Another Princess Half Marathon Weekend is in the books folks! It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month since I was in Walt Disney World with my BRFs for our annual Princess girls’ trip. This year instead of doing the Glass Slipper Challenge, we created our own Run Disney challenge by doing both the Princess 5K and 10K races. In true Run Disney fashion, magical miles were had by all and more magical memories to count were made!
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| A Royal Greeting at the Princess Expo! |
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| Princess Race Swag! |
To kick off the race weekend, we went to the Fit For a Princess Expo and got our race swag! This year's race shirts were so much better than last year! Very colorful and much more "princessy." I especially loved the purple Enchanted 10K shirt! I also purchased a FlipBelt at the expo. I love it, so expect a review here soon! We later hit up Hollywood Studios for a little bit of park time and Fantasmic. Before we knew it, we were off to our room at Disney's Port Orleans Resort-Riverside for an early bedtime, because when you run Disney you not only get magical miles, you also receive super early wake-up calls!
For phase one of our race weekend, we participated in the Princess 5K, which was appropriately themed the Frozen 5K this year. One of the great things about Run Disney is their dedication to event theming. Themes and Disney go together like peanut butter and jelly. That being said, I didn’t realize when I registered for the Frozen 5K last summer just how close to the theme that race would be! Of course, I’m sure not even Run Disney officials could have guessed the Frozen theme would be taken to another level by Mother Nature herself. While I normally anticipate overly hot and humid temperatures for my Run Disney Florida races, imagine my surprise when the morning of the 5K my weather app read 30 degrees. THIRTY DEGREES people. I guess that’s what happens when you put Elsa in charge of the race. I mean we all know the cold never bothered her anyway!
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| We had fun visiting with Jasmine at the Princess Expo! |
I know Run Disney sent out a weather reminder that it could be chilly the morning of the 5K, but I assumed it would be “Florida cold” and nothing major to worry about. Anything seemed better than the sub-zero temperatures and snow that I left behind in West Virginia. Still, being the overly cautious and always prepared runner that I am I managed to pack a few long sleeve options that could work with my race costume. That being said, I found myself wishing that I had packed even more layers. Normally at home a 30 degree run would be no biggie with my proper attire and such. However, I was in Florida and this type of race weather was just totally unexpected! Again, thanks for that Elsa.
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| Flora, Fauna and Merryweather!!! |
While slightly annoyed at the weather, which was more so because we would be standing in it for a while before the race actually started, I knew I needed to LET IT GO (do you see what I did there?) and enjoy another Run Disney experience that I was blessed to be able to do! So I put my “fairy” best attitude on and got into my costume, which was the Flora part of our Sleeping Beauty fairy trio! Seeing my BRFs in their Fauna and Merryweather costumes to complete our fairy theme raised my spirits even more! As soon as our tutus were on and glowing (that’s right they had lights in them!), the Run Disney magic had officially taken hold of me!
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| Flora Fairy ready to go! |
It wasn't easy getting off the warm bus, but the energy before the 5K was contagious. I loved seeing everyone's costumes, but I especially loved how other runners were geeking out of our fairy outfits! Cailyn, who designed our beautiful light-up tutus, hats and wands, deserves all the credit! She did such a great job! Be sure to check out her blog
here. On a not so humblebrag, I think we stood out as one of the best group costumes I saw before the race. You know you are rocking a great costume when strangers are asking to take your picture as well as take pictures with you!
Eventually, it was finally time to start the race. By this point the weather hadn't warmed up at all and it was still cold. Again, thanks Elsa! We were soon off and moving though and that helped warm us up! We planned to stay together the whole time and to take the race super easy. We also wanted to take as many character pictures as possible since this was the first Run Disney race that all three of us would be together the whole time! The first part of the course is the typical Epcot Run Disney parking lot tour, but soon we saw our first character: Minnie Mouse in her special blue snowflake dress! She looked super cute! I will have to wait until I purchase the official race picture to show y'all because the photographer clearly was rushing people as fast as possible and I wasn't even looking at the camera since they literally snapped the picture as soon as we got next to Minnie! I guess that's why the picture stop lines that were pretty long went by so fast! Lesson learned!
