Disney Princess Half Marathon - Part 2

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.

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!!

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 :)

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

Christmas Mail

I'm playing catch up from the holidays so I apologize in advance that most of the posts for this week will be from stuff in December!

I love getting mail that isn't a bill or junk.  So during the holidays I got a lot of fun mail from some of my fellow Girls Gone Sporty ambassadors.

Danielle over at Healthy Kitschy Vegan was my partner in our GGS Halloween swap, but instead of Halloween stuff I got Christmas stuff!

She sent me some homemade cookies, a bird ornament, 2 Cliff bars, a headband to run in, a Honey Stinger, an almond butter cup, and a protein shaker!  I have enjoyed everything she sent!  Thanks Danielle!

Next up was our Christmas swap, and Tammy at kyrunnergirl and I were paired up.  She sent a box full of goodies that myself, my husband, and even Guinness got to enjoy!

We got 2 bags of homemade chocolate chip cookes, a puppy cookie stick, 2 super cute ornaments, and Guinness got some homemade dog biscuits!  Thanks so much Tammy!

You may remember that I became an ambassador for energybits awhile back, and I finally received my ambassador kit!

If you're interested in learning more about energybits, check them out here, and to get 15% off your order use the promo code "HelloFitnessJen".  They rock!

Finally, through Sweat Pink, I was able to receive a Bulu Box!  Bulu Box is delivered to your doorstep once a month filled with different products for you to try.  The products change each month so you never know what you're going to get!

I will be doing a full review on the contents of my Bulu Box soon so stay tuned!

And finally, on Christmas eve, we got a letter from Santa :)

Do you look forward to getting fun stuff in the mail?  What's your favorite item(s) received?

Until next time,

Jen

Crossfit 101

Back in December I bought a Groupon for a local Crossfit box, and Wednesday night was my first class.

I met Sharon there and as we walked in there were a LOT of newbies waiting for class to start, which was good!  I believe a majority of them had also purchased the Groupon.  Before we started, I popped some bits - 

There were about 20 of us in the class, and the owner, Peyton, was our instructor for the day.  He gave us a little about his personal history with Crossfit - he lost 51 pounds after doing Crossfit for 11 months and has been doing it for 4 years.  He recently got the space to open a box after using some space at a local park.

Afterwards, he got us all around him and had each of us show him our form with push ups and squats.  Then we grabbed kettle bells and did swings, and finally, a medicine ball for some toe to balls.  When we were done, he gave us our WOD:

400m run

4 sets of 10:

Push ups

Squats

Kettlebell swings

Toe to ball

400m run

Boy, did I work up a good sweat with that workout!!  After the class was over Sharon and I stayed behind and chatted a bit, then headed home.  I knew I was going to be sore the next morning but I didn't realize just HOW sore.  I definitely felt the burn in my muscles!

But Friday...I went back for my second 101 class!  It was a rainy day and the gym was pretty full with the 101 class, the normal WOD class, and an Olympic lifting class (he's hoping to knock out one of the walls to make the gym bigger soon).  So for those of us who were there for our second 101 class, we did the WOD for the day.  Before I started, I decided to try a new energy drink made by FRS

A lot of my fellow bloggers have done reviews of this product and I wanted to give it a try.  I picked up the Cherry Limeade flavor, and while I was a little nervous about what it would taste like, I actually really enjoyed it!  I want to try some of the other flavors soon.

Here was the WU (warm up) and WOD for Friday ;

WU
2 sets of 20:
Raleigh hops
Mountain climers

WOD
5 rounds:
100 single jump rope or 500m row
15 goblet squats

It definitely got the heart pumping!  I could REALLY feel my quads duing the goblet squats, and I got a few battle wounds from the jump rope - 

All in all, I liked the WOD for Friday!  I'm planning to head back on Wednesday after work for more :)

Have you done Crossfit? What's your favorite and least favorite exercise during your workout?

Until next time,

Jen