Disney's Princess Half Marathon Weekend 2014
Hello internet! Time for the write-up of this year's Princess Half Marathon weekend!
Suprises began when we arrived at baggage claim in Orlando and discovered my ex-coworker Jamie! She had been on our flight the whole time and we'd never noticed! Jamie is a runner too, but she wasn't coming to the Princess; she had a family thing in...somewhere further north. We were tickled pink to see each other! I miss Ms. Jamie.
It took forever for our luggage to come out, but that turned out to be a really good thing, because the first place we went after J9 and Ron picked us up was the race expo, and as we were walking in from the parking lot, I spied a mom walking with a little girl in a dress. A dress I recognized: Princess Captain Marvel. I don't normally walk up to total strangers and start talking to them, but I had to make an exception here: "Hi, excuse me, oh my gosh, are you Princess Captain Marvel?"
She was. Or rather, she was Tallulah, dressed up as Princess Captain Marvel. And her mom was Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of the Captain Marvel comic. And once we established that I was the person who had made Tiny Princess Captain America and Tiny Princess Thor, then she knew who *I* was, and she and Janine and I had this incredible, wonderful conversation that ended in us exchanging business cards. And taking a duckface selfie because that is a rule of Kelly Sue's.
SO THAT HAPPENED. (ohmygosh)
The crazy adrenaline rush from that lasted us through the expo, which thankfully was *much* better this year. No crowds or waiting at all. We even ran into the Tampa branch of Geek Girls Run while we were walking around!
Janine and I also failed to win bananas by tossing a bean bag in a hole.
On our way out of the expo, Dannon was giving away cases of their yogurt, literally off the back of their truck. We took two. Ron was very pleased that he fit it all into the mini-fridge in our hotel room.
Shades of Green redid their pool! It's quite nice.
The group had our traditional breakfast at Ohana at Polynesian the next morning. No official group picture this time, because we ended up waiting a really long time for our reservation and once they called our names, all we wanted to do was eat! So here, have some food:
And of course, POG juice. We drank a lot.
The plan for the day was Hollywood Studios. While most of the group got their Magic Bands linked up, Rogue and I (lacking Magic Bands) went shopping for ponchos, because it was supposed to rain, and found this fantastic bit of film history:
PINK RANGER FOREVER I LOVE YOU KIMBERLY.
It was really crowded at DHS that day...we wandered around doing various things, checking out the animation pavilion (& totally schooling a cast member who tried to quiz us about the Frozen voice actors...no, sweetie. no.), riding Star Tours, and trying out the Jack Sparrow pirate experience, which had a neat hologram but was otherwise kind of odd?
We had a yummy midafternoon snack of popcorn & cupcake, and eventually the Magic Band folks went to ride Tower of Terror & Rock-n-Rollercoaster with their fast passes. Rogue and I took in a show:
It was great! This little girl was dancing along the whole time and when the cast member gave her the pink guitar to keep, she was over the moon.
We also went to the Indy stunt show, where for once I didn't volunteer to be an extra and just watched the show, but I took no pictures of that. :P Then we walked back over to Yacht & Beach and got tasty sandwiches & pizza from their counter service and ate up in Maggie & Doug's room, and then Rogue and I monorailed&walked ourselves back over to Shades of Green to go to bed early, because the 10k was the next morning.
But first, I had to finish one last thing for my costume...
...because Janine and I were running as Indiana Jones & the boulder!
Betsy was superbadass Captain Marvel!
We got a great response to the costumes! Most people got it, although Janine got called some random things, my favorite being "A California Raisin?" And halfway through, we ran into the Tampa GGR contingent cheering in front of Boardwalk!
Coming into the finish, we totally hammed it up for the crowd:
How was the 10K? Well, I wouldn't run it again. The course really wasn't that awesome and waking up early two days in a row really sucked. It was incredibly hot and humid, and I was running in a pleather jacket and felt hat. (Did you know that you can sweat through pleather? I discovered, to my dismay, that you can.) I was incredibly uncomfortable for pretty much the entire race, although really that was due to my costume choice. But I'm still really glad we did Indy and the Boulder, because it got such a great reaction.
After we finished, and we'd finished all our photo requests, I stripped off all my costume pieces and laid down, Andy Dwyer style. "Everything hurts; running is impossible."
