Disney Princess Half Marathon - Saturday Recap

On to Saturday!

I woke up on Saturday morning at 6am for no reason at all. Not in my game plan, I knew I needed to store some sleep up since I wouldn't be getting much between Saturday and Sunday. So when I realized how early it was, I promptly rolled over and took a nap! hahaha :)

I had started putting my race stuff in a small suitcase on Friday but had to finish packing on Saturday before heading out to Disney property at 5pm to meet up with my friends at the hotel. The race started at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday and RunDisney suggests you be in your corral by 5:00 a.m. With such an early start we decided our best plan was to stay on property Saturday night so that we could take the Disney transportation to the starting line.


I put the finishing touches on my overnight bag with all my race gear in it and I moved on to making sure the food bag was all set. As most other runners can sympathize with, once you have a tested pre-race routine you try to stick with it, regardless of being away from home. My pre-race breakfast that doesn't give me tummy troubles is an english muffin with peanut butter and a banana. Thank goodness although there was a hotel stay involved, it was still local for me so I could easily bring my toaster with me.  I also packed some low calorie Gatorade and Nuun hydration tablets in my bag. The Nuun was for my Saturday hydration and the Gatorade was to put in my bottle for during the race on Sunday.

Once I got everything set, I headed off to lunch with my husband. I had a chicken Caesar wrap to try to avoid eating anything that would mess with my stomach too much. We decided to go see a movie since I didn't have to leave until 4:00 p.m. to head to the hotel. We ended up seeing "A Good Day to Die Hard." It was entertaining but clearly not best movie ever haha. After the movie we took a quick detour to Target because I wanted to see if I could pick up a pair of black capris for less than a million dollar. The Champion C9 line at Target is great to pick up pieces for a costume since they are fairly inexpensive but yet still tech friendly. I was planning to dress as Minnie for the race and I only had gray options to wear. I was able to find a pair of black capris so it was a successful stop.

Not long after arriving home, I headed out to Disney's All-Star Movie Resort. We checked in at the hotel and found out we were staying in the Toy Story section. I took a few pictures in the room and of the courtyard area on our way to the resort's food court for dinner. Here are just a few....

 Once we got to the food court I ate a ridiculously carbed out meal. I decided to go with their more homestyle offering option (Majestic) over either the Italian (Lyric) or Burger (Roxy) options. The Italian had a spaghetti with meatball option and a chicken alfredo. Sometimes I have acid reflux issues with tomato sauces and I almost always have tummy troubles with alfredo so I didn't want to risk it at all. At Majestic they had a meal option where you picked your protein and 2 sides. I selected salmon with brown rice and mashed potatoes. Now don't get me wrong, I know better than to get 2 carb sides even with a race tomorrow but I was being indulgent. I didn't eat all the brown rice and I figured it would be more beneficial than eating the veggies which would have only provided me fiber without a carb benefit. And the chocolate cake? shhhhhhhhhh, there is no chocolate cake, you are imagining that, just focus on the giant water behind it.

During the first half marathon, I had some issues with cramping. Prior to the second I had some salty tortilla chips the night before and whether it helped or it was my imagination or just better hydration, whatever, I was sold. So I totally salted my mashed potatoes like there was no tomorrow...err or like I wanted to retain water for tomorrow haha.

After dinner, we headed back to the room and made sure to put up our door hanger courtesy of SPIbelt and Endurance Sports Connection. We set up a game plan to be at the shuttle leaving the hotel by 3:15 a.m. and planned a 2:45 a.m. wake up call for the room. I had set my cellphone alarm for 2:15 a.m. to give myself some extra time in the morning ahem (oh you know, don't make me say it!). We really did our best to try to get to bed by night but I remember looking at the clock at 10:38 p.m. unable to sleep! At some point, I obviously fell asleep and so starts Sunday.........

Stay tuned for the recap of the actual race!!!! Spoiler Alert: I didn't die although I wanted to during the race!

Disney Princess Half Marathon - Friday Recap

The 5th Anniversary of the Disney Princess Half Marathon, where do I start?!?! I guess I'll start with Friday....

In preparation for the expo and race, I had requested Friday off work. I wanted to go to the expo early in the morning to ensure that any official RunDisney merchandise that I wanted to purchase would still be available. I arrived at Downtown Disney (DTD) at 9am and hopped on the shuttle to head over to the expo which was being held at Coronado Springs resort.

Once I arrived at the expo, my first order of business was to pick up my bib and my race shirt. I headed over to the line to pick up my bib which was pretty short.

 I received my bib and the commemorative pin I had purchased with my registration. I plan on putting the pin on the neck ribbon on my medal. It's still currently sitting in my purse. Imagine that, I can run a half marathon but I'm too lazy to get it out of my purse and put it on the ribbon hahaha :)

With the line to pick up my bib being so short, I had hopes that picking up my race shirt would be similarily painless, boy was I wrong. At the point when I got in the "line" aka mass amount of random people crushed together, there was no sense or organization. I stood in the "line" for a little over 30 minutes before making it to the front to get my shirt. I felt pretty bad for the volunteers having done that same task of handing out race shirts at Wine & Dine this year. I knew it wasn't necessarily their fault that they couldn't get everything unpacked and put into the bags quick enough. There was some nastiness between people that went on in line, but for the most part everyone was able to keep their cool and Princess on.

