Sunday, April 07, 2013

This proves I'm a Princess, dammit!

When was the last time I posted anything here?  I can't even remember, which is either a sign of old age, or not enough adventure, both of which are terrible and must be dealt with!  Either way, it is time for a narrative of some recent adventures!  I think I shall split this one up into a few different posts, in the interests of expediting their posting.  I shall begin, dear friends, with the Disney Princess Half Marathon.

Yes, you read that correctly.  The Disney Princess Half Marathon.  Disney, you see, likes to host races.  Lots and lots of races.  Probably because it sucks people into their parks and helps them make money.  And who am I to argue?  It worked on me, after all.  Originally I had wanted to run the Disney World Marathon, but the timing of that one wasn't quite right, so I managed to finagle my husband into running a half with me.  Well, "with" is really a matter of opinion, since he has yet to beat me, or even come close to finishing with a time that isn't significantly slower than mine.  At any rate, the Princess Half is hosted at, and held within the confines of the Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.  As a half marathon it is, in fact, a 21.1 km race.  Or for those yankees out there, 13.1 miles.  So it's short.

The easiest way to deal with this race, I figured, was to simply stay at one of the multitude of hotels and resorts that are actually on Disney World property.  Disney World, if you aren't aware, is HUGE.  Not "it takes me 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other" huge, but "it takes me 2 days to walk from one end to the other" huge.  The race, all 21 km of it, was inside the park.  As in we didn't leave.  As in we never set foot off Disney property.  And we didn't backtrack at all.  The advantage of staying at a Disney hotel is that you don't have to drive.  They have shuttles to take you pretty much anywhere you want to go, including the race expo.  I will definitely hand it to Disney, they have phenomenal organizational skills.

The race was expensive.  For 2 people, the entry cost me $250, and that was the early bird price.  Not a race for the thrifty.  But it was worth it in the end, I think.  You'd think so, too, if you ever run a Disney race. I'll explain why later.

We picked up our race kits at one of the other resorts-the one with the conference centre attached-and wandered the expo for a bit.  It was actually a very good expo.  I said it after Vegas and this race confirms it-Americans have good race expos.  There were tons of booths, lots of really cool stuff to check out and try if you felt inclined, and most importantly, lots of sweet swag.  I came out with a Cheshire Cat t-shirt that I wear with pride and a ridiculous grin.  It makes me happy.  The race shirts were really just ordinary tech t-shirts, that were a royal purple.  But they did say Disney on them.  And they're pretty comfortable.  Also part of the race kits were our race bibs(you know, the things with the numbers on them), of which there were 2.  Apparently, since Glen and I signed up as a 2-person team(team Truffle Shuffle), we got "commemorative" race bibs with our names and race numbers on them.  I couldn't figure out why we got these, though, given that we couldn't wear them in the race because our timing chips were on the other bibs.  So they were a bit pointless.  But hey, I'll take it anyways.  When we signed up, they had asked us who our favourite princesses were.  We couldn't quite figure out why, but Glen went with Merida(he hadn't even seen the movie at the time), and I went with Belle. I was a little annoyed that Pocahontas wasn't a choice, but I guess if you're gonna get technical, she's not really a princess.

This takes us to race morning.  Very, extremely early on race morning.  Because the race started at 5:35 am.  Yes, you read that right, 5:35 am.  That's early.  Now, if you factor in that we're from Vancouver and the race was on the opposite coast, so there's a time difference, then the race started at 2:35am.  And we had to be getting to the race are at least an hour before the race started.  And there was a good 20 minute bus ride to get there.  So that means we walked out of of hotel room at around 1am Vancouver time.  It was unpleasant.  I theorize they started the race this early so that it wouldn't interfere with park operations, which I'm pretty sure is true.

We managed to get on a bus quite quickly, likely owing to Disney's aforementioned phenomenal organizational skills, which had buses lined up waiting to pick up runners at each hotel.  They dropped us off actually quite far from the start line, but given that there were 21 000 people in the race, that sorta made sense.  We took our time wandering to the start line, since we had nearly an hour to kill and had no desire to stand still and psych ourselves out for that long.  So as we were wandering we passed an open area where there was one dude surrounded by women all looking on in adoration while he talked.  As we walked by, I looked to see who it was, and it looked like Sean Astin, but I wasn't totally sure.  Sounded like him, though.  After the traditional pre-race nervous pee, we wandered our way to the starting line, which turned out to be a good mile and a half from where to bus dropped us off.  Suddenly it was clear why they wanted us there an hour before the gun.  We putzed around near the corrals for a bit, until about 20 minutes before the race start, then headed into the tulle-filled corrals.  There were a lot of tutus.  And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT.  I think if you did the math there was probably 1/4 of the women wearing tutus.

