Glass Slipper Challenge - The races

Well Hello,
Once again almost a week passes and I blog, I don't have an excuse the week just seemed to fly by.

Let me get to the promised race recap, and to be honest it's probably not the most interesting recap as I don't take pictures during the run and I don't stop for photos with characters. I'm too concerned with finishing as opposed to stopping, however I will do my best.

The Cinderella Royal Family 5K is a fun little race, not timed so my plan was to walk it as I wanted to reserve energy for the half. The 5K is the pink line and after a short stint pretty much around a parking lot and a right turn you go straight into Epcot. The part I wasn't expecting is Epcot was partially set up for their spring festival so you got to see some botanical structures that looked like Snow White for example. You stick to going around the World of Nations and it was pretty smooth no real bottlenecks.

 Me pre 5K

 My plan for the whole weekend was to be on the first bus to the start area.

 The Start for the 5K

 Of course the always energetic RunDisney DJ spinning the dance tunes.

 The plethora of porta potties passed the bib only section which was nice.

It's a cute medal too.

Saturday Feb 22 was the 10K, the Inaugural Enchanted 10K which is the purple line on the map above, that was a much longer trek around a parking lot and roads before entering Epcot again and this time you also went through the boardwalk a bit which I didn't even know was there so that was new for me. Right at the start of the race you went under a bridge and Elsa from Frozen was there and snow was actually coming down. Nice touch Disney.

The corrals were different then I'm used to for the 5K and the 10K and even different from Wine and Dine in 2012. We were sort of in pens then they released us in alphabetical order. So A corral had to walk past all the other corrals to get to the start area.

I signed up for the Race Retreat so stopped in there before the 10K.

Got to wear a few bands around the first few days.

 My 10K ensemble

 Yet another very early bus

 The Race Retreat tent

 Inside

 Before the 10K I had my traditional coffee and ate half a banana. Which was dumb on my part I don't usually eat anything before a run so had to stop to pee mid race. Though I do think the race retreat was totally worth it if not just for your own porta potties. Post race was a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage and they also had oatmeal and muffins.

 The Bling for the 10K

 Yet another bracelet

You got swag in the race retreat tent too, the only thing was the swag was the same after the Half just a different colour of flip flops so I have a black and blue pair.

Close up on the Flip Flop

The Half was on Feb 23 and now my 3rd day in a row of getting up really early, actually everday was half an hour earlier then the day before.

 It's 3am and I'm awake

 First one on the bus this time and at the race retreat I had coffee and some Powerade, then I made my way to the start area which was pretty much another holding area. Just when I had to go pee again they opened it up and we made our way to the corrals which like I said where a hike. Put luckily porta potties on the way. Now I had read it was quite a walk from the start area to the corrals but again I had no idea what to expect, wowsers it was a hike. One of the girls in my corral said it was .6 miles to the corral. The good thing porta potties on the way.

The not so great thing about being in the corral was the 3 women complaining about slower people going to the front of the corral and they should go to the back. The thoughts running through my head was if you're so fast then where you are in the corral shouldn't matter. The other thing I noticed was a corral jumper, I was in K and her bib said M. This half takes you through Magic Kingdom and once again Epcot. In Magic Kingdom you get to run through the castle I love this part even thought it's a massive bottleneck especially with the people who stop dead for the photographers.

 And finally I have a castle shot I love this picture so I ordered it. This was one point where you hit that pretty much dead stop.

My plan for this race was to keep to my run/walk ratio till mile 8 then probably walk from there. Keeping in my mind I didn't train so well for Tink and had 5 weeks between races so the Tink Half was still my longest distance before the Princess Half.

 Tada!


I have to say I appreciated the free flip flops as I put those babies on after the race for the trip back to the hotel. Got back to All Star Movies and talked the food folks into giving me and another run Mickey Waffles as breakfast was wrapping up. My go to post half meal are those Mickey waffles.

On this course there a few up and down overpasses towards the end that I didn't care for and quite a few bottlenecks where you literally came to a dead stop. I still enjoyed it but I can't say it was my favourite. I still think I'm fonder of the Disneyland races even though the majority of the race is on the streets of Anaheim there are so many cheerleaders and bands cheering you on. In Disney World while you are in the park it's far longer stretches of nothing.

I totally surprised myself by skimming 10 minutes off my Tink time.

In my head I had this race dedicated to my Dad and when I saw that finish line the tears started. When the Glass Slipper medal and Pink Coast to Coast when on the tears increased. They handed you a wet towel at the finish and I used that to mop the tears before I got to the photo area.

Once again I book a ridiculously early flight home the day after the half so it was day 4 of being up in the wee hours of the morning.

Though on my way through the Orlando Airport I did impress the TSA person with my snazzy headband.

Now would I do Princess again. Probably at least once more as I know more what to expect but it is a huge race 25000 runners. So that was a little crazy.

Tomorrow the rest I've been up to lately plus gym shopping.

Hugs!!