13.1 Royal Miles-A Princess Half Marathon TR - Complete

[rani8600]

Hi Everyone, welcome to my Princess Half Marathon Trip Report

Who:

Im Lindsay, a 26 year old vegan who has been going to Disney World since I can remember.

Hayley, 22, currently working in the Orlando area.

My mom (doesnt care for having her picture taken), who has been the driving force for my sister and my Disney obsession.

Why: The Disney Princess Half Marathon

Where: Disneys Pop Century Resort

The seed for this trip was planted right here on the boards. I had been reading trip reports in anticipation of an upcoming trip I little over a year ago and came across a report on the Disney runs. I read the report and thought it was interesting. I mentally filed the info away not really thinking too seriously about it. I have never been athletic or in any shape or form a runner. I didnt think that I would ever be able to complete an event like this. Months later I came across another trip report. It was a 2012 princess half trip report and while reading it the wheels started turning and I started thinking that if I started training early just maybe I could do it.

Fast forward to the beginning of July&by this point for better or worse the decision had been made I was going to sign up. I started to train around this time using the Jeff Galloway method of run/walking. I started all the way at the beginning running three days a week starting with run 15s walk 45s to 20/40 to 30/30. My first 5k was able three weeks after I started training and I ran it using 30/30 on a crazy hot day 90 degrees and humid at the race start at 9am. It was not pretty but I did it in 37 minutes. I continued training working with up to and with a 1m/1m routine and ran my first 10k on Nov 10th. I was able to complete the course in 1:12:30 and submit the time to Disney for corral placement.

After that I started to work on the official program and increase my distance little by little. I was doing well until the week of Christmas. We went to Disney for a week and we were trying to fit so much in that I wasnt able to run at all. It was a great holiday trip, but crazy busy. I came back and pushed to put myself back on schedule as I was a bit behind. Then things really started to go downhill around mid January. I developed a bad cold that made it hard to breathe let alone run. Once I thought I was over it I went out for a few more runs. Apparently this was not a good idea just yet. I ended up with bronchitis that pretty much nixed 90 percent of my runs and def canceled all of my long runs as the air was just too cold in Jersey (below freezing for most of the time) and my lungs couldnt handle it. This was so far from ideal and from the training that I was picturing for myself leading up to the race&so frustrating.

With rest and luck I was able to get rid of most of the cough in time for the race. I had to cross my fingers and hope that the miles that I put in previous would be enough to carry me across the finish line.

 

[TangledUp]

Sounds like a fun trip report. I've just started training for the 2014 Princess Half. Can't wait to hear about your experience.

 

[StitchsGurl]

I'm in!

I've always wanted to run a Disney marathon - and I can't wait to read about your experience~

 

[wiigirl]

I am in!

 

[JessM]

I really want to run the Princess Half next year, I can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[rani8600]

Sounds like a fun trip report. I've just started training for the 2014 Princess Half. Can't wait to hear about your experience.

Thanks, i hope your training is going well. I cant wait for the nice weather to arrive so i can start enjoying some runs

I'm in!

I've always wanted to run a Disney marathon - and I can't wait to read about your experience~

Thanks, it was great experience. Im really glad i gave it a try

I am in!

Welcome!

I really want to run the Princess Half next year, I can't wait to hear all about it!

You totally should! Its a great race to run, i feel like the disney races are less pressure than some of the shorter local ones i have done.

 

[rani8600]

Day 1-Travel Day

After finishing my last minute packing my dad picked me up at 8:30 Saturday morning to drive me to the airport. The weather was all over the place and we didn’t want to get stuck in traffic and make me late for my 11:50 flight. I had nightmares leading up to the race about missing the flight and therefore the race. Luckily, the roads were good and there was no traffic. It only took 45 minute to get there and I was through security by 9:30. I found my gate and discovered that they were posting a 20 minute delay. Not too bad, but it gave me even more time to kill before boarding.

I chatted with my mom for a while who had flown down Thursday night to hang out with my sister for a few days before I arrived. They like to do things like go to the mall where I consider that a complete waste of Disney time. Totally different priorities….

After chatting I decided I should try to track down something to eat as I would probably get hungry on the plane if I didn’t. On the opposite side of the terminal I stumbled across a Jamba Juice. I have never been there before but a quick google search gave me a list of the vegan smoothies available. I went with the Pomegranate Paradise and it was delicious.

