Saturday night after the TNT Inspiration Dinner, Aaron and I headed back to the hotel and got everything laid out for race morning. If you’ve ever run a Disney race before you know you have to board a bus in the middle of the night so best to be ready before bed. I’m not a morning person so this especially applies to me.
With everything laid out and ready to go, it was time to hit the hay. I think I finally fell asleep around 10 pm and the alarm started going off at 2 am! I took a quick shower and got ready to go. We left at about 2:40 am, picked up my friend, Lora, and then headed to the Boardwalk to meet the team for pictures. We got there right around 3 am and greeted everyone as they came down to the lobby. Of course plenty of pictures were taken!
HonorBib I had made in memory of my Aunt
Lora and I, we met doing Princess with VTNT last year 
Kermit and I ready to race
The whole US VTNT team
After group photos in the Boardwalk lobby, we promptly boarded the buses at 3:30 am to head to the race start. The bus was very quiet compared to last year when we were blasting music and dancing. Ahhh the memories LOL
Boarding the bus. (Coach Joe takes lots of pictures!)
Before you knew it, we were at the start area. It was packed already with tons of princesses in costumes, a DJ blasting music, and more. We stood around for a little bit to see if we could find anybody we knew and then decided to head through bag check. I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to go through bag check because we did that last year and waited in line for FOREVER. After making it through bag check, we headed over to the porta potties and found the shortest line. Once we were done, they were finally letting the masses head to the corrals. It is a long, dark half mile walk before you hit the corrals. Once we made it to the corral we found a spot and sat. At this point, it was another 1.5 to 2 hours before our corral’s wave start. Aaron and I sat around for a while relaxing and eating our breakfast. I was pretty quiet at this point because my nerves were really getting the best of me. I hadn’t said anything to anyone but for a few days before hand my hips had really been bothering me and I was worried that it would keep me from finishing. (Obviously that wasn’t the case) When it was starting to closer to starting time I started stretching and while laying on the ground, Megan walked up!
Megan and I
Megan and her friends hung with Aaron and I until the race start. Before you knew it, the fairy godmother was wishing us well and the fireworks were going off for our corral! Aaron and I made sure to not go out too fast (I’ve done that many times and its always my downfall) and I kept an eye on my watch to make sure we were on pace. During the first few miles, my hips weren’t happy at all. Especially sometime during mile 2 or 3 when you are on an off ramp and it is slanted. UGH But I kept going and tried not to think about it too much. We passed several characters and potty stops. The lines were ridiculously long and I didn’t want to stop and lose time.
Once we made it to mile 4 and into the TTC, I was ecstatic! We were officially past the point were I had gotten pulled last year. There was no stopping us now! Once we were past the TTC, we spotted Coach Joe. He asked me how I was feeling and if I was doing ok, I told him I was doing good! He snapped our picture and since I wasn’t paying attention, I slammed into a lady in front of me. Oops! Sorry! She wasn’t too happy with me but we pressed on!
Next up, we headed towards the Magic Kingdom! Along the way, we passed another DJ blasting techno, men on a trampoline, and the Contemporary Resort. I couldn’t wait to finally be on Main Street USA. Not only does this part of the race really give you a boost but I really had to pee and I was determined to wait to use a real bathroom with no lines! LOL We entered Magic Kingdom from backstage and headed down on Main street. From there we headed to Tomorrowland and straight to the bathrooms. There was no line and I was grateful for a clean bathroom! Aaron on the other hand had some troubles. Seeing that this is a women’s race, women were using both bathrooms. He headed into the men’s bathroom and women told him to go ahead they’d close their eyes but one woman was very insistent that he not use the bathroom. Instead of arguing with her, he just left and ended up holding it until the finish line! haha I guess that is a downside of a man running a women’s race. From our potty stop we headed to Fantasyland and through the castle! This part of the race has probably the best race support, tons of characters, volunteers, and spectators! After that it was through Frontierland and backstage to exit the park. At this point we were between miles 6 and 7 so I ate my clif shot bloks. My feet and hips were hurting me but it wasn’t too bad and we were well on pace.
Mile 9.5
Around mile 9.5, I sent out my only tweet of the picture above. I was still feeling alright but that was about to change because right after the mile 10 marker was an on ramp that we had to climb and again it was on a slant instead of flat. My right hip didn’t like it AT ALL and I was on the verge of tears the whole time. At this point, Aaron took my spibelt for me to take the extra pressure off my hips. At this point, we also slowed down quite a bit because the pain in my feet and hips was worsening. But even by slowing down I knew we would still finish and not have to worry about being pulled from the course, we were well ahead of pace. Right after the mile 12 marker we entered Epcot and I couldn’t be happier to be almost finished. As we were leaving Epcot, we could see and hear the Gospel choir so cool! We also saw my tnt staff person, Bonni. And then finally the finish line!
WE FINISHED!!! We immediately got in line to collect our medals, sent a few texts/tweets, and a few phone calls to share our great news!
We immediately got in line to collect our medals, sent a few texts/tweets, and a few phone calls to share our great news!
Yet again this was a completely AWESOME race and it was made even better by running it with Aaron! This was his first half marathon and couldn’t be prouder of him. He is already planning on doing more races with me this year and I’m so excited!
If you’ve made it this far into the post thanks for sticking with it. I’d also like to say thank you for all of your support and encouragement, I don’t know where I’d be without it!
