My husband has always told me so and now it's official!
After 14 years of running and 10 years of racing half marathons I ran my first Disney event and 25th Half
Marathon on Sunday Feb 24th at the Disney Princess.
On Feb 21st we traveled 1,700 miles to Orlando from Canada for a week of fun with a half marathon
thrown in food good measure, to celebrate my friends 50th b'day. She is a fairly slow runner and hadn't
done a 1/2 marathon since 2003. She wanted to run the Princess and her sister and I wanted to get out
of Canada and be warm for the first time in 5 months. We stayed at a Wyndham vacation condo on
the Disney property. It was beautiful and so convenient.
The one and only goal was to have an epic fun time and I have to say that we achieved this 100%!! We are
a tad naughty and have no problem joking with strangers and making a spectacle of ourselves, especially
when we will never see any of these people again!LOL
We had a few bumps along the way as with any trip but I'm the type of person who doesn't get worked up about
those things, life is just too darn short not to have fun and enjoy as much as you possibly can.
A lot of people talked about the humidity. It didn't bother me at all but possibly because I was running a
full 2 minutes slow/mile than my normal pace or possibly because we were just having so dang much
fun.
I conceived/designed and made all of our identical costumes. The wands turned out to be a great idea as the
spectators loved them and they made it very easy to find each other when we got seperated a few times, we
simply raised our wands and waved them like crazy!!
I consider Disney events and not races. I think if you go there with the attitude that it is simply a fun "event" rather
than a race it's easy to have a great time. And we did.
HIGHLIGHTS
Wearing costumes through the hotel lobby and onto the plane to Florida and stopping the security
personnel in their track to laugh at us.
Getting up at the ungodly hour of 2:30 am to get ready for the race
Dancing in the parking lot at 3:30 with friends from home we met up with.
Laughing so hard in the "A" corral while waiting for the race to start that we almost pee'd our costumes. One of the
girls has taken a photo of me that was so awful we couldn't look at it without cracking up.
Laughing, joking and high fiving people through the entire route.
Getting dozens of shout outs from the crowd "Go Canada" was heard many many times. Our costumes
were a huge hit with the crowd and other runners.
At one jumbo tron they saw us coming and starting singing "Oh Canada"
Covering ourselves in rub-on Canada tattoos
Me pinching Jack Sparrows butt at the photo op and he liked it!!
Stopping 23 times for photos - once at each mile marker and 10 times for character photos
Still managing to run a 2:32 at our friends pace with all of those stops
The next day laughing and joking our way through 14 hours at Epcot
On Tuesday spending 10 hours at Island of Adventure - getting soaked on the Jurassic Park water ride
in the pouring rain and getting stuck on the ride for 15 minutes before being takens off by park workers
and laughing/having fun the entire time
Doing all of the kiddie rides in the Suess area and having a blast! One Fish/Two Fish was my favorite.
Then having dinner at Margaritaville and having them announce our friends 50th bday to the crowd.
So 2013 starts with a 1/2 marathon in a Princess costume at Disney and will end in late September with a full
marathon in Ireland wearing a cow themed costume.
No one can ever say we don't know how to have fun!!
PACKET PICK UP - First Disney race at age 51
DOWNTOWN DISNEY
TRYING TO GET OUT OF DOWNTOWN DISNEY AND ENCOUNTERING THIS SIGN FOR THE 3RD TIME!!! IN THE 3RD DIFFERENT LOCATION. WE FINALLY FOUND A CAB AND TOOK THAT BACK TO OUR CONDO!lol
NIGHT BEFORE COSTUME PREPARATION - Didn't want to leave this for the 2:30 wake up call
so we had everything laid out and prepared the night before.
ME AFTER THE FINISH
GROUP PHOTO AT CHARACTER STOP
@runjerseygirl
Congratulations! What a fun time!
Do you even run?
Welcome home, Beth! I've missed you! But I knew you were having a blast, so I wasn't too worried about you. In fact, I was more worried about our American friends who had to handle the tornado you can sometimes be. You look beautiful and so radiant, as always!
What a GREAT idea to do this with your girlfriends! I want to do something similar someday, but I don't have any friends who run. Can you take me along on one of your fun trips? I'll be a good girl, I promise! :-)
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010
kween
WHERE IS YOUR TIARA, YOUR HIGHNESS?
Nolite te bastardes carborundum.
SheCan
What a wonderful, fun RR! You and your friends really know how to celebrate a big birthday. Can't believe you all got such a good finish time with all those stops. Mustta been Disney magic or something. The costumes are so cute and funny! You made me wanna be a Canadian Princess! Congratulations to you and your awesome friends.
Cherie
"We do not become the people who this world needs simply by turning our backs on anyone we don’t like, trust, or deem healthy enough to be in our presence. " ---- Shasta Nelson
Ball of Fury
Beth,
Great RR and sounds like you had a wonderful trip!!
PRs: 5K 22:59, 10K 46:54,HM: 1:51:15
I'm not surprised you had a wonderful time. You always take things in stride in your postings. Glad you enjoyed your Disney adventure with your friends.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - T.S. Eliot
Excellent! Great Princess outfit, your Highness.
Former Bad Ass
You can tell you had so much fun! Love those outfits! Congrats.
Damaris
It looks like you had an absolutely fabulous time with friends and the smiles in all the photos prove it. I really loved the one with you bent over the bus stop sign and can totally relate the hilarious exasperation you were feeling. "But I just want to leave ... how hard can this be?"
Nice RR and I don't think your friend will be forgetting her 50th birthday celebration for a long time.
Train smart ... race smarter.
Congrats Beth. Sounds like a fun way to celebrate a birthday.
Rungry!
Great race, Beth. I'm so envious that your GFs are runners!!! My girl trips usually involve a music festival, or camping and hiking, but I can't imagine doing a HM with my GFs. I can dream...
Jen
BETH!! I've been anxiously waiting for you to get home so you could write an RR and let us know about your trip!! It sounds like you and your girlfriends had the celebration of a lifetime!! Thanks for sharing all those PINK-maxing pics - I love them!! You did a fabulous job on the costumes, and now I can't wait to see the cow costumes for Ireland!!
I think you should change your screen name from Just B.S. to Princess B.S. Just thinking out loud...... ;-)
But The Smile That I Sent Out Returned With You.
Fun! Your RR makes me grin.
Healed Hammy
Fabulous, just fabulous. So happy that you had a great experience, Disney is intended for exactly how you approached it - a fun time. And OMG.... the costumes are amazing!!!! You really thought that one thru and made a custom look that only you can. Memories that will last you a lifetime. Now if only we all could come to Ireland to see the cow's run, wouldn't that be something!