I wandered back to my gate to charge my phone and hang out for a while until it was time to go. Then the delays started. There was an issue with the plane that was coming in and they were delaying the flight. Every 10 minutes they pushed back the flight 30 minute until they got an accurate time of 3pm. It was a very good thing that I gave my information to my mother and she had picked up my packet form the expo the day before, I think I would have died from the stress. Leaving at 3 meant that there was no way that I was going to be able to make it to the expo before it closed at 6. This left me a little disappointed as I was hoping to still make it to look around, but it least I was going to make the race. If I choose to run another Disney race, there is no way that I will be flying out the day before though. I have learned my lesson.

Finally at 2:55, after numerous nervous calls to Airtran to make sure that we were in fact going to fly that day, we boarded the plane and were able to take off.

The flight was ok, but it was bumpy and the seatbelt sign stayed on for the majority of the trip. After much anticipation we landed at MCO around 5:30.

I didn’t check baggage so I was able to go straight out to meet my mom and sis who were picking me up to save time. It felt so nice to be in sunny Florida

 

[TangledUp]

Ugh! Nothing is worse than watching the departure time creep up when all you want to do is get to Disney NOW! My last trip down there was full of delays - a four hour delay on the way down (we ended up landing at 1 am, not the best start to a Disney trip) followed by a four day delay on the way back due to Hurricane Sandy. I can't imagine the stress if you're trying to get to a race though. At least you finally made it.

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Joining! Look forward to reading more!

I chatted with my mom for a while who had flown down Thursday night to hang out with my sister for a few days before I arrived. They like to do things like go to the mall where I consider that a complete waste of Disney time. Totally different priorities….

Totally agree with you. Unless said shopping happens at a Disney Store or one of the park gift shops.

 

[poisonapple_PRINCESS]

Hi! I'm excited to read about your trip! A disney marathon is my motivation for my recent start of running too!

 

[annmarieda]

Hopped over from my TR... can't wait to hear all about your experience.

I am sorry that you were affected by the flight delays. Rundisney sent out a message regarding the delays. Apparently there were some who were not able to make it to the expo and had to pick up there bibs in the morning . I am sure I would never have been able to handle that stress!!!

 

[laurenvic1312959]

I'm in, the idea of doing a race in disney interests me so it will be nice to see what doing one is like x

 

[rani8600]

Ugh! Nothing is worse than watching the departure time creep up when all you want to do is get to Disney NOW! My last trip down there was full of delays - a four hour delay on the way down (we ended up landing at 1 am, not the best start to a Disney trip) followed by a four day delay on the way back due to Hurricane Sandy. I can't imagine the stress if you're trying to get to a race though. At least you finally made it.

Four day delay...thats crazy...gotta love weather. My family got stuck a few years ago in when a hurricane hit Disney and the Orlando area while we were on vacation (Disney handles these situations surprisingly well) and it hurt the airport. My father got so frustrated with the airlines that he rented us a car and we drove the 20 hrs back to jersey.

Joining! Look forward to reading more!

Totally agree with you. Unless said shopping happens at a Disney Store or one of the park gift shops.

Thanks for reading along Yeah, dont get my wrong i love to shop, but not while im at Disney.

Hi! I'm excited to read about your trip! A disney marathon is my motivation for my recent start of running too!

I never thought i would ever try to run a half marathon, but what better place to give it a try than Disney. I figured if i didnt make it at last i got a few weekend away, right?

Hopped over from my TR... can't wait to hear all about your experience.

I am sorry that you were affected by the flight delays. Rundisney sent out a message regarding the delays. Apparently there were some who were not able to make it to the expo and had to pick up there bibs in the morning . I am sure I would never have been able to handle that stress!!!

I have def learned my lesson, no more cutting it so close. I saw the email from RunDisney and thought it was really nice of them to do that for all of the runners that were delayed because i weather. I know its not something they usually allow for the half. I cant imagine how early those people had to get up though to be able to pick everything up.

I'm in, the idea of doing a race in disney interests me so it will be nice to see what doing one is like x

Careful....lol. Thats how it started for me

 

[rani8600]

The weather was beautiful as we made our way to Pop Century. I could feel the stress related to the flight melting away as we got closer to Disney. This would be my first time staying there and my first time staying in a value for a long time. Since my high school music trips I believe.

Given the time and that we wanted to go to bed early because we were all getting up early for the race the next morning we didn’t try to go into a park that night.

We were in a close room in the 60s building overlooking the flower pool. This was nice as I wouldn’t have to walk forever the next morning to catch a bus. I dropped off my bag and was able to take a look around the room. I don’t have picture as my mom and sis had been stay there for a few nights and they were unpacked. The rooms we smaller than I expected as were the beds... I guess I didn’t really think able the fact that they would be full beds instead of queens.

