2011 Disney Princess 5k + Half Marathon (#tbt race recap)

I thought it’d be fun to share another #tbt race recap. This time, my first Disney half marathon! It was my second half marathon ever. I ran the 5k on Saturday and then the half marathon on Sunday. This was way before the Disney races got popular and there were challenges to complete all-the-races so I remember signing up for the 5k as a last minute thing since we were going to be there anyhow. 🙂

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February 26, 2011 – Disney Royal Princess 5k

Saturday was the Royal Family 5k though Epcot. My mom, dad, husband and I all ran it. The goal was to take it easy and just enjoy it since my dad and I were running the HM the next day. My husband had also injured his foot a while back and this was his first race since then, so he ran slower (at my speed, hah!) to ease back into it. It was a great time.

I think our time was around 40 minutes since we stopped to take photos along the way. It was super humid too, I was just crossing my fingers that it wouldn’t be as humid for the HM the next day.

 

February 27, 2011 – Disney Princess Half Marathon

Sunday was the main event – the disney princess half marathon! My dad and I were running it. I had 3 goals, in order of most important to least important –
1. Have fun and feel like I pushed myself as much as I could. My first half was in September and was a mess. I wasn’t prepared, didn’t eat enough before, etc etc.
2. Beat my time from the last HM (3:17:xx)
3. Come in under 3 hours

The alarm went off at 2:45am. I had bread with peanut butter and ate a banana. This worked for me during long runs and I made sure to eat enough to avoid the issues I had during the last HM. My dad and I got to Epcot around 4am-ish. Then the waiting began. We took multiple potty breaks, sat, walked around, stretched, talked, watched the video they showed, etc.

A little before 5 the first corral went off. We were in corral C so we had to wait for the previous corrals to start. Disney really makes each corral feel special which is awesome. They countdown for each one and shoot off fireworks. I loved this. Before I knew it, we were off. The plan was to walk all of the water breaks and any “good” characters to get photos, and run the rest.

Miles 1-3 flew by – they were mostly on highway, but we saw tons of characters and bands and were really entertained.

Miles 4-7 were running through the gates of Magic Kingdom, through the castle, and around MK and back onto the highway to return to epcot. These went quickly as well, but were slow because we stopped to get a few pictures along the way and run to the bathroom. This was my favorite part of the race.

In every training run, I hit a mental wall around mile 7.5/8/8.5ish, so I full expected it to happen this time. and it did. But I kept on pushing through. These miles were tough – the sun was up, it was getting hot, the course was kind of boring, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off.

Mile 10 came at the perfect time, I have never been so glad to see a mile marker!

Miles 11-13 were SO HARD for me. They were over a few highway ramps, and the banked curves SUCKED. Then we turned into epcot, which I swear is the hottest, sunniest park, and it was just so hard to finish those last 2 miles.

I walked more than I would have liked, however I was so happy to see my husband and mom cheering for us right before the finish that I completely missed Mickey & Minnie giving out high fives.

Final time was 3:09:xx, however it would have been easily under 3 hours if we took out the bathroom breaks & waiting in line for photos so I’ll call that goal completed. Definitely had much more fun and felt much more prepared this time around too!

I can’t wait to do another disney race – my dad and I are already talking about signing up for the WDW half marathon in january 2012. The plan now is to run 8 mile long runs weekly and hopefully get past the stupid mental block I have there. And then when training for the next one, run more than 13 miles so I don’t feel so exhausted by miles 11 & 12.

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