Trip Report *Completed* Roommate Reunion & Hobbling Through the Princess 1/2 Marathon

Hey friends! I've been back for almost a week, and I'm ready to re-live my trip and hopefully remember enough for this to be good. This first post will be mostly text, sorry!

Who: College roommates (and our honorary roommate)
Where: Pop Century with an extra night at Boardwalk with my cousin
When: Feb 22-25
Why: Spending time with friends and Princess weekend

A little background:
31366_1358291630686_7044345_n.jpg


This is me, E, M (also my cousin), L and S. And yep, that's a stuffed penguin. His name is Harold, and he was our dorm room mascot :hilarious: I don't know, y'all. We're weird people. Anyway, all of us but L were roommates and she just kind of became an honorary roommate over time. We all moved off campus in the middle of our sophomore year when a tornado hit our campus and destroyed the dorms. Once they were rebuilt, S moved back and the rest of us stayed in the house, which happens to be the house I still live in.

I'm still in the same town, L is about 2 hours one direction in Nashville, then E and S are about an hour the other direction in Memphis. The four of us see each other a few times a year. Then there's M. She's the free spirit, the nomad (She grew up moving around, he dad is air force). She moved up to Washington in 2017 and before she left was the last time the five of us were together. She's my cousin, so I still see her at holidays, but it's harder to get us all in one place!

I wanted to do Princess in 2019, but then I got pregnant, so it got pushed to 2020. As soon as registration was opening, I messaged everyone and said I was signing up! L and E committed and we all registered. M and S never really responded, so we moved forward with our plans with just the three of us.

At some point later down the road, both M & S decided they wanted to come. I was FLOORED that S was coming, but sure enough, she was in. Once she bought her Disney tickets around Christmas, I figured there was little chance she'd back out. M's plan was to stay offsite with her husband because they were traveling the country and camping with their dogs. We had AKL booked for the 4 on-siters and I booked our fast passes when the time came, just hoping I could add Miranda to most of them.

Fast forward a few weeks and M said her husband's job at Google was changing and he might need to work from the office again instead of remotely. Soooo she still wanted to come, but she wanted to stay in the room with us now. AKL only sleeps 4 and there was like NOTHING available anymore. I called Disney because I was getting frustrated searching online. The cast member who helped me was so helpful and somehow didn't get confused. She booked us two rooms at Pop and all but guaranteed we'd be able to get adjoining rooms. Hooray!

So I got M added to as many fast passes as I could. I hadn't been able to get FoP or Slinky, but as I checked over the weeks before the trip, I was able to get us both! Not ideal times, but better than nothing.

Ok I think I'm done with the background and ready to dive in!! Sorry so much text...it's probably all unnecessary :hilarious:
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So our plan was to wake up at 3:15am and be out the door by 3:30. I think busses start at 3, and you're supposed to be in your corral by 4:30. ONE FULL HOUR BEFORE THE RACE STARTS. Run Disney ain't for everyone...it's an insanely early morning.

We ended up both being awake before 3am, so we just go up and moving early. It was probably for the best cause we didn't have to rush.



I took this on the way out at 3:24am. We cut across the parking lot to the bus stops and there were at least two busses already there. We boarded the second one and soon we were on our way. I was honestly not nervous. It's weird because I used to get SO nervous before races, but I guess since I had no time expectations for this one, I was relaxed. I rested my eyes on the bus, but didn't fall asleep. I was awake for the day, no use trying to sleep anymore!

We slowly made our way into the gear check area and stopped for a photo



This line was so long, but we had nothing but time!



Eventually we headed to the corrals, which were NO JOKE a mile away. I think we'd walked over a mile and a half already that morning by the time we got to the start of the race. I stopped at a port-a-potty even though I freakin hate those things. It's a necessary evil of racing. Then we settled into our corral for the next hour+.



Getting close!



Get used to that sleepy face.

We ended up starting a little after 6am (official race start time was 5:30, and we were in corral F). We started off doing 2 minute intervals of running and walking. The first three miles FLEW by. I was feeling pretty great, so that was good. After a little while longer, we got close to the MK parking entrance.



I'm not good at running and talking selfies. As @Matt and Kelly pointed out in his report, running through the TTC is a mess. It gets so narrow and people are stepping all over each other. I got pushed at least once, and you better believe I made my annoyance known :hilarious: There was a guy walking to the park with coffee who was going faster than us because of all the congestion. He looked over at us for a few beats then said "I'm beating you" It was actually pretty funny and everyone laughed.