One of the first things I did was take a look at my race packet and swag. I checked out my bib and made sure that it had the corral that I thought it was supposed to on it (Corral C) not that there was much to do about it at that point. I also saw the race shirt. I was expecting the usually regular t-shirt and was surprised to find a Champion running shirt. Not too bad RunDisney.

Since I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast we went to the food court to find dinner. My, was that place crowded, there were people everywhere.

It was around this time that we started to really notice the difference between the deluxe resorts and the value resort. We are DVC members so normally we stay in the Beach Club or the AKL villas, but since this was just a quick trip that was added in we had already accounted for all of our points we chose to stay at Pop Century. This trip we realized just how spoiled we are.

A quick look at the menus from the different stations brought me to the Asian station and the Veggie Lo Mein. I had heard that this was vegan but when we got to the front of the line I asked. The girl behind the counter wasn’t sure so she got the chef. He was really nice and said that although the veggie lo Mein was find based on ingredients he could make me a batch in the back because all of the dishes in the front are cooked in the same wok including the meat and items with dairy (Side note about vegans, after a little while being vegan people become lactose intolerant though sensitivity varies). As this was the night before the run I wasn’t taking any chances and asked if he could make me my own serving which he was happy to do. He even wished me luck on the race when he brought out my dinner.
It was crowed (in all fairness, it was dinner time), but we were able to find a table as a family was leaving.

My dinner was quite good, although I have a feeling that had a lot to do with it being freshly made. The serving was quite large, it fill a whole Chinese take-out box. I was only able to eat half of it and brought the rest back to the room to eat later in the trip…the little fridges were convenient.
Oh I would like to take this chance to apologize for the pictures on the trip as I forgot my camera charger, I figured this out during dinner when I went to take a picture for you, so all of the picture were taken on my phone.
After dinner we went back to the room. I unpacked some of my things and laid out all of my clothes and things I would need for the next day. I was worried I would find myself on the bus going to the race and remember something important.

I had woken up at 5 am that morning so around 8:30 I thought I would try to turn in and hopefully get a good night’s sleep. I set my phone alarm for 3 am and the wakeup call for 3:05 just in case.

 

[afnaechiquita]

The race shirt is so pretty this year!! I'm kicking myself for not being able to go!

I love your race outfit too. Simple but cute!!

 

[annmarieda]

I have stayed at pop. I do like it but yes- it is no deluxe. I currently am planning to stay there for 4 nights in the fall with a group of friends. I hope the room is big enough.

That is so cool that the chef made you your own food. I never had thought just how much everything gets "mixed" that is crazy!

Your race outfit is very cute! I tried to get into the ability to wear a costume but I just couldn't.

I too was in corral c. I was a bit irritated by my placement when I first got it. The time I submitted from a race in October was not as good as my current pace for one and two- even that pace, when using a race calculator would have put me finishing in the cut off for b... Not c and three- I had decided not to run one last 10k in order to "update" my time. When I contacted the rep from trackshack who I had submitted my time to, I was even less happy. He basically told me that he didn't think I would be able to finish the race in the time suggested by that calculator so he put down a finish time for me of 2:30. Had he put 2:29... Would have been b. as worked up over it as I was initially, I calmed down and decided the start time between one corral and the next was only a couple minutes.... So it didn't really matter. But... Don't know bout you- but I think it mattered

 

[rani8600]

The race shirt is so pretty this year!! I'm kicking myself for not being able to go!

I love your race outfit too. Simple but cute!!

Thanks! I was so surprised when i saw the shirt. I didnt think it would be so cute and i would actually want to wear it

I have stayed at pop. I do like it but yes- it is no deluxe. I currently am planning to stay there for 4 nights in the fall with a group of friends. I hope the room is big enough.

That is so cool that the chef made you your own food. I never had thought just how much everything gets "mixed" that is crazy!

Your race outfit is very cute! I tried to get into the ability to wear a costume but I just couldn't.

I too was in corral c. I was a bit irritated by my placement when I first got it. The time I submitted from a race in October was not as good as my current pace for one and two- even that pace, when using a race calculator would have put me finishing in the cut off for b... Not c and three- I had decided not to run one last 10k in order to "update" my time. When I contacted the rep from trackshack who I had submitted my time to, I was even less happy. He basically told me that he didn't think I would be able to finish the race in the time suggested by that calculator so he put down a finish time for me of 2:30. Had he put 2:29... Would have been b. as worked up over it as I was initially, I calmed down and decided the start time between one corral and the next was only a couple minutes.... So it didn't really matter. But... Don't know bout you- but I think it mattered

Yeah, i think the difference in the hotels is really down to what you get used to.

