COMPLETE- "We're Never Coming Back!...Until October" FEB '14 Princess Half Marathon

[KelleyK75]

Your pics are great! Looks like you girls are having fun! I love that the characters are all out so that you can take pictures with them.

 

[emilyindisney]

Your pics are great! Looks like you girls are having fun! I love that the characters are all out so that you can take pictures with them.

Thanks!

 

[ZellyB]

That part of the course is the absolute best. I remember the first time I ran through MK and then the castle and feeling absolutely giddy!! Love all your pictures.

 

[emilyindisney]

That part of the course is the absolute best. I remember the first time I ran through MK and then the castle and feeling absolutely giddy!! Love all your pictures.

I agree! There was so much stuff to see!

 

[JessM]

Awesome pictures!

That was the one bad thing about being alone, it was hard to stop and take pics!

I agree they did such a good job keeping those character lines moving. I don't know if the same guy was there when you met Buzz as when I did but he was super quick.

Can't wait to hear about the rest!

 

[annmarieda]

The walk was definitely far! I imagine it was probably further for those who had to take a right at the highway intersection (as opposed to us who went left.)

I thought the same thing in January.

I did see your rant and I laughed because we literally had the exact same thoughts! Your story is a particularly good example of why people can't bump up the day of because those people didn't even need to be up that far (based on their finishing time!!)

I think in mine they just really could not understand why they couldn't when there was fewer people in my corral than was in theirs.

I'd say it was misting. It was extremely humid so it was hard to tell whether it was precipitating or the water was just hanging in the air. It definitely made a bit of a mess of our pictures in the first few miles. Luckily it seemed to clear up just before we ran into MK!

I wondered if it was mist. Mist can really have an odd effect on the pictures.

The closer we got to the Magic Kingdom the more the crowds on the side of the road started to pick up which was exciting. We came through the little dip in the road under the water and could almost see the Contemporary. Had the weather been nice we definitely would have been able to, however, it was so foggy that we couldn’t see the building until we were almost right at the driveway!

That is a bit disappointing. So much of why I run is to see everything around me... and so the fog getting in the way of that would have been a bummer for me.

There was a DJ on the overpass playing music to motivate everyone back up the hill. Since I train on quite a few hills at home, I didn’t think it was too bad at all. Soon we were running past the Contemporary and headed in the direction of Space Mountain!

I think that hills can be a real mental challenge too. I don't train on hills. I knew this was on the course though and so I knew I would get through it. I found it not to be as challenging as the first time when it was out of the blew.

The only bad part of running down Main St USA-it was the exact moment that I discovered my camera memory card was full! (I had a few old video files that I didn’t realize took up so much space-stupid mistake). So I spent half of Main St fighting with that before giving up and decided to use my iphone for pics from here on out. Thankfully, most of the pics came out better than expected, and the battery made it all the way to the end!

Oh no! At least the phone worked. Did you have it in a pouch? Was it easy to access? Reason I ask is I always have mine in an arm band and I really can't get it out.

A couple weeks ago I saw another DISer who was standing on Main Street that morning say he could tell who was running the course for the first time because they all had huge grins on their faces when they turned and saw the castle. Thinking back, I’m sure that’s exactly what I looked like!

I think that smile happens for a lot no matter if it is the first or not... such a cool thing funning down main street and through the castle!

At this point, we were giggling like little kids, getting to run through this magical place and stop where ever we wanted. Since the park was closed, it had this fun feeling of being rebellious in a familiar place. Crowds were very light in this section, which added to the feeling of our own private tour of one of our favorite parks! Obviously this is an exaggeration-there were people around us-but there was no congestion at all we we were able to bounce happily from one side of the course to the other to get all these pictures.

That is so cool that the two of you were able to have fun like that!!

Course to Tomorrowland- anyone? Haha, get it? Okay, okay- totally corny runner's joke.

Very clever!

The Tea Cups were running but we agreed we definitely didn’t need a whirl on that this early in the morning (or ever, really.)

