Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon Part 3!

It's on to part 3 people! Lots of pics coming your way!

At this point we starting seeing some interesting stuff on the route! I had to stop and do a photo bomb with my fellow villains.. Cruela Deville was there somewhere.. She was the best one! 

bomb.

On to the next mile... finally past a 5k! We could see the light... well the sunlight. *PS- don't  pay attention to the time on the clock, not our actual time :)

And how cute are those signs?! They had one at every mile. We didn't stop to take a pic with one till a little later.

That chick is super excited to be at mile 4.

It started to feel like a really nice, easy run once we got into the parks.. we also started seeing some interesting people along the way... Still trying to figure out who Sasha Fierce was dressed up as down below. I passed him and said "You look great!" with a thumbs up his way. And oh my goodness I wish I would have asked to get a picture from the front. He totally bedazzled the crap outta his face. Rhinestones galore. Man, I'm regretting not getting a pic for yall. It was epic.

In the park yo!

Go on with your bad self!

And then we finally turned the corner at what I think was mile 5/5.5 to see a huge crowd cheering us on and the one and only Cinderella's Castle. AHHH! Exactly what we have been waiting for. Stacey and I were totally geeked and picked up the pace so we could get there already!

Running on Main St. Disney.. SO EXCITING!

Gotta get a pic! Thanks random dude :)

People were in awe... no one is actually running

 Of course we had to get individual photos with the castle itself and the trash can. I swear it moved on me when I was next to it. I saw a video once where they had people in them to freak guests out. Candid camera was there. I was convinced.

Aw, Stacey looks so good with the castle!

yeeeep.

Our path to the castle took us through the back side of the park. We stopped to get a photo with Stitch's Great Escape for Stacey because of her cute puppy stitch! I then looked to my left after this and realized people were no dummies.. they were using the nice clean park bathroom! *Note to self for next time. No more porta potty parties for me!

 We rounded some corners and ran smack dab into the Little Mermaid. We were so in our element! Yay for fun picture opportunities!

                       

       

              It was finally time for the CASTLE! Stopping to take a few in action posed shots. You can imagine the crowd around this area but surprisingly, we got a clear shot!

What? This is how I run...

Stacey actually running.

YAY!

Under the castle & chick touchin' her booty.

We got a professional photo with the castle then went on for the rest of the race.. To be honest, they didn't have as much stuff along the roads as I thought they would. It was about 3/4 mile of nothing then you might see something like this CARS character + a DJ. Still fun though. Notice the Porta Party in the background. Always a good prop.

Then we hit this sign! And guess what was playing? Anyone? WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER! Thanks Kelly Clarkson for getting us through the half way mark! 

Up next for our musical entertainment... a bunch of hot men in suits that were singing (I think) Your Just Too Good To Be True. They kept saying things like "I love you!" "please don't go!" "We could be perfect together!" It was too funny/cute so we had to stop. Plus it was right after a water stop so, why not?

"Ok, I love you!"

Lilo and Stitch! 

he is trying to find his princess.. look @ that crown!

This guy in his full prince gear was crackin' me UP! So are the women behind him. Power walking to the extreme!

Accordion players... Way cute. 

My fav Disney movie! Again, ignore the time clock & potties.

Stacey and I are really good at photo bombing people. It was our specialty. Thanks to the wonderful lady who stopped to take part in our bombing fiasco.

Oh hey Jack Sparrow/Johnny. Sorry we couldn't stop to chat/kiss ;)

Jack Sparrow was at about mile 9/10. That tells you that we didn't take another picture till almost the end because we were near death & well, my battery was running low. There was one sharp corner we turned with a climb up an overpass and let me tell you, we were feeling it. Our feet hurt so bad.. pretty sure there was blood in my shoes.  WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER! Thanks again Kelly.

We finally made it into Epcot & heard tons of people saying "You are almost there! keep it up!! 1/2 mile to go!!" Along the way we saw plenty of awesome spectators. I saw a sign that said, "That's not sweat, its liquid awesome!"  However, my favorite one was a lady holding up a sign that said 'Hey total stranger, I AM PROUD OF YOU! I told her thanks for supporting as I ran past. It totally kept me going for that last little bit! So great to see others care. Seeing the finish was exhilarating. People were everywhere cheering! Stacey and I sprinted once we saw it and prolly beat another 30 people in the process. We were already running on stubs anyway, so why not? But in the end, all of the craziness was worth the 13.1 miles. A great experience :)

Us in front of the ball! woot!

And DONE!

I would totally do another run at Disney! It was very organized , fun and exciting. Only thing I hated was the price (no it did not include tickets to the park)

Do you think you will do a Disney run in the future (minus all the airport debocals and such we had)? Did you like our outfits? Anyone have tips on how to keep my feet from falling off? Was all this super boring to you?  Let me know. Feed back appreciated folks! Have a happy day!
It was a beautiful day in KY so I went running with friends! What did you do?

Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon Part 2!

2:30am came very quickly for Stacey and I. We got all character-d up, I painted my hair white (Ursula) while Stacey made sure her shells were in place (Ariel) and we headed over to the cafe area for our 3:00 bagels. Too bad there were NO bagels till 3:30! Totally thought we were gonna miss our bus and not get to run. ooooh the drama.  ;)

Here we are with our "runners box"  right in the front of the bus ready to go go go!

