10 I believe I hit my "wall". My feet were absolutely killing me, it hurt to run, and I felt so incredibly sluggish. BUT...I kept telling myself "You only have a 5k left...you can do this" And, of course, at mile 10 is the dreaded on ramp that you have to climb. The Green Army dude from "Toy Story" was there helping the Princesses stay motivated to get up the ramp. Honestly, I didn't think it was too bad. Even if I wanted to run up it I couldn't...there were sooooo many other Princesses!!
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| The Princesses behind me! |
Running on the overpass was actually a lot of fun. Car after car of people driving into the parks were honking their horns and shouting words of encouragement. I'm really glad I decided to run without my headphones! We came to mile 11...not much further! We were right outside Epcot and a very animated DJ was rocking some tunes and chatting it up on the microphone. I ran by and saw Mulan and Mushu, and since the line wasn't long and I was almost done, I stopped for another picture!
As I mentioned before, one of my favorite things about the race was looking at all the awesome signs made by the spectators. This one, just past mile 12, was one of my absolute favorites -
When we got behind the scenes at Epcot I knew we were sooooo close! At the last water stop, I saw Sharon, sprinted up to her and said "We're finishing this race together!" We were both in pain at our feet, so we decided to walk a majority of the way and save our energy to run across that finish line. I saw Pinocchio and had to get a picture with him....but not before the Cast Member that was with him took one of himself with my phone :)
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| Thanks, random CM! |
As we made our way to the edge of World Showcase and looped back around, that Epcot ball never looked so good.
We went to the right of the ball and saw the gospel choir - that's your signal that you're in the home stretch!!
At this point I texted J and tell him we were almost done! He texted back to let me know where he and D were standing, and Sharon spotted them out. They had huge grins on their faces (hopefully because they were proud of us?) and so did we. We rounded that last turn and saw the finish line!! As we crossed we hugged...we had done it! We were half marathoners! The volunteer put that beautiful medal around my neck and we walked to the area where they were handing out water and Powerade, then went to get our finisher pictures made.
We grabbed our runDisney snack box and went to find the boys.
We hung out for awhile and I decided to take a seat on the ground to change out of my shoes and just relax. J snapped this (cute) picture of me -
As we went to head back to the resort, i saw that Snow White was out taking pictures. Of course, I had to get my picture made with her seeing as I chose to dress up as her! J stood in the bus line and waited for me. She complimented me on my sparkly skirt as we took a picture (for whatever reason the picture the CM took with my phone is really washed out - will have to post the pro pictures when I buy them).
We headed back to the resort to shower, pack up, grab some lunch, and head to the airport. I was a little bummed to have to leave so soon, but the overall weekend was something that I will never forget.
On the way home, I sported my awesome new
Team Sparkle shirt and my gorgeous new bling. While the first half of the shirt might not be accurate (yet), I definitely kick ass.
I had such an amazing time doing the Princess half marathon as my first. Will I do it again? Hard to say - there are so many other awesome races that runDisney puts on that I want to do first, but maybe in a few years. My next runDisney race(s) will be the Dumbo Double Dare in August. I've never been to Disneyland before, so I plan to take it all in, check out the parks and see how it sizes up to Walt Disney World. Maybe I'll see some of you there!
Before I end this post, I want to say thank you to my husband, Sharon, Amanda, my fellow Sweat Pink, Girls Gone Sporty, and Energybit amabassadors, my friends, my family, fellow bloggers, and you...my readers. This journey wouldn't have been as memorable had it not been for all of you. I hope that you'll stick around to see what happens in the next chapter of my running career, because I'm not ready to hang up my shoes yet...I'm just getting started!
Until next time,
Jen