After getting my bag-check bag and race shirt along with Luna bar, safety pins, button (there should have also been a race program and temporary tattoo in my bag but there wasn't, no big loss), I headed over to the line to go through the RunDisney merchandise booth. The line there moved pretty quickly so it wasn't too long before I was inside trying to decide what to buy. I ended up picking up a zip-up jacket in this awesome bluey-teal color and a 13.1 magnet.

I was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago (no injuries) and took my 13.1 magnet off my car before taking it into the shop. I ended up putting it on my husband's vehicle in the meantime. So when I was looking at all the merchandise, I decided my original magnet should remain on his vehicle since I drive it too and I'd need to get myself a new one. It's amazing how I can justify purchases :)

 Once I finished paying for my purchases, I met up with some of my running club friends who had arrived at the expo when I was in line. They were in line to pick up their race shirts and had a much better experience than I did. Disney had taken charge and created queues for people to stand in which helped with the prior issue of congestion in one area. After they picked up their shirts, we walked around the expo to view all the vendor booths. I ended up making a purchase at the Raw Threads booth to go with my outfit for a St. Patrick's Day run. So I'll post a picture of that later.

We also stopped by the RunDisney booth and were able to snap pictures with both Sean Astin and Jeff Galloway! I was pretty excited to meet Sean Astin and totally have to credit Disney for some of my most impressive celebrity encounters ever having met Joey Fatone at Marathon weekend. This was my 3rd time meeting with Jeff. Is that even still considered meeting after 3 times? I'm pretty sure we are almost BFFs at this point hahaha.

I ended up leaving the expo for about an hour to head back to my vehicle to charge up my cellphone which had quickly died with all my FB and Twitter activity. I was meeting up with friends at the expo at 2pm, so I needed to make sure I had enough battery power to make sure we didn't miss each other. I grabbed a quick lunch and some bottled water so I could make sure I was keeping hydrated. Then I headed back over to the expo for round 2.

Round 2 consisted of my providing proof of time to Runner Relations to get bumped from Corral D to Corral C, yay! My friends got their race bibs and shirts. By this point in the afternoon they were able to simply walk up and get their shirts without any line at all, jealous! We waiting in line at the KT Tape booth to get taped. I'll do a separate post on my experience with the KT Tape but if you follow me on Twitter you know already that it's just not for me. We also stopped by the New Balance wall to take pictures of our names and at their stop motion photo booth. I can't seem to figure out how to post the video of the photos so it plays correct. If you can figure it out let me know (I'm on a PC, not a fancy Mac).

After finally taking in our fill of the expo, at about 5pm we headed out to the outdoor bar at Coronado Springs. My friends partook in a alcoholic bevy but due to my cramping during my last 2 halfs, I was in serious hydration mode and didn't want to take the risk. By the time we finished up and headed back to the shuttles the expo was closed up so the lines were pretty long for the shuttles. By the time I made it back to DTD to my car it was 7pm and then I didn't get home until 8pm. I'd say I definitely experienced all the expo had to offer.

I'm looking forward to getting the rest of my weekend recap posted! Stay tuned........

Catching Up

Last post on January 21st, yikes!

So I am officially in what is the busy season for work. Poor excuse for the lack of blogging but after exhausting all mental abilities during the 9-5, all I want is food and mind numbing tv watching.

So my last post was about my first half marathon which was amazing. Roughly 2.5 weeks ago, I ran my 2nd half marathon. It didn't have quite the same quality of amazing to it but I sure as heck loved my big medal!!!! Poor second half marathon though, I'm sure they always lack a certain something as they won't top the feeling of the first one. It was the 5 year anniversary of the race and they had giant 5" medals!

Here is a picture of me on top of the 1st bridge with the infamous white piano and piano man. It was the Melbourne Music Marathon/Half Marathon so along the course they had entertainment.

This pictures was taken before we even hit the first bridge. The bridge in the distance would be the 2nd bridge that we crossed right before the finish. The race had a full and half marathon so runners who did the full ran the course twice so they completed a total of 4 bridges.

That in short, was my 2nd marathon. I did take a lot more pictures but that's the abbreviated version aka all my brain can process. I used most of my brain power to update my completed races and scheduled races list. Yea, so my race list got a little out of control.

So when you look at the updated lists, all I have to say is, don't judge me! I'm a race junkie. It doesn't even matter if it has race bling or not, I pretty much register for all the 5ks too. I mean, I could be addicted to worse things right?

The other thing you probably notice (because all of you clicked on the link and viewed my race schedule, RIGHT?!?! haha) is that I'm registered for a full marathon. Somewhere around mile 9 of my 1st half marathon, I decided I could do a full marathon but sat on the idea for a bit. Then I ran my second half marathon and it kind of reminded me and reconfirmed that I could do a full with some training. Then my race group started tossing around ideas about a full and then the point of no return happened. Space Coast Marathon released the picture of not only the 2013 medal but of medals for the next 5 years along with 2 race series medals.

Image from www.spacecoastmarathon.com

Could you look at those and not want them.....ALL. Yep, neither can I.

So while I don't really have plans of being a multiple marathoner (confirmed you can mix and match distances to get the series medals), I definitely wanted Space Coast to be my first full.

My official marathon training won't start until June when my local Galloway group begins it's 8-month session. I cannot wait to get started but I suppose I have enough races in the meantime to keep me busy :)

Oooooh, speaking of upcoming races, Disney Princess Half Marathon in 3 days!!! I'll do my best to be a better blog and get a recap of the Princess not too long afterward. Wish me luck!!!