A quick trip back to the room to shower & change, and we were off to Downtown Disney for the official Geek Girls Run meetup! We had a super delicious & well-earned breakfast at Wolfgang Puck Express, and some great conversation!
And then it was off to Animal Kingdom for the day! We hit up the Everest single-rider line first thing. I actually ended up riding in the front, yeeeaaaah! Then off to Dinoland to ride their adorable rides & have a yummy cheeseburger.
We timed lunch perfectly, because it just poured rain while we were eating on the covered patio of Restaurant-o-saurus. Once the rain let up somewhat, we took the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch, which I had never done before! Janine met a goat. "This is totes my goat."
I look sad in this picture but secretly I am pleased that the money we spent on our ponchos was not wasted.
Ron and Rogue were busy bromancing it up all day. Those two.
Then it was time to head over to Epcot for our big team dinner in Italy! On the way, we stopped at the Coke pavilion for some delicious Guarana soda. Soooo good. (Only a teensy bit though, because that stuff will keep you AWAKE!)
Our three tables at dinner! (Pictures from Maggie!)
And then early bed again! We had to be up and out even earlier for the half marathon, because they were closing the Shades of Green exit at 4 am. We had thought to walk to the TTC and monorail over, but when we walked out of the lobby, there was a race shuttle bus sitting right there. Easy as pie! Four Avengers get on a bus filled with princesses...
We found Loki! Don't let her get away!
Earlier this year, I sold my old Slave Leia running outfit to a girl who found me on Facebook. On our walk to the starting corrals, I found her! Out of 17,000 people who were there!
For the race, Betsy, Rogue and I ran together, since we figured we'd all be around the same pace. RunDisney changed their corrals this year, moving toward a larger number of smaller corrals. So instead of being in the front of B, we were now in E, but it was effectively the same place within the crowd. I have to say, I really like the new corral system. There was way less crowding on the run! It was still gross and hot and humid, but at least it wasn't crowded.
We stayed together through...mile 8? Mile 9? And then Betsy and I just couldn't keep up with Rogue anymore. Running the 10K on Saturday absolutely took it out of me. (Rogue was smart & only ran the half, which is definitely what I'm doing from now on.) So he took off, and we slowed it down a bit. Running as the Avengers was fun, and we got a lot of cheers from the crowd. Rogue even got recognized as "Dude Black Widow!"
RunDisney put this picture of me in their Facebook album! I love it!
Betsy and I finished in 2:20. Not bad, all things considered. We were very very happy to receive our Glass Slipper Challenge medals (for doing the 10K and the half) and our special pink and purple Coast-to-Coast medals (for running both the Tink and the Princess):
Avengers Assemble!
And then we hightailed it out of there, because we were sore and cramping and desperately needed showers and hot tub. We monorailed back over, which enabled J9 to get a great Thor 2 photo op. "How do I get to Greenwich?"
The rest of us looked like this:
We found an appropriate poster when we got off the monorail!
Then we walked over to Poly. RunDisney smartly gave us our little net backpacks *after* the race, so we could put our food & water in them!
We all got delicious breakfast at Captain Cook's, the counter service place in the Poly. NOM ALL THE FOODS.
Also, Dole Whip. (That's most of the reason to go there, honestly.)
Yet again, it looks like we were trying to stage the schwarma scene, but really we were just hungry and exhausted.
Also while we were sitting there, Betsy got a photo request from a teenage girl who adores Loki. So cute.
Then it was back to Shades of Green:
And the HOT TUB! Conley joined us shortly after we got there and we soaked for a good long time. Mmmmmmm.
ALL MY DISNEY MEDALS...from 2014.
And these are the ones I *didn't* wear around the parks on Sunday:
Once we finally started our day, Rogue and I went over to Magic Kingdom to meet up with college friends Alex and Tree. While we were waiting, we rode my very favorite Tomorrowland ride, THE PEOPLE MOVER:
After we got delicious Mickey head ice cream bars, Alex & Tree showed up with baby Robbie, aka Minion, aka the adorablest adorable to ever adorable:
We had a great time catching up. Then we needed to get over to Epcot for lunch, so we all monorailed over together and grabbed a quick group shot before dashing off:
Betsy, Conley, Amber, Rogue, and I had lunch at Coral Reef, and it was deeeeeelicious. I had lobster mac and cheese. They called it by a fancy name but it was totally lobster mac and cheese and there was SO MUCH LOBSTER and it was amazing. Also one of the walls of the restaurant is a window to a giant tank with fishes. I didn't take a picture but it was pretty great.