I wonder if they were letting runners on. I know for the marathon, they let people onto EE to ride. Not sure I would want to stop for either... but definitely a cool thing to have the option of doing!

This moment was literally exactly like I dreamed it would be. All those early mornings of training, those cold days and those hours on the dreadmill, I would close my eyes and picture myself running through the castle, and now it was finally happening just like I had imagined...UNREAL. As you can see from the picture, crowds weren’t bad at all, and we cruised right through. They had volunteers directing traffic at the bottom so that runners moved to the side before taking pictures, which definitely helped prevent some collisions!

Such a great moment!!!





In Liberty Square we stopped for Louis and told him he should join the trumpet players heralding runners into the castle![/quote]

I love Louis! I think he would be on my list of characters to stop for!

 

[emilyindisney]

Awesome pictures!

That was the one bad thing about being alone, it was hard to stop and take pics!

I agree they did such a good job keeping those character lines moving. I don't know if the same guy was there when you met Buzz as when I did but he was super quick.

Can't wait to hear about the rest!

Maybe it was because the guy we had was awesome! He was really into and was pretty funny about taking cameras and swapping them back as quick as he could!

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

I just love all of the characters that are available in the course! Louis!! I didn't even know that he was available as a character in WDW! And had to chuckle a little when I saw the picture with Woody - almost looks like all three of you are doing the Gangnam style dance.

 

[HBGdancermom]

Loving all your great pictures! Two of my girlfriends and I are going to do the 1/2 next Feb and this makes me so excited!!!

 

[courtneybelle]

I can't imagine how cool it was to actually run through the Magic Kingdom!

I love love love the picture of Emily with Princess Fairytale Hall

 

[emilyindisney]

I just love all of the characters that are available in the course! Louis!! I didn't even know that he was available as a character in WDW! And had to chuckle a little when I saw the picture with Woody - almost looks like all three of you are doing the Gangnam style dance.

I thought the same thing! We probably should have taken a dance break for a real picture but it was fun at the time- I'll be we'd make the Gangam guy proud!

Loving all your great pictures! Two of my girlfriends and I are going to do the 1/2 next Feb and this makes me so excited!!!

It made such a great girl's weekend so I'm sure you'll enjoy!!

I can't imagine how cool it was to actually run through the Magic Kingdom!

I love love love the picture of Emily with Princess Fairytale Hall

It was honestly one of the best parts of the weekend! Seriously unbelievable!!

 

[emilyindisney]

Princess Half Marathon part 4

“It should be called exercise until you don’t feel like it anymore”

Right after Snow White and her Prince there was another water stop that we decided to utilize. The water stop had to be almost 100 feet long and had tables lining both sides of the road with tons of cups and (awesome) volunteers. Cait decided to stop for water (which was at the first tables) and I kept going for gatorade at the end tables. Apparently we had a little miscommunication of where to meet because once I had my cup and turned around I was in a momentary panic because I lost Cait! I didn’t realize Emily had kept going to the powerade, so I paused here and waited, thinking she was behind me. After a moment of panic, I decided to run to the end of the hydration stop in case I missed her, and thankfully, there she was, crisis averted! Once we caught back up we turned onto another backroad moving us further from the park.


At the halfway point there was a DJ who was playing Livin on A Prayer, much to our delight! Many more runners joined in this time.


IMG_2337 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

Mile 7 marked the area where runDisney promised to play Let It Go, as voted on by their facebook fans. I didn’t vote for this song but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. A bunch of runners (us included) were belting it out, and almost everyone did the snowflake hand movements for the first “let it go, let it go, can’t hold me back…” part!

The next part of the course was probably my second favorite (to the Magic Kingdom itself.)

We started by passing the Wedding Pavillion where some dapper gentlemen were out holding our coveted glass slipper.


IMG_2338 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

Next we passed the Grand Floridian were Mary Poppins, Bert, and the penguins were out but we decided not to stop.

