2017 Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend

[courtneybeth]

@Davidg83 - I had that same thought as I was packing and posting earlier. LOL. It will be very interesting.

 

[Bree]

The race retreat was expensive, but I found it to be worth every penny. It was so nice having a warm tent, private bag check, bathrooms and food before the race (bagels, bananas, oranges, coffee, soda and water. There was peanut butter, cream cheese, jelly and butter for the bagels and also toasters to toast them.

I didn't find the walk to the corral any worse than the main staging area. It's a looooooong walk no matter what!

After the race I really enjoyed being able to get out of the sun. The breakfast buffet was pretty good. They had scrambled eggs, turkey sausage patties, roasted potatoes, oatmeal w/ toppings, yogurt with toppings, muffins, bagels, bananas, oranges, coffee, tea, chocolate milk, soda and water. There may have been Powerade, but I don't remember. My only complaint is that there was cheese on the scrambled eggs and they also provided more shredded cheese on the side.

I loved watching the live feed of the finish line. I was hoping to watch the very last person cross the finish line, but I was just too tired.

There were characters for photos - Aurora and Philip & the fairies from Sleeping Beauty. They also had a backdrop with some props.

The gift was a hand towel with Princess Half Marathon on it.

 

[bellanotte10]

I finished the race and took too long and by the time I got back to the race retreat they had closed it. So for me it was a total waste. I was counting on that breakfast


ETA.... just noticed my race results listed my name as Eliabeth.... *sigh*

 

[Bree]

I finished the race and took too long and by the time I got back to the race retreat they had closed it. So for me it was a total waste. I was counting on that breakfast


ETA.... just noticed my race results listed my name as Eliabeth.... *sigh*

What a bummer. I thought 10am was kind of early to shut it down.

 

[drummerwife]

They actually kept race retreat open longer than 10. I left there around 10:20 and they were making announcements about collecting the gear bags because they were going to be closing soon.

 

[The Expert]

Finished my first Half! After doing the other races the two days before, I'll admit I was tired of getting up so early. And despite basically walking the 5K and 10K with family, my legs were still tired. But thanks to a great POT I started in G and had time for the character stops I really wanted. It means my chip time is a disappointing 3:17, but considering about 30 minutes of that was stop time, I'm happy with the pace.

Next stop, Tink!

 

[Kender]

Anyone else notice some pretty severe scratching on their half medal? I kept my GSC from hitting my half, but it's pretty scuffed up. I know some was there when I was first handed it, but some definitely came from the times I let the two rest against each other while I was standing still.

Never had this happen with a medal before so not really sure if I can even do anything to clean it up a little

 

[cmarsh31]

Just got home tonight - ran my first 5k. Definitely a great race to start with! We had a fabulous time and got some great pictures! Didn't stop for any characters, but the photopass ones were very fun.

Thank you so much everyone on this thread for all the info, suggestions, advice, and support! As a newbie, it really helped to know what to expect!

 

[Anisum]

I went on Thursday at 4PM and everything was well-stocked and while it wasn't totally empty people-wise, I didn't get punched, so that was cool.

I like how this is the measurement for how going to the expo is at Princess.

 

[bananabean]

Anyone else notice some pretty severe scratching on their half medal? I kept my GSC from hitting my half, but it's pretty scuffed up. I know some was there when I was first handed it, but some definitely came from the times I let the two rest against each other while I was standing still.

Never had this happen with a medal before so not really sure if I can even do anything to clean it up a little

Mine are ok for this weekend, but I had that issue with DLH last year. All of the medals - including the 10k, which never got near any of the other medals, had scratches all over it. I'm pretty sure it's from when they're stacked up waiting to be handed out.

 

[bananabean]

The races were pretty good for me. I stopped for a ton of pictures - the only one I didn't stop for that I wish I had was the Beast, but I had just waited 15 minutes for Gaston, so I figured I'd pass. My mile through MK was 40 minutes. Eek! Luckily I had plenty of cushion and my times in the later miles without any pictures were decent. Probably could have even stopped for the Beast!

I didn't notice any corral jumpers, but it does seem like people think that walking on the right and notifying people they're going to walk will somehow kill them. I wish Disney would put up signs along the really narrow stretches telling people to walk on the right. I always move over to the right when I'm about to walk, but there was so little room for running I spent most of the time running on the grass.


Congrats to all the runners this weekend!

 

[courtneybeth]

Looking through my photos, I think the 5k ones turned out the best. Never got finishline pics for the 10k because that guy tripped in front of me and my castle shot at the half is blocked by a woman walking in front of the camera. Any cute pics I have.... eyes closed.

