Ariel484
DIS Legend
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- Dec 27, 2011
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Day 2, continued: Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 2011 Princess Half Marathon Expo
Transportation to the race expo only left from the host resorts, and I figured that the All-Stars was our best bet. From looking at a map of the property, it seemed like going here from the Studios would be the least out-of-the-way route. Unfortunately we were met with a giant line when we got there…everyone else was on their way to the expo as well.
We arrived at the Wide World of Sports around 10:30.
The expo had only been open for about 30 minutes and was completely packed.
Anyone with race waivers already printed could go right ahead to bib pick-up…if waivers needed to be printed, there was an additional line. Luckily I had printed our waivers ahead of time, so we went right to bib pick-up. They had the lines divided by the bib number listed on our waivers and I hopped into the 5000-5500 line. My brother was a few lines down from me. For whatever reason, my line was moving incredibly slowly…I think someone up front had a problem of some sort.
The building we were in was so full and crowded that the situation quickly became overwhelming and just sort of uncomfortable. Eventually that awful line came to an end, and I got my bib and corral placement.
For their races, Disney assigns runners into “corrals” (7 total for this race) based on when the runners estimate they will finish the race, which is indicated when registering for the race online. The wheelchair racers start at 5:43AM, followed by the fastest runners, in the first corral, at 5:45AM. The next fastest group, in Corral B, starts 8 minutes later, and so on. Runners can submit a time from a previous race (10K or longer that took place after July 1, 2008), and those who do not submit a time are automatically assigned to the last corral, Corral F. This means they don’t begin running until 6:25AM, even though everyone must be in the corrals at 5 freaking AM.
The way I see it, there are a couple of big disadvantages to being in that last corral: 1. You have more runners to dodge when you actually do get going, and 2. You have to stand around in the cold for longer waiting for the race to begin, so that’s more time to tense up, be nervous, etc. And this is in addition to making sure you’re at the corrals by 5AM at the latest.
In 2009, I ran a 10k as part of a marathon relay (which was my first “big race” experience – very cool). I was the third leg of the relay and my run started about 9 miles in on the marathon course. So I was there for the start of the marathon but waited for over an hour until my teammate got to me for the hand-off…and by then my legs and back were tight from waiting and being nervous, and I was freezing.
This made the first couple of miles of my run pretty tough…it wasn’t the end of the world, but keeping that experience in mind I was looking for any way to cut down the amount of time I had to wait if I could.
Anyhoo, back to corral placement. For whatever reason, I did not submit a proof of time to Disney when I registered for the race. I think I was worried that my brother (who is much faster than I am) and I would end up in different corrals.
When researching the race later on, however, I learned that if he was assigned to a faster corral he could drop back to mine and we could still run together. So I submitted my 2010 Cleveland 10-miler time to Disney in October, figuring it couldn’t hurt (I was shocked to get a quick – and personalized – response via email from Disney confirming that they received my time! 
). At worse we’d still be in the last corral…at best we’d move up a corral or two and begin running a little earlier with a few less people to dodge. Now the time that I submitted was not my best by a long shot – that race came 3 months after I’d fallen down the stairs in our house, injuring myself so badly that I couldn’t walk for a week…running was out of the question until about a month before the race, and I was completely out of shape come race day – so it’s not like you need to submit a blazing-fast time to benefit.
So anyway…I ended up in Corral C!
In the interest of full disclosure, the time I submitted was 2:00:42 for 10 miles, a little over a 12 min/mile pace (from this, Disney predicted I’d finish 13.1 in 2:31, according to the email I mentioned above…apparently they had faith that I’d pick up the pace a little more this time around). They must not have gotten many times submitted...I was shocked that I was in C and not D or E.
As you can see, I decided to represent my girl Ariel in the race
…Tiana and Belle were in the running as well.
My brother had not submitted a time and ended up in Corral D. Luckily I had brought a printout of his 10-miler finish time (a whopping 20 minutes faster than mine) and he was able to get his corral changed…it was a pretty easy process. The guy at the information booth just asked what corral he wanted, and he said same as mine, and that was that (I guess he could have been in Corral B…his time was that good). A new corral sticker was stuck on his Belle bib and we were good to go.
So the moral of the story is this: if you’re planning on running a Disney race, I’d suggest signing up for a local race beforehand (at least a 10K) so that you can get a proof of time and possibly move up to a better corral. As an added bonus you would be getting some race day experience, which is never a bad thing.
(The swag was sort of meh. Mostly coupons and ads.)
My brother ended up having to exchange his tech shirt – he’d ordered a medium, not realizing that they come in woman’s sizes. He asked for an extra large and made the change in about a minute (I think they try to discourage switching shirts at the expos a bit more now). At this point, Will decided that the heat and crowds were too much and told me he’d be waiting at the exit. I only had 2 booths I wanted to visit, so I told him we’d meet up.
I hit the Sweaty Bands booth first and quickly picked out a sparkly green number for the race (they’re athletic headbands). Those things were selling like hotcakes! People were buying 5 and 6 at a time.
The only other booth I was interested in was the official merchandise booth. They basically had t-shirts, princess half ears, and things like that. I grabbed a coffee mug (I’m on a mission to replace the generic ones that came with our dinner wear set) and looked around to find the line…it was huge! Easily 150 people long. I sadly placed the mug back on the shelf and headed out of the expo.
Continued in Next Post
Transportation to the race expo only left from the host resorts, and I figured that the All-Stars was our best bet. From looking at a map of the property, it seemed like going here from the Studios would be the least out-of-the-way route. Unfortunately we were met with a giant line when we got there…everyone else was on their way to the expo as well.
We arrived at the Wide World of Sports around 10:30.
The expo had only been open for about 30 minutes and was completely packed.