I thought about doing a costume as well before hand. Everyone on the boards were talking about their ideas and how to make tutus. I figured that I would get so aggravated with it my the third mile that I would have to get rid of it anyway...lol. It ended up being so hot that morning that I felt bad for a lot of the runners in costume.

As for placement...thats tricky. Since this was my first race that placed people in start corrals i dont have anything to judge it against. I think it worked well for me, but my submitted time put me start in the middle of C i believe. I think it was probably a lot trickier for people who were inbetween corrals. I do think thought that they should look into using a 10 time requirement for all those who think they will finish in under 3 hours instead of just 2:45. I think it will help with the some of the bottlenecking that occured behind us and throughout the race.

 

[rani8600]

Day 2-Race Day

That night I had not slept like I hoped that I would. If fact I barely slept at all. You could really tell that the walls were thinner and I could hear people and doors slamming all night long. I believe I fell asleep around 1:45 am and my alarm woke me up at 3. Yep, thats just over one hour. This was going to be interesting.

When my alarm went off at 3 I jumped out of bed surprising myself with the amount of energy that I had given my lack of sleep. I quickly gathered my things and waited for the wakeup call to come...half because the others were still sleeping and half because I wanted to hear Stitch. Soon Stitch was informing me that there was "no sleeping".

I quickly jumped in the shower to finish waking up and got myself together. The plan was to be out of the room and waiting for a bus by 3:30. I was doing pretty well and got out the door and down the stairs on time. Halfway I realized I forgot my water so I quickly ran back up to get it all the while thinking that running up and down stairs before a half marathon was probably not the best idea.

Once I got to the front of the lobby I could see all the runners and guests. The line for the buses was really long, but the buses kept coming and the line moved really fast. I was sitting on a bus at 3:40. Based on the time that we were leaving I figure I would be there with plenty of time to spare, but once we were leaving the Pop Century area the traffic started getting really heavy and I was getting nervous. The drive ended up taking about 45 minutes from Pop to the drop off location.

Once we were off the bus we had a short walk to the family reunion area, but the entrance was sooo bottlenecked. There were these pho stained glass windows set up and they had lines of people trying to take picture with them. It took able 15 minutes just to move into the area. Not such great thinking on Disneys part.

Once I got through I wandered around for a few minutes.

There was not much to see and time was ticking as the final race instructions said we had to be in the corrals around 5. I wandered over to the port-a-potties that they had set up but as soon as I got in like there was an announcement that corrals a-c should start making their way over. I hopped out of line as I had read other reports stating that there should be more bathrooms on the over side. There were a lot of bathrooms on the other side of bag check with lines 15-20+ people deep. I quickly found what I thought was going to be a shorter line (one of these days in going to learn that my gut always picks the wrong line) and waited my turn.

At a few minute to five I starting walking to the start corrals eating my second banana (I had one on the bus ride) for breakfast and made it to the corral area a little after 5. The walk to the corrals was much shorter and less congested than I had heard from others. In not sure if RunDisney has made any changes in the setup for this one. Corral C was one of the closest corrals so I was there and anxiously anticipating the start by 10 after..not bad. As i waited in my corral, my nervousness started to turn into excitement. I was really going to do this!

They had DJs play music and soon enough the pre-race program started. The had an interview with Sean Astin&I was happy to see he was proudly wearing his tiara (my mom and sis saw him later during the run and said he wasnt wearing it anymore)

They also interview a girl who was going for her coast to coast. She was the last runner to cross the finish at the Tink half and was aiming to complete this half as well.

 

[TangledUp]

Personally I love pop century (and this is coming from a girl who had really only stayed at deluxe or villa rooms up until that point). But I will agree that it was slightly nosier in those rooms and I wouldn't want to have to share that double bed with anyone. I always have the worst nights sleep the first night away from home and never mind if I had the stress of a race - I'm always impressed that people running their first Disney marathon or half marathon manage to get any sleep at all. All that traffic and congestion (both cars and people) must be frustrating but I'm glad you made it to your corral in time. Pretty neat to see Sean Astin there.

 

[annmarieda]

I think it is interesting how our mornings were different. I won't go into it that much since I am writing my own TR... But between my bus experience being quicker and my walk to c taking longer- interesting I will say that maybe not everyone heard the call for c... I know I didn't and ended up walking with the masses to the remaining ones. I thought it was just me... But maybe if there was not many when you went... Maybe this is why.