Despite all that, the TTC does have a lot of crowd support, so that was nice!

So I took a little video for youtube and not a ton of photos, but this next part was THE BEST EVER. Running into and through Magic Kingdom was so stinking magical! My chest was all tight, but not from running, from emotion. WHY? Why is this so magical? I mean you can walk through the park all day long, why is running through there so awesome? I don't get it, but it just is...

I even teared up a little.





I didn't realize there would be official castle photo spots, so we took our own with my self timer



An official race photo!


I put my arms up like that in almost every photo for some reason. It's like a reflex when I saw the cameras. ha!

We veered into Tomorrowland from Main Street and saw this guy from Meet the Robinsons (had to look this up after the fact)






After running through the castle, we stopped for photos. It took maybe 5 minutes?




Jump fail...it's totally blurry. Oh well.

We took off toward Frontierland next




Up next: Keep runnin!
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We left the park through the back of Frontierland where the parade steps off. They had some floats out for people to see.




Splash mountain ride vehicle! Yay!



The next bit was long and boring, but we just kind of zoned out. I think it was around mile 6 that we really scaled back our running. I can't remember if I mentioned that neither of us trained, but we knew we wouldn't be able to keep up much running after a while, so we didn't mind. I don't remember much from the rest of the race other than it hurt. My knees, my butt (left side has a really tight muscle...not sure which one!), my feet...it all hurt.

Saw lots of fun characters including Jafar and Shan Yu



I was holding out for the fairy godmother. Spoiler alert, she wasn't out!!! Such a bummer.

At some point we saw a girl dressed as Pocahontas running barefoot and I about barfed. So gross. And unsafe!

Also ditched the ears around mile 8 I think. They were getting on my nerves, plus I felt like you couldn't see my hat cause it was too far back on my head. I hated to throw them away, but I didn't want to carry them either.



Still alive!



Before we got to Epcot and the last 2.5ish miles, we saw these Cinderella mice. The CM over there confirmed that Gus Gus wasn't on the course and neither was the fairy godmother, so we just got in line here. I wanted pictures with someone from Cinderella, so this worked.

I can't remember where exactly we entered Epcot, but we ran through what little bit of Future World you can still go to




Beautiful day!! Also I forgot to mention, I started the race with a yellow fleece pullover. I shed it around mile 3 I think. It was still brisk, but I was warm enough to lose it, and I felt just fine the rest of the race.



OMG I'M IN EPCOT!

And my form looks terrible :hilarious: That's why my knees were hurting, I'm sure. I was not running well anymore.



Caught me walking, oops.

Soon enough, we were coming up on the finish line! I loved running through World Showcase a little. We went through Mexico, then out where Mexican Donald meets. We ran the last 2 or 3 minutes. Right at the last second I tried to grab E's hand and the result was hilarious.


:hilarious::hilarious::hilarious:



A little better!




Welp. We did it!! We collected out medals and our runner's boxes.




Most of the stuff in the box was pretty good!

There was an area set up with ice. I was hoping to find a bandaid for my toe. I felt like I was getting a blister on the bottom of my big toe. I never found one, and it actually ended up being fine, thankfully. We did get our knees wrapped with ice and it felt soooo nice!




We wandered around completely lost for a bit. The plan was to head through Epcot and take the skyliner to Pop, but I couldn't figure out how to get into Epcot. The lines for food and merch were too long for my liking, so we found the busses and hopped on one of the THREE that were there for Pop/AoA.

We had great bus luck.

The lady in front of us was telling a story about how the green army man on the course last year pushed her and knocked her down. They're supposed to be "mean" but not that mean...so she obviously filed a complaint. She wondered if that was why they weren't on the course this year 😳 She was one of those loud talkers, so she kept us entertained on the ride.

Race thoughts:
I feel like most people running a half feel super accomplished after, but I didn't feel that. For one, I didn't train. So I mean, yeah I finished it, but I didn't put work in for it, so it didn't feel like an accomplishment. It's also hard to feel good about it when I've done halfs in the past with WAY better times. I don't mean that to sound snotty at all, I think our time is totally respectable, it just didn't give me the sense of accomplishment that I've gotten in the past.

All that said, I was very happy to have completed it! It was such a fun experience, and THAT MEDAL! Holy moly. It's beautiful. I may be addicted to RunDisney events now...heaven help my wallet.
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Quick aside! I meant to post my steps from Saturday, our first day.
Steps: 22,570 (10.3 miles)

The race, according to my watch, was 13.61mi and took us 3:28! Our first half was under a 13 minute mile pace, then we ended up at 15 min 20 second pace. So that tells you how much we walked during the last 6.5ish miles!