Anyone with race waivers already printed could go right ahead to bib pick-up…if waivers needed to be printed, there was an additional line. Luckily I had printed our waivers ahead of time, so we went right to bib pick-up. They had the lines divided by the bib number listed on our waivers and I hopped into the 5000-5500 line. My brother was a few lines down from me. For whatever reason, my line was moving incredibly slowly…I think someone up front had a problem of some sort.
The building we were in was so full and crowded that the situation quickly became overwhelming and just sort of uncomfortable. Eventually that awful line came to an end, and I got my bib and corral placement.
For their races, Disney assigns runners into “corrals” (7 total for this race) based on when the runners estimate they will finish the race, which is indicated when registering for the race online. The wheelchair racers start at 5:43AM, followed by the fastest runners, in the first corral, at 5:45AM. The next fastest group, in Corral B, starts 8 minutes later, and so on. Runners can submit a time from a previous race (10K or longer that took place after July 1, 2008), and those who do not submit a time are automatically assigned to the last corral, Corral F. This means they don’t begin running until 6:25AM, even though everyone must be in the corrals at 5 freaking AM.
The way I see it, there are a couple of big disadvantages to being in that last corral: 1. You have more runners to dodge when you actually do get going, and 2. You have to stand around in the cold for longer waiting for the race to begin, so that’s more time to tense up, be nervous, etc. And this is in addition to making sure you’re at the corrals by 5AM at the latest.
In 2009, I ran a 10k as part of a marathon relay (which was my first “big race” experience – very cool). I was the third leg of the relay and my run started about 9 miles in on the marathon course. So I was there for the start of the marathon but waited for over an hour until my teammate got to me for the hand-off…and by then my legs and back were tight from waiting and being nervous, and I was freezing.
This made the first couple of miles of my run pretty tough…it wasn’t the end of the world, but keeping that experience in mind I was looking for any way to cut down the amount of time I had to wait if I could. Anyhoo, back to corral placement. For whatever reason, I did not submit a proof of time to Disney when I registered for the race. I think I was worried that my brother (who is much faster than I am) and I would end up in different corrals.
When researching the race later on, however, I learned that if he was assigned to a faster corral he could drop back to mine and we could still run together. So I submitted my 2010 Cleveland 10-miler time to Disney in October, figuring it couldn’t hurt (I was shocked to get a quick – and personalized – response via email from Disney confirming that they received my time! ). At worse we’d still be in the last corral…at best we’d move up a corral or two and begin running a little earlier with a few less people to dodge. Now the time that I submitted was not my best by a long shot – that race came 3 months after I’d fallen down the stairs in our house, injuring myself so badly that I couldn’t walk for a week…running was out of the question until about a month before the race, and I was completely out of shape come race day – so it’s not like you need to submit a blazing-fast time to benefit.So anyway…I ended up in Corral C!
In the interest of full disclosure, the time I submitted was 2:00:42 for 10 miles, a little over a 12 min/mile pace (from this, Disney predicted I’d finish 13.1 in 2:31, according to the email I mentioned above…apparently they had faith that I’d pick up the pace a little more this time around
). They must not have gotten many times submitted...I was shocked that I was in C and not D or E.As you can see, I decided to represent my girl Ariel in the race
…Tiana and Belle were in the running as well. My brother had not submitted a time and ended up in Corral D. Luckily I had brought a printout of his 10-miler finish time (a whopping 20 minutes faster than mine) and he was able to get his corral changed…it was a pretty easy process. The guy at the information booth just asked what corral he wanted, and he said same as mine, and that was that (I guess he could have been in Corral B…his time was that good). A new corral sticker was stuck on his Belle bib and we were good to go.
So the moral of the story is this: if you’re planning on running a Disney race, I’d suggest signing up for a local race beforehand (at least a 10K) so that you can get a proof of time and possibly move up to a better corral. As an added bonus you would be getting some race day experience, which is never a bad thing.
(The swag was sort of meh. Mostly coupons and ads.)
My brother ended up having to exchange his tech shirt – he’d ordered a medium, not realizing that they come in woman’s sizes. He asked for an extra large and made the change in about a minute (I think they try to discourage switching shirts at the expos a bit more now). At this point, Will decided that the heat and crowds were too much and told me he’d be waiting at the exit. I only had 2 booths I wanted to visit, so I told him we’d meet up.
I hit the Sweaty Bands booth first and quickly picked out a sparkly green number for the race (they’re athletic headbands). Those things were selling like hotcakes! People were buying 5 and 6 at a time.
The only other booth I was interested in was the official merchandise booth. They basically had t-shirts, princess half ears, and things like that. I grabbed a coffee mug (I’m on a mission to replace the generic ones that came with our dinner wear set) and looked around to find the line…it was huge! Easily 150 people long. I sadly placed the mug back on the shelf and headed out of the expo.
Continued in Next Post
)
) and got into bed around 9:45. Almost time for the race!
Lucky I have the Princess one!
- and settled on using this 
Horrors. In another dream l was snoozing in my bed when my brother casually sauntered into my room and said, quite indifferently, “Hey, so I guess we should probably go to the race now”…10 minutes before the race began! The dream ended with us running to Epcot to try to make it to the starting line on time. So it should come as no surprise that I had 2 alarms set - my phone and Will’s phone - along with a request to the front desk for a wake-up call all ready to go at 2:50 AM.
Plus, if I laid in that bed, there’s no guarantee that I’d get up. I’ll pass. 
Anyway, I’ve heard over and over that you should not change any part of your normal routine during race day, and the routine for me is to take Gus. So we bypassed the food station and kept on running. I heard people around me saying that the gel was disgusting, or that it was tasty, or that “it tastes really mocha-y!”
This time, we hopped in line.