Across from the Poly were Lilo and Stitch!


IMG_2340 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

After them was Genie-


IMG_2344 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

And then this golf cart (which makes sense because we were right on the edge of one of the golf courses.)


IMG_2346 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

Luna had some funny signs along the course


IMG_2347 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

-like this one!

We jumped in line for Mrs Incredible and were able to snap one last picture before she went for a break!


IMG_2349 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

At mile 8 a very nice Belle offered to take our picture together with the mile marker.


IMG_2352 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

She was carrying a basket for the entire race which we decided might be a little annoying but was also a great place to stash your stuff. We actually ended up playing chase with her for most of the rest of the race.

We passed the MK gates on the other side and were back out on the highway.


IMG_2353 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

After mile 9 we were so pumped to come back up on the Heroes photo-op! There was a line (maybe 10 people) but there was no way we were passing up them up again! Prince Eric knew exactly who we were dressed as and said I should stand next to him and Cait should stand next to Flynn. Flynn told me I looked very familiar and he couldn’t quite figure out why. I may have swooned a little.


IMG_2355 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

Easily one of my favorite pictures of the race! It has been my goal for a long time to meet Flynn Ryder, so as we ran away from this stop, I was downright giddy. I am pretty sure even told Emily that I didn’t care if we finished the race because my life was already complete!

Princess Atta was right across the street with no line in site so we crossed and greeted her.


IMG_2356 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

As I suspected we passed the pirate ship down the road and decided to stop as we had an important question for Jack.


IMG_2361 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

We explained that we were very confused because we thought they said rum, not run. He agreed that was very confusing and insisted to his photographer that this shouldn’t be called running, but ‘exercising until you don’t want to anymore’ to avoid any confusion! Definitely one of the funniest things we heard during the race!​

 

[ProudMommyof2]

You guys look like you are having a blast!!!! So fun!

Did you worry about your pace at all?

 

[disneyhorselover]

You guys look like you are having a blast!!!! So fun!

Did you worry about your pace at all?

Not really. We trained at about a 9:30 min/mile so in between stops we knew we were moving along at a pretty decent pace. It is probably the only run I have ever been on (training or race) where I didn't spend the whole time thinking about my mile splits, so that was a nice break, haha!

 

[disneyhorselover]

After them was Genie-


IMG_2344 by secondaryhoney, on Flickr

I told Genie that I wished to be at mile 13....he just kind of shook his head at me...hahaha.

For the brief amount of time we saw the characters on this course we had some great interaction with them!

 

[emilyindisney]

You guys look like you are having a blast!!!! So fun!

Did you worry about your pace at all?

Not really. We trained at about a 9:30 min/mile so in between stops we knew we were moving along at a pretty decent pace. It is probably the only run I have ever been on (training or race) where I didn't spend the whole time thinking about my mile splits, so that was a nice break, haha!

I don't think I was even running my GPS- it was quite relaxing!

 

[annmarieda]

You gals are making great time and seeing lots of characters! I think that is the dream for me! A balance of the two. Sadly, I have to either take making good time or stopping... I can't get both just yet.

The gal with the basket... there was a Belle last year who ran with bread loaf in her basket. People get so creative at these races!!!

 

[Credit Man]

WOW!!! What a FUN run!!!

 

[ZellyB]

Great update and wonderful pictures. You are getting a lot of character stops in which is amazing. I also got a shot with Rapunzel and Flynn during the marathon and I was so ridiculously happy about that.

 

[courtneybelle]

Oh many, I would be freaking out when I heard Let It Go! I definitely have Frozen fever.

That glass slipper is beautiful! You should have run off with it, what are the odds those guys could catch you?

Mrs. Incredible is an awesome meet! I'm jealous.

AHHH how perfect you got your picture with Eric and Flynn! Herc's not looking too bad, either. And Aladdin is my fave Disney guy so that's an all-around win.

that is an awesome question for Jack Sparrow!