Betsy and I dressed up for our day at the parks! Dapper Day was actually at Disneyland that weekend, but we decided we would have our own Dapper Day, so there. Betsy lent me this awesome dress that she made!
After food, Rogue and Betsy and I went back over to Magic Kingdom to catch the Main Street Electrical Parade! I freaking love this parade and I was so excited to see it again. We snagged awesome viewing spots at the train station, and Betsy and I bought fudge to eat while we watched. Perfection.
We were disappointed that the eagle wasn't carrying Stephen Colbert.
A bit later, after playing some Sorcerors of the Magic Kingdom (a card game you can play throughout the park; you should try it if you go!), we were joined by the Garner clan. First stop: Jungle Cruise! We were the obnoxious ones who laughed and groaned loudly at every joke and the boat captain totally loved us.
Also we rode the teacups. This is the happy "before" picture...before Ron and I spun the Teacup of Death.
TEACUP OF DEATH VIDEO! Click on the image; it'll take to the smugmug site to see the video. Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Then we were feeling peckish, so we headed over to New Fantasyland (which I had not seen) and got pork shanks and Lefou's Brew at Gaston's Tavern. Both are excellent!
And of course, obligatory carousel ride!
Finally, we were too exhausted to continue, and called it a night. As we walked back to SoG from the monorail, we happened across the Bob's Barricades guys, picking up all the traffic cones from the race. A perfect bookend to the trip.
My fifth Princess Half Marathon weekend was a lot of fun! While I'm glad I did the inaugural Glass Slipper Challenge, I don't think I'll be doing it again. Racing two days in a row sucked, plus it took up a *lot* of time. We spent way less time in the parks than usual, which was a bummer. But we had a good time, met some great people, and laughed a lot, and that's always a great thing.
But I would like it if the weather gave us a break next year.
Suprises began when we arrived at baggage claim in Orlando and discovered my ex-coworker Jamie! She had been on our flight the whole time and we'd never noticed! Jamie is a runner too, but she wasn't coming to the Princess; she had a family thing in...somewhere further north. We were tickled pink to see each other! I miss Ms. Jamie.
It took forever for our luggage to come out, but that turned out to be a really good thing, because the first place we went after J9 and Ron picked us up was the race expo, and as we were walking in from the parking lot, I spied a mom walking with a little girl in a dress. A dress I recognized: Princess Captain Marvel. I don't normally walk up to total strangers and start talking to them, but I had to make an exception here: "Hi, excuse me, oh my gosh, are you Princess Captain Marvel?"
She was. Or rather, she was Tallulah, dressed up as Princess Captain Marvel. And her mom was Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of the Captain Marvel comic. And once we established that I was the person who had made Tiny Princess Captain America and Tiny Princess Thor, then she knew who *I* was, and she and Janine and I had this incredible, wonderful conversation that ended in us exchanging business cards. And taking a duckface selfie because that is a rule of Kelly Sue's.
SO THAT HAPPENED. (ohmygosh)
The crazy adrenaline rush from that lasted us through the expo, which thankfully was *much* better this year. No crowds or waiting at all. We even ran into the Tampa branch of Geek Girls Run while we were walking around!
Janine and I also failed to win bananas by tossing a bean bag in a hole.
On our way out of the expo, Dannon was giving away cases of their yogurt, literally off the back of their truck. We took two. Ron was very pleased that he fit it all into the mini-fridge in our hotel room.
Shades of Green redid their pool! It's quite nice.
The group had our traditional breakfast at Ohana at Polynesian the next morning. No official group picture this time, because we ended up waiting a really long time for our reservation and once they called our names, all we wanted to do was eat! So here, have some food:
And of course, POG juice. We drank a lot.
The plan for the day was Hollywood Studios. While most of the group got their Magic Bands linked up, Rogue and I (lacking Magic Bands) went shopping for ponchos, because it was supposed to rain, and found this fantastic bit of film history:
PINK RANGER FOREVER I LOVE YOU KIMBERLY.