At least the medal shots came out great! Going to get a three-pic frame and get those printed. I'll keep checking during the week to see if more pics popped up but not thrilled with what I see of the half so far.

 

[LindseyJo22]

Well, despite some serious issues on Saturday that ate up our day and made me worry I wasn't going to be able to race, I had a blast this weekend!

I managed to stop for lots of characters that I really wanted with not too bad lines, ran through the castle, played my awesome Disney playlist the whole time, and generally had a blast. I even got some fabulous race pictures where I don't look like I'm dying

Only one finish picture, and I'm on the side behind someone doing a big finish gesture, so I'll take my mid-run pictures
Even managed to get a fastpass for Talking Mickey and got a great medal picture with him!

Not totally sure how I'm going to do Goofy next year, but it will probably mean taking the half much much much slower.

Ended up with a 2:45:32 time, which is only about half an hour more than my POT time - with all the stops and such, I'm okay with that

Already looking forward to Marathon Weekend 2018

 

[Keke]

Great race! My slowest one but also the only one where I've stopped for more than just a bathroom. We spent almost half an hour in Magic Kingdom getting pics and using a real bathroom. Speaking of pics, how long do they normally take to show up? I'm still missing all the ones we stopped for on the course.

The corral releases were bizarre. When was the decision made to cut them all in half like that?!

 

[Floridian1989]

We had some photos taken where my bib was blocked - any idea if I would be able to get those photos? Pre photopass, you could scroll through the thousands of images to try to identify missing pictures.

 

[courtneybeth]

The corral releases were bizarre. When was the decision made to cut them all in half like that?!

I'd be perfectly happy if they went A-Z for corrals and placed less people in each one to right-size. The mini corral releases were weird and made it confusing as to when you were really going....

 

[JulieODC]

I've realized that I need to work on my photography while running skills! I got a few decent ones - but so many unflattering pictures! Ha!

Hope everyone is feeling recovered today!

 

[bumbershoot]

The corral releases were bizarre. When was the decision made to cut them all in half like that?!

For the 5 and 10 they had four releases per corral. I really liked it and would have been happy with more than two releases per corral for the Half.


I am an interval person and I try hard to be good about it but omg some of the other intervalers and walkers just about drove me nuts. Was comfortably jogging behind this man with a nice pace who suddenly stopped to scratch his leg and I nearly ran into him. I didn't touch him but did say "whoa, yikes!" as I maneuvered. And he kept saying "I had an itch!"

My shoelace came untied in the lane leaving Mk and I had to just wait until the next water stop for there to be space to tie it. No way was I going to go across the cones or into the grass. And it was then (in the one lane area out of MK) that the 3 hour pace group came through and drove me insane. They had the same interval as I do but they made NO effort to move to a side st all. When someone at my interval is messing up my intervals I know it's bad lol.


I ended up running without music the whole weekend which was weird but better than expected.

 

[The Expert]

Anyone else notice some pretty severe scratching on their half medal? I kept my GSC from hitting my half, but it's pretty scuffed up. I know some was there when I was first handed it, but some definitely came from the times I let the two rest against each other while I was standing still.

Never had this happen with a medal before so not really sure if I can even do anything to clean it up a little

Yes! I wore all four of mine to Studios yesterday and the Half was riding under the GSC and is a bit of a mess. I held them most of the time so they wouldn't clink, and the rest look ok but not that one.

Today I just wore GSC and carried the rest to put on for pics. I wrapped the ribbons around them in my bag for extra protection, and that worked well.

 

[KateP85]

My shoelace came untied in the lane leaving Mk and I had to just wait until the next water stop for there to be space to tie it. No way was I going to go across the cones or into the grass. And it was then (in the one lane area out of MK) that the 3 hour pace group came through and drove me insane. They had the same interval as I do but they made NO effort to move to a side st all. When someone at my interval is messing up my intervals I know it's bad lol.

I ran with the 3:00 pace group from about mile 2 until we entered MK and it was quite a drawn out group. I didn't train for intervals but since 3 hours was my goal time, I thought it would be nice to stay with a group for a bit. While I loved the intervals, the group seemed to have a tough time sticking together, and at some points people were running/walking about 5-6 people abreast. I ran at the back of the group and another runner commented to me that the pacer was weaving, and it was causing the group to spread out more.

I lost the group in Magic Kingdom to stop for photos and a real bathroom, so I wasn't sure how many people stayed with the group.