Ok up next will be the rest of Sunday
 

Matt and Kelly

Well-Known Member
So our plan was to wake up at 3:15am and be out the door by 3:30. I think busses start at 3, and you're supposed to be in your corral by 4:30. ONE FULL HOUR BEFORE THE RACE STARTS. Run Disney ain't for everyone...it's an insanely early morning.

We ended up both being awake before 3am, so we just go up and moving early. It was probably for the best cause we didn't have to rush.



I took this on the way out at 3:24am. We cut across the parking lot to the bus stops and there were at least two busses already there. We boarded the second one and soon we were on our way. I was honestly not nervous. It's weird because I used to get SO nervous before races, but I guess since I had no time expectations for this one, I was relaxed. I rested my eyes on the bus, but didn't fall asleep. I was awake for the day, no use trying to sleep anymore!

We slowly made our way into the gear check area and stopped for a photo



This line was so long, but we had nothing but time!



Eventually we headed to the corrals, which were NO JOKE a mile away. I think we'd walked over a mile and a half already that morning by the time we got to the start of the race. I stopped at a port-a-potty even though I freakin hate those things. It's a necessary evil of racing. Then we settled into our corral for the next hour+.



Getting close!



Get used to that sleepy face.

We ended up starting a little after 6am (official race start time was 5:30, and we were in corral F). We started off doing 2 minute intervals of running and walking. The first three miles FLEW by. I was feeling pretty great, so that was good. After a little while longer, we got close to the MK parking entrance.



I'm not good at running and talking selfies. As @Matt and Kelly pointed out in his report, running through the TTC is a mess. It gets so narrow and people are stepping all over each other. I got pushed at least once, and you better believe I made my annoyance known :hilarious: There was a guy walking to the park with coffee who was going faster than us because of all the congestion. He looked over at us for a few beats then said "I'm beating you" It was actually pretty funny and everyone laughed.

Despite all that, the TTC does have a lot of crowd support, so that was nice!

So I took a little video for youtube and not a ton of photos, but this next part was THE BEST EVER. Running into and through Magic Kingdom was so stinking magical! My chest was all tight, but not from running, from emotion. WHY? Why is this so magical? I mean you can walk through the park all day long, why is running through there so awesome? I don't get it, but it just is...

I even teared up a little.





I didn't realize there would be official castle photo spots, so we took our own with my self timer



An official race photo!


I put my arms up like that in almost every photo for some reason. It's like a reflex when I saw the cameras. ha!

We veered into Tomorrowland from Main Street and saw this guy from Meet the Robinsons (had to look this up after the fact)






After running through the castle, we stopped for photos. It took maybe 5 minutes?




Jump fail...it's totally blurry. Oh well.

We took off toward Frontierland next




Up next: Keep runnin!
This is awesome! Amazing photos throughout the course. Makes me wish I took more time to really enjoy things a bit more.
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I’m in. And I’m feeling a bit stressed for you with a half marathon in the morning after two days with little sleep and so much walking around ! But as you are now writing a TR, it means you made it through to the other side ok 😉
Ha! Well, we knew it was going to hurt regardless, so I wasn't too stressed. If I'd been prepared for the race, I think I would have been more worried about it...which seems totally backwards :hilarious:

I’m here & enjoying this!!
Welcome!

Following along and looking forward to reading about your race
Thanks for following!

I enjoyed your Instagram stories, here for the details!
Glad you're here!

Joining in! Excited to see all the race fun! :)
Woo! Thanks for reading :)
Late to the party but here!
Not too late! Welcome!
I would say I am late but...
giphy.gif


Ha ha! 😂
Enjoying it so far!
Thanks for reading!
 

DisneyMorgan

Well-Known Member
I enjoyed following along on insta so i'm excited for this! I want to do a race one day!

They had to de-ice our plane in December. I've never had that happen before! Seems so weird for Memphis!!

Your photography business is Woody & Pearl right? If so, you did newborn pics for a girl I've known since she was little! The pics are beautiful!
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I enjoyed following along on insta so i'm excited for this! I want to do a race one day!

They had to de-ice our plane in December. I've never had that happen before! Seems so weird for Memphis!!

Your photography business is Woody & Pearl right? If so, you did newborn pics for a girl I've known since she was little! The pics are beautiful!
Yes that's me! Are you talking about Britt?
 

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