It was really crowded at DHS that day...we wandered around doing various things, checking out the animation pavilion (& totally schooling a cast member who tried to quiz us about the Frozen voice actors...no, sweetie. no.), riding Star Tours, and trying out the Jack Sparrow pirate experience, which had a neat hologram but was otherwise kind of odd?
We had a yummy midafternoon snack of popcorn & cupcake, and eventually the Magic Band folks went to ride Tower of Terror & Rock-n-Rollercoaster with their fast passes. Rogue and I took in a show:
It was great! This little girl was dancing along the whole time and when the cast member gave her the pink guitar to keep, she was over the moon.
We also went to the Indy stunt show, where for once I didn't volunteer to be an extra and just watched the show, but I took no pictures of that. :P Then we walked back over to Yacht & Beach and got tasty sandwiches & pizza from their counter service and ate up in Maggie & Doug's room, and then Rogue and I monorailed&walked ourselves back over to Shades of Green to go to bed early, because the 10k was the next morning.
But first, I had to finish one last thing for my costume...
...because Janine and I were running as Indiana Jones & the boulder!
Betsy was superbadass Captain Marvel!
We got a great response to the costumes! Most people got it, although Janine got called some random things, my favorite being "A California Raisin?" And halfway through, we ran into the Tampa GGR contingent cheering in front of Boardwalk!
Coming into the finish, we totally hammed it up for the crowd:
How was the 10K? Well, I wouldn't run it again. The course really wasn't that awesome and waking up early two days in a row really sucked. It was incredibly hot and humid, and I was running in a pleather jacket and felt hat. (Did you know that you can sweat through pleather? I discovered, to my dismay, that you can.) I was incredibly uncomfortable for pretty much the entire race, although really that was due to my costume choice. But I'm still really glad we did Indy and the Boulder, because it got such a great reaction.
After we finished, and we'd finished all our photo requests, I stripped off all my costume pieces and laid down, Andy Dwyer style. "Everything hurts; running is impossible."
A quick trip back to the room to shower & change, and we were off to Downtown Disney for the official Geek Girls Run meetup! We had a super delicious & well-earned breakfast at Wolfgang Puck Express, and some great conversation!
And then it was off to Animal Kingdom for the day! We hit up the Everest single-rider line first thing. I actually ended up riding in the front, yeeeaaaah! Then off to Dinoland to ride their adorable rides & have a yummy cheeseburger.
We timed lunch perfectly, because it just poured rain while we were eating on the covered patio of Restaurant-o-saurus. Once the rain let up somewhat, we took the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch, which I had never done before! Janine met a goat. "This is totes my goat."
I look sad in this picture but secretly I am pleased that the money we spent on our ponchos was not wasted.
Ron and Rogue were busy bromancing it up all day. Those two.
Then it was time to head over to Epcot for our big team dinner in Italy! On the way, we stopped at the Coke pavilion for some delicious Guarana soda. Soooo good. (Only a teensy bit though, because that stuff will keep you AWAKE!)
Our three tables at dinner! (Pictures from Maggie!)
And then early bed again! We had to be up and out even earlier for the half marathon, because they were closing the Shades of Green exit at 4 am. We had thought to walk to the TTC and monorail over, but when we walked out of the lobby, there was a race shuttle bus sitting right there. Easy as pie! Four Avengers get on a bus filled with princesses...
We found Loki! Don't let her get away!
Earlier this year, I sold my old Slave Leia running outfit to a girl who found me on Facebook. On our walk to the starting corrals, I found her! Out of 17,000 people who were there!
For the race, Betsy, Rogue and I ran together, since we figured we'd all be around the same pace. RunDisney changed their corrals this year, moving toward a larger number of smaller corrals. So instead of being in the front of B, we were now in E, but it was effectively the same place within the crowd. I have to say, I really like the new corral system. There was way less crowding on the run! It was still gross and hot and humid, but at least it wasn't crowded.