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| Pluto with his winter antlers so cute! |
From there we soon were entering the gorgeous Epcot World Showcase area, where Let it Go was appropriately playing for all to hear. I absolutely love running through World Showcase. It's so beautiful! Our Minnie character stop was by far the longest line, but during this time we actually made friends with another group of girls who we kept meeting along the course. That's the beauty of Run Disney - you get to connect with so many awesome people who share your love of running and Disney! They even saved us a spot in line as if we were part of their group for the next character stop, Pluto, who looked extra cute in his winter antlers! After our brief Pluto visit, we took in the sights of World Showcase and continued forward. Let it Go continued to play, and this was the point where we realized the song was being played in a different language. This would continue through the entirety of World Showcase. I love me some Frozen and the ever-popular Let it Go and enjoyed hearing it in different languages, but it was even a little redundant FOR ME. I can't imagine how some of the moms and dads running that hear this song daily anyway felt LOL!
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| Fairies with Goofy, wearing his winter finest! |
The next character stop was Mickey in his winter sweater. His line was pretty long, so we decided to skip our pal and keep going. In hindsight, we probably should have stopped since our next character stop, Goofy, would be our last as well as the only remaining character picture stop of the race! We caught Goofy, who was also wearing his winter sweater, before we left World Showcase. We fully expected to see Donald eventually, since at this point we realized the only characters they were utilizing for this race were members of the Fab Five. However, Donald was no where to be found. Womp womp. So there were only FOUR characters total! That was a disappointment, I'm not going to lie. I've read other Run Disney 5K recaps that had more than four characters. Even the Castaway Cay race on an island had more than four characters. I'm not sure if the cold had something to do with it or what? Did anyone see Donald? Maybe he was gone when we ran by, but we didn't see any place where there would have been a stop. Oh well, I had my best girls with me so we still had a blast even without as many of our Disney friends to see along the way!
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| With some Frozen Dudes after the race! |
Eventually we made our way back into Epcot on the future world side, which was utilizing basically the same route I know well by now as a seasoned Run Disney runner. To perhaps make up for the lack of character picture stops as well as highlight the race's theme, we did see Anna, Elsa and Kristoff from Frozen! They were on a stage-like set-up and not available for photo-ops, but we did get some pics with them in the background! They were hilarious as usual as they joked with us and shouted words of encouragement. It wasn't too long after this that we were running down the finish shoot! We made sure to hold our fairy wands high, smile and take in every magical moment of crossing the finish line together! I've crossed many finish lines in my running career, but it was super fun to do so with my BRFs!
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| Love me some Run Disney bling! |
We immediately got our bling and were given mylar blankets, which were a much needed addition to the usual Run Disney post-race accompaniments. They really helped keep us warmer as it was still quite cold! We also grabbed our Run Disney snack boxes, which also were a nice upgrade. I've received a snack box for every Run Disney event I've done, but the boxes for Princess Weekend were better than usual! Our medallions are so cute. They are rubber, unlike the metal ones you get for longer races, but are still really nice!
Before leaving the race area, we did enjoy some post-race pictures with the guys from Frozen and some cute snowflakes! Instead of going back to our hotel like we usually do, we stayed in costume and hopped on the monorail to Magic Kingdom! This was mainly done so we could get our picture with Princess Aurora since she wasn't on the race course! It was worth staying in costume because of that as well as we seemed to be entertaining other Disney patrons! We got more photo requests, even from official Disney photographers! That's when you know you have a pretty great costume theme going for you!
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| Princess Aurora with her fairy friends! Make it pink! Make it blue! |
Overall cold and all it was a great race experience! It was fun being with my BRFs, and I think that's what made the Princess 5K most enjoyable. Did you run the 5K? If so, what did you enjoy most?
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| Princess Frozen 5K fairy fun and magical memories! |
Stay tuned for my Princess Enchanted 10K Race Recap coming soon!
