[Cross posted at dailymile.com]
Initially intimidated by a race that would require me to awake at 3 am to board a bus by 4 to make it to the corral that would go into lock down at 5 am, the Disney Princess half marathon turned out to be part princess part evil stepmother.
I was turned on to this race by my dear team in training teammates and friends, Kelly and Meghan sometime last season as we were all training for our first half marathons. At the time, it seemed like a really good idea, sunny Florida in the heart of what turned out to be a rough winter in fact. That, and there was the costume aspect, the erstwhile princess that I am, I relished the idea of running a hard-core half in lace and rhinestones. It was just the perfect representation of my personality, a little bit sparkle, a load of sweat. With three weeks to go to the NYC Half, I wanted to treat this as a long run and leave a bit more gas in the tank. That was not to be.
We decided to take our 5 yr old Max with us and leave the 2 yr old in New York. We flew down the day before the race, on Saturday and spent the day picking up the race packet at the expo, a massive affair at Disney’s ESPN Sports Complex and playing in the pool at our hotel, The Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had an early dinner alongside giraffe, zebra, antelopes and an ostrich (highly recommend) and tried for a very early bedtime, about 8 pm. I set out my gear, made my hydration (lemon lime nuun in fuel belt bottles) ripped open my sport beans and packed up my belt. I was not going to do bag check, just carry the hotel room key in my running shorts.
3 am came very quickly and I awoke with dinner still in my belly (hate that feeling) but still managed to eat half a breakfast cookie (nothing new on race day) and covered my mid season chafing welts with lots of body glide, donned my running shorts, pink lace skirt over that, bedazzled Team in Training visor, a pretty pink running shirt and grabbed the Garmin and my iPod shuffle, and my new ear buds, which I am loving (urbuds?) and snuck out the door leaving my husband and son sleeping.
Transportation to the start was smooth, a bus along with Meghan (Kelly was sadly nursing an injury but came to Disney anyway to celebrate her wedding anniversary and cheer us on) and her two friends. Just before I boarded the bus, I discovered that my shuffle was dead. The idea of running this far without my tunes was daunting but there was nothing I could do. We got to Epcot where the start and finish would be and were ushered into bag check and an area with a million porta potties (and yet, still a line!) After a while on line, ogling the amazing array of costumes, we started towards literally, where, we had no idea. Crowd mentality is amazing, at one point in walking to the corrals, we were marching in pack of hundreds of women in pink on a dark highway with no sign of Run Disney staff in seemingly no determinate direction. Of course, we ended up orderly at the corrals, and boy were they strict. You go where you are assigned, no questions asked. Meghan and I were in the same corral thank goodness and as we stood there, thankfully it was quite temperate so all we had to complain about was the wait; it dawned on us that we had 13.1 miles ahead. That might seem like an odd thing, but until you are about to cross the start of a race, at least to me, it never seems quite real. In fact Meghan’s quote of the morning was “Why does this keep happening to me?” as if signing up for, training for and running a half marathon was like an outside force that one cannot control. As this was a Disney production, starting at 5:45 am, each corral was sent out by the fairy godmother with a spell and a burst of great fireworks and off we went into the dark Orlando morning. My first half was the Hamptons Half Marathon, population 2400. The number I heard for this event was 17,000 runners and yes, it was a totally different animal.
My left quad has been a real issue this season and I was listening to it closely. Nothing. Not even a squeak. It was amazing. The first mile had us greeted by a huge marching band playing “gonna fly now” from Rocky. It was just what I needed to get past those first mile blahs I always get where my body asks me why are we doing this and wouldn’t we rather get a latte and curl up by the pool. From there each mile had a character, a dj, a band or some other attraction to distract us particularly when we were routed along Disney’s rather drab highway network.
Around mile 4 or so the sun started to rise so that when we hit the Magic Kingdom, we were treated to the best part of the course, other than the finish, in full early morning light. I am really not a sucker for these things but when we ran down Main Street USA, through Tomorrowland and right through Cinderella’s Castle, I was wowed. Cheering people, a perfect by design setting, it was really unlike anything I have ever experienced. From there we were ok until we got to mile 8 or so. It was now hot out, and humid and although I had been drinking smartly and had eaten my Sport beans, I was feeling sluggish, just in time for the hill section. By mile ten, I had the chills and goose pimples all over my arms. My knees were throbbing a bit so I stopped at a med tent and got an aspirin and chugged some PowerAde and pushed off for the home stretch.
Mile 11-12 were back in Epcot where thankfully, there were crowds of cheering folks, many, many characters, loud wonderful music and just as I was coming down the last big hill, I spotted the only characters that I would wait on a line to be photographed with, Phineas and Ferb. What I did not appreciate when I heard about the characters on the course was that each one would have a queue often 10-12 runners long waiting to have their picture taken. I was just not ready to use my race time for picture taking. Until of course, I spotted Max’s fav Disney pals. Luckily it was a quick line and sprinted off to catch up to Meghan who had passed my while I was waiting.
The last mile was probably my favorite, second going to Main Street USA, as not only did it feature a finish line, where Max and Tom were waiting, but also it started with a huge gospel choir that made me weep with joy. It was just what I needed because it was just before you could see the finish although someone had just yelled .25 to go to me, without seeing it, you just feel like this race is never going to end! And there it was, the finish. It seemed smaller to me in real life – somehow everything that I had built up for the finish when I got to it became decidedly simple. I had just completed my second half marathon, shaved 19 minutes off my previous half and I had three more weeks until I would do it again in my beloved NYC.
I reunited with Max and Tom (who then went off for a day at the Magic Kingdom) smiled for pictures, and literally hobbled back to the bus that would carry my tired self to the hotel where I soaked in the hot tub, had a massage, rehydrated, sat by the pool, sipped a pina colada and yes, wore my medal even with my bathing suit on. The day after the race, I was well enough to take Max to Hollywood Studios and then we headed home. Back to cold weather running in the park and 20 days until the NYC Half!!!