We made our way to the parks where there was some walking to do. The buses dropped us off way far away from our tents and it was a cold cold walk. But there is always time to snap a few photos on the way! 

Our shadows even look cold

Stacey lookin' all awake in front of the ball!

 After getting a pretty good warm up with all the walking, we entered the "party" zone!  There was a DJ who was SUPER pumped we were all there. I was just SUPER cold but it was neat to have him there to get us going. There were also a crap ton of porta potties.. no pun intended. Wouldn't be a party zone without em!

Party at 4am 

After Stacey pee'd a few times in the porta parties, we started to get herded to our corrals... mooooo! 

Corral G= Gangsta, Gorgeous, Great!

 On our journey to our starting line, we met a few ladies. We learned one had started a blog and facebook page to bring a big group of women from all over the US to train & eventually run races together! Pretty cool! If you wanna check her out, follow her blog by clicking------> Tips from the Disney Diva 

She took a picture for us and then we took one together since she was a Ursula too!! She was the only other one I saw the whole time!

We stood around for a while since the first Corral went off at 5:45. Ours was scheduled for 6:25. Sheww!!! The send off to  a glorious 13.1 went a little something like this...

Everyone got one of those when they started so we all felt special. Our corral did a little YMCA and OH MICKEY YOUR SO FINE! dancing before we started. Too much fun for 6:30 a.m. I'm tellin' ya. The fairy Godmother was there to sprinkle some  of her good luck dust and wave her fancy wand towards us for special dont break your ankle magic. True story. 

Bibbity bobbity boo, 3...2...1! GO! 

SKIRRRRRRT... we weren't going anywhere. That first mile was super crowded. As it always seems to be. I mean 19,000 people broken up into 8 corrals= still lots of people per corral. So the first couple miles were just another warm up really. Around mile 3 (I think) we were feeling good but paused to take this sweet photo...

I look ridiculous. 

A park! Finally! We had to run lots of back roads and sidewalks before we saw anything worth taking a picture of. All we wanted to do was get to mile 5/6! Thats where the good stuff was! And since its about my bed time, I will make this 3 parts. The anticipation is killing you I know

... to be continued.

Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon Part 1

It seems like every time I take a trip with friends (well, most of the time) we end up having some sort of bad luck along the way.

If you have some time, please join me for a whirlwind story of two girls who were just trying to run 13.1 miles, 858 miles away in one weekend.

Our story begins last May at my bff's bridal shower. I had mentioned to Stacey Marshall that I was going to run the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon for my 25th B-day and that she should totally join me. Well, she agreed! We signed up, trained separately ( boo!) then waited anxiously for February 26th! Flash forward to Friday February 24th. It was finally time to do this thing!

yum.

 I took 1/2 a day from work for travel to Orlando so we could have plenty of time Saturday to do all the necessary things (get bib numbers, shopping, laying out by the pool etc.) before the big race Sunday. We checked in, got some KFC (healthy, yes) and then waited to go through security. Stacey and I freaked out when we had to take our flats off in order to go through. It was just gross on that floor! Plus, I will admit I had on my travel comfy flats that were a little stinky... sorry dude behind me! We got through but not without a oopsy from Stacey's bag. She didn't have her 3oz bottles in a clear bag. tisk tisk. We should have taken that as sign #1 of bumpy trip to come.

Come on Stacey, get with it.. you are dating a pilot! ;)

We had stand by tickets from her boo, Greg who is a pilot (hi Greg!) We weren't 100% sure we would be on the first flight, but hopeful for the second one out that night to Charlotte. Well, storms came and delayed and cancelled flights so we got no where friday night. Stacey and I  were upset and freakin out. We went our separate ways for the night while Greg had to work some magic and get us last min flights to Orlando in the early morning in order for us to get there on time for the Expo Saturday.

I played a little of this while we circled...

Needless to say it was a bumpy situation; the flight ordeal itself and the actual turbulence. The flight to Philly was AWFUL! Almost my worst plane ride to date. But we didnt care because we were going to DISNEY yall! After our excitement level went up close to landing, we had to circle and circle and circle the city till we were about 15 mins past our time of arrival! The pilot said "We had to take the scenic air route because more planes are trying to land"  We were gonna miss our next flight!! We felt sorry for the guy next to us going to Cancun. His fight for the sunny south was to depart at 8:55.. too bad it was 9:05 when we landed. As soon as we got off we found help to get around. You ever been in that airport?! Its huge and confusing. We immediately found a guy with a sweet ride to shuttle our butts to the bus where we had to go clear cross the world to our gate. I tried to get a video of the ride because he had a little bell he rang while saying "watch the cart please!" it was hilarious. We made it just in time. Orlando was within our reach.

and landed.

 Finally arriving at 1:00, we got our bags and headed on the Disney magically express to our magical hotel! I just love Disney!

We headed over to Disney's Wide World of Sports for the Runners Expo. Very exciting stuff! 

Getting my bib number!

Sweaty Bands galore!

Madness

Word.

Then we saw Mr. Jeff Galloway! 

                                       Running Glass Slipper.. Always need one of those!                                    

       

Gettin' our pose on with the sign!

And last but not least... Eating Pasta in our cute dining hall of the resort the night before. We were exhausted at this point and still hadn't even ran 13.1 yet. More to come in Part 2!