I had somehow ended up in the first corral, despite the fact that I'm not really that fast of a runner.  But that's relative, I guess.  Glen was in the third corral.  They had big screens and speakers everywhere that were showing little interviews they were doing with people and whatnot, which were there pretty much to keep the runners entertained so we didn't start the world's happiest riot.  And who should show up on the screen about 10 minutes to gun time, but Sean Astin.  I guessed correctly, friends.  Samwise Gamgee was running the Princess Half Marathon with us.  Now all Team Truffle Shuffle was missing was Mouth(Glen was Data and I was Chunk).

Then, finally, it was time to run.  I hadn't really thought too much about the actual race itself, mostly because I was too busy planning the rest of the vacation, but the actual run itself was fun.  Really fun.  Like, I'll pay a $125 per person entry fee to run fun.  Along the race route they had costumed characters from all the Disney movies.  Mostly the male characters owing to the fact that the race was 95% women.  And people were stopping to have their pictures taken with them.  On the way back to the finish line, I saw on the other side of the course and there were lines, long lines, of women waiting to get their picture taken with the characters.  I'm still torn as to whether I would ever do that myself-wait in line for a picture when there was a timer running for my race.  But I guess I'll figure that out if I ever decide to run another Disney race.

The run was also fun because of where it went.  We ran through the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  The Magic Kindom was cool because it went through Cinderella's castle, and they had turned all the lights on for us.  There was a spot where you could hop off the course for a second and have your picture taken in front of the castle by the good folks at Marathonfoto.  And all the employees had come out of their shops, or stopped sweeping or whatever it was they were doing at 5:35 in the morning, to cheer us on.  They were clapping, yelling, and it actually looked like they were pleased to be there.  Not like they were getting paid to be cheerful, like most of the people that work at the Disney Parks, but like they were genuinely pleased to be there, and were even more pleased that you were there too.

The water stations were well-spaced and well-stocked, and I believe there was a gel station at one point that I ran by and grimaced at, too.  I ran most of the race in the dark, since it started so early.  I had optimistically taken my sunglasses in the hopes that the sun would rise before I made it to the finish line, but I didn't use them.  If I remember right, the sun was just coming up about 15 minutes before I crossed the finish line.

It was hot, though.  Hot and incredibly humid.  Within 5 minutes of crossing the start line I was dripping, and within 20 minutes my shorts and shirts were completely soaked with sweat, and my hat had ceased to even attempt soaking up any more liquids.  And when you're used to running in the rain when it's somewhere between 5-10 degrees Celsius, suddenly cranking the heat up to 25 degrees really doesn't help your finishing time too much.

The medals at the finish line were HUGE.  Larger even than the Rock n' Roll series medals-not heavier, but larger size-wise.  And they had a tiara and jewels on them.  It's the prettiest medal in my collection so far.  After I received my well-deserved medal, I had my photo taken, which turned out surprisingly good, considering it was so hot my face is the colour of an overripe tomato.  Then I got my post-race food, which was nicely packaged in a lovely RunDisney box, and contained some energy bars, nuts and whatnot.  I still don't understand why every race insists on giving you dry food when you've just managed to sweat out a good chunk of your body weight and quite literally have no saliva left to swallow it with, but that's a different discussion for another day.  Then I parked myself on a lovely patch of pavement to wait for Glen to finish and do my best not to pass out from sleep deprivation.

So my finishing time was 2:05:35.  That is the slowest time I have ever posted in a half marathon.  While I didn't exactly train to run this race particularly fast, it's been a long time since I posted anything over 2 hours in a half, so I was a little disappointed.  But you can't win 'em all, I guess.  I did, however, run a negative split, and it's been a while since I managed to do that.  Glen also ran his slowest time, and was quite disappointed with himself, but he was having some trouble with the heat as well.  I had a good run, though.  Even at the end it really didn't feel too bad, which is definitely a sign that I wasn't going as fast as I could have.  I even felt reasonably good for the rest of the day-after a nap, of course-which was a nice bonus, since we went out to the Magic Kingdom that day.

If the opportunity arose, I would likely run another Disney race.  Maybe not a half, since it's really not far enough, but a marathon, perhaps.  Maybe Disneyland, next time.  I'll have to think about that one.  But as far as the race went, it was a pretty good experience.

Oh, and I beat Samwise Gamgee by 15 minutes.

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