We stayed together through...mile 8? Mile 9? And then Betsy and I just couldn't keep up with Rogue anymore. Running the 10K on Saturday absolutely took it out of me. (Rogue was smart & only ran the half, which is definitely what I'm doing from now on.) So he took off, and we slowed it down a bit. Running as the Avengers was fun, and we got a lot of cheers from the crowd. Rogue even got recognized as "Dude Black Widow!"
RunDisney put this picture of me in their Facebook album! I love it!
Betsy and I finished in 2:20. Not bad, all things considered. We were very very happy to receive our Glass Slipper Challenge medals (for doing the 10K and the half) and our special pink and purple Coast-to-Coast medals (for running both the Tink and the Princess):
Avengers Assemble!
And then we hightailed it out of there, because we were sore and cramping and desperately needed showers and hot tub. We monorailed back over, which enabled J9 to get a great Thor 2 photo op. "How do I get to Greenwich?"
The rest of us looked like this:
We found an appropriate poster when we got off the monorail!
Then we walked over to Poly. RunDisney smartly gave us our little net backpacks *after* the race, so we could put our food & water in them!
We all got delicious breakfast at Captain Cook's, the counter service place in the Poly. NOM ALL THE FOODS.
Also, Dole Whip. (That's most of the reason to go there, honestly.)
Yet again, it looks like we were trying to stage the schwarma scene, but really we were just hungry and exhausted.
Also while we were sitting there, Betsy got a photo request from a teenage girl who adores Loki. So cute.
Then it was back to Shades of Green:
And the HOT TUB! Conley joined us shortly after we got there and we soaked for a good long time. Mmmmmmm.
ALL MY DISNEY MEDALS...from 2014.
And these are the ones I *didn't* wear around the parks on Sunday:
Once we finally started our day, Rogue and I went over to Magic Kingdom to meet up with college friends Alex and Tree. While we were waiting, we rode my very favorite Tomorrowland ride, THE PEOPLE MOVER:
After we got delicious Mickey head ice cream bars, Alex & Tree showed up with baby Robbie, aka Minion, aka the adorablest adorable to ever adorable:
We had a great time catching up. Then we needed to get over to Epcot for lunch, so we all monorailed over together and grabbed a quick group shot before dashing off:
Betsy, Conley, Amber, Rogue, and I had lunch at Coral Reef, and it was deeeeeelicious. I had lobster mac and cheese. They called it by a fancy name but it was totally lobster mac and cheese and there was SO MUCH LOBSTER and it was amazing. Also one of the walls of the restaurant is a window to a giant tank with fishes. I didn't take a picture but it was pretty great.
Betsy and I dressed up for our day at the parks! Dapper Day was actually at Disneyland that weekend, but we decided we would have our own Dapper Day, so there. Betsy lent me this awesome dress that she made!
After food, Rogue and Betsy and I went back over to Magic Kingdom to catch the Main Street Electrical Parade! I freaking love this parade and I was so excited to see it again. We snagged awesome viewing spots at the train station, and Betsy and I bought fudge to eat while we watched. Perfection.
We were disappointed that the eagle wasn't carrying Stephen Colbert.
A bit later, after playing some Sorcerors of the Magic Kingdom (a card game you can play throughout the park; you should try it if you go!), we were joined by the Garner clan. First stop: Jungle Cruise! We were the obnoxious ones who laughed and groaned loudly at every joke and the boat captain totally loved us.
Also we rode the teacups. This is the happy "before" picture...before Ron and I spun the Teacup of Death.
TEACUP OF DEATH VIDEO! Click on the image; it'll take to the smugmug site to see the video. Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Then we were feeling peckish, so we headed over to New Fantasyland (which I had not seen) and got pork shanks and Lefou's Brew at Gaston's Tavern. Both are excellent!
And of course, obligatory carousel ride!
Finally, we were too exhausted to continue, and called it a night. As we walked back to SoG from the monorail, we happened across the Bob's Barricades guys, picking up all the traffic cones from the race. A perfect bookend to the trip.
My fifth Princess Half Marathon weekend was a lot of fun! While I'm glad I did the inaugural Glass Slipper Challenge, I don't think I'll be doing it again. Racing two days in a row sucked, plus it took up a *lot* of time. We spent way less time in the parks than usual, which was a bummer. But we had a good time, met some great people, and laughed a lot, and that's always a great thing.
But I would like it if the weather gave us a break next year.