We’re taking a little break from the Disney Dream Wedding Series to cover the 2020 Princess Half Marathon, because of course we decided to run a half marathon a week and a half before our wedding!
RunDisney’s events typically sell out months in advance. Many of them sell out within hours of going on sale. So, in 2014 my life was drastically different than it is now, and I wanted to run the 2015 Princess Half Marathon, but I was short on funds. I knew if I waited until I had the money, it would be too late. So, I made a phone call that I hate making, and I called Nana and asked her if I could borrow the $160 I needed for the registration. I fully planned on paying her back, but she later told me to consider it a birthday present.
The 2015 Princess Half was my first half marathon. The 2020 Princess Half was my tenth half marathon. I’ve run the Princess Half every year since 2015, and I’ve run the Star Wars Darkside Half Marathon once, and the Wine and Dine Half Marathon three times. I’ve paid for the others on my own, but none of this would have been possible, if Nana hadn’t helped me with my first one.
We lost Nana in October last year.
So, as I told Jay, this was the first race she’s ever gotten to watch me run. The Princess Half has always been my favorite race, but now I plan on never missing it as long as I can run.
Now that was the sappy part of this article, and now we’re onto the race report!
While this was my sixth time running the Princess Half Marathon, this was Jay’s first time running it. Both RunDisney races he’s done were the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. We went to the Expo on Friday to get our shirts and bibs picked up. We wound up stopping to color cards for kids in the hospital so we didn’t have time to go over to the building with the characters and official RunDisney merchandise, before the movie we had tickets for at Disney Springs.
(Side note: If you go see Call of the Wild, I highly recommend bringing a box of tissues. Great movie, but I cried my eyes out.)
I would like to go ahead and say I have never been so underprepared for a half marathon. Even when Jay and I don’t train like we should, we’re usually in theme parks ALL the time, so we’re getting miles in one way or another. Between dealing with wedding planning, and the aftermath of my grandmother’s passing, we haven’t been theme parking nearly as much as we usually do. Plus Jay has a stomach issue, that I won’t go into, because it isn’t my place, but it’s been getting worse and worse and that’s something we’re going to need to deal with as soon as the wedding is over.
I have always said the hardest part of RunDisney isn’t actually running the race, but it’s how early you have to get up to run it. I set a 3:30 am alarm. Ouch.
It took us a while to get going, but thankfully I had rounded up all our costume pieces the night before. We were reusing our Hopps and Wilde outfits from the Wine and Dine Half last year, and we will probably keep reusing them for the foreseeable future. However, new this time, we had ears!
We got to Epcot around 4:40 am with traffic, and I texted my mom where we parked so I wouldn’t have to try to remember it later. IT WAS FREEZING. It was roughly 54 degrees, which I realize isn’t THAT cold, and the people who ran the 5K on Friday had it much worse, but to us, it was cold. Especially, since in 2018, I ditched my costume half way through the race, because it was so hot, and in 2019, I just ran in a sports bra. Jay had sweat pants on over his shorts, but I couldn’t find any clothing I was okay tossing, even though I have a stock pile somewhere in my house for this exact situation. Apparently, I just don’t know where in my house.
We had to pick up safety pins for our bibs from guest services since we somehow lost ours, and then we headed straight for the start corrals. It was too late in the morning to really bother with characters since we were supposed to be in our corral by 5:00 am.
We headed to our corral, but we were still in line for the restrooms when the National Anthem started, so we were not there by 5:00 am. We were there well before our corral started moving, however.
I think we were the fourth wave of Corral F, and we started a little after 6:00 am at a brisk jog. The trick to RunDisney, the harder you go at the start, the slower you can go at the end. We switched between a walk and a run several times before we got to the first mile marker, which is also where the first set of characters were: Suzy and Perla, the female mice from Cinderella.
Now, the past five times I’ve run the Princess Half, they’ve always had Jack and Barbossa just past the turn onto the road into the Magic Kingdom, just before the second mile marker. This time they had Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizella. We elected to pass.
As we came under the overpass that takes you to the monorail resorts, there was a high school band playing the Imperial March, so that was pretty neat.
They’ve also always had the “Heroes” group, which are princes and characters like Flynn Ryder and John Smith, who don’t count as princes, either before the toll booth, or on your way into the TTC (the Ticket and Transportation Center). They actually didn’t have another character between the step sisters and the Magic Kingdom. What they did have, were some themed carriages that you could take pictures with. There was one with a Tangled lantern hanging from it, and I recognized the “sleigh” they use for Anna and Elsa sometimes, and a third one I didn’t see any theming for. Cool enough, but we didn’t stop.
Coming into the Ticket and Transportation Center, the course got so tight and congested, it almost came to a stop. There wasn’t anything we could do but slowly inch our way out of it. Thankfully, everyone else was doing the same thing. I was amazed no one was trying to shove their way through.
We made our way up the road, under the water bridge to the Contemporary Resort, and then turned left to head into the Magic Kingdom. This was about where I realized the course had shifted more than I originally thought. The fifth mile marker is usually just outside Magic Kingdom, but we didn’t see it until we reached Main Street.
Coming into Magic Kingdom, Daisy Duck was standing in the train station, waving.
Hanging out in Tomorrowland was Lewis from “Meet the Robinsons”, of all characters. I asked Jay if he wanted to stop, since I’ve never seen the movie, and he said no. As we headed into Fantasyland, I spotted another course change. Normally, we hang a right at the Teacups and head through New Fantasyland. This time, we were heading straight past Winnie the Pooh, with Dopey hanging out by the Mine Train. The only problem with this is my preferred bathroom is by Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland. So, we wound up leaving the course briefly to use the ones by Pinocchio’s Village Haus, and Jay ditched his sweat pants there.
Rapunzel was meeting runners by the castle, and if Flynn had been with her, I would have stopped, but he wasn’t, so we kept going. The castle was too congested to really run through it, but we picked up speed as we came out and down the ramp.
Then I almost slammed into someone who stopped and turned around for a photographer to take a photo of the back of her shirt.
- Don’t stop on the course. You are ruining the photos of literally everyone around you, and it’s dangerous.
- If he takes a photo of the back of your shirt, you won’t get the photo because your bib number won’t be in it.
This was not the first person I almost hit on this race because they stopped for the photographers, nor the last. DO NOT STOP.
We came into Liberty Square and waved at someone Jay knew. Chip and Dale were out in Frontierland, in what looked like costumes from Fort Wilderness, that I hadn’t seen before.
We headed out of the park behind Splash Mountain, where they usually have a parade float out with a bunch of characters. Well, this year they just had parade floats. They had the lead float from Festival of Fantasy, so you could take a picture with the Cinderella portion, and further down past the water stop, they had the Brave float.
Right as we came out of the backstage area onto the road was the sixth mile marker, and just past that, was Princess Atta from “A Bug’s Life”. We thought about stopping, but we thought about it too long, and at that point, going back was too far. We were both getting frustrated with the lack of characters. I feel like there were less characters than we’d ever seen on a course, and there had been none of the heroes or princes I love to see.
Flora from Sleeping Beauty was outside the Grand Floridian, and I decided to stop just so we would at least get a character somewhere. We were starting to get worried we’d get to the end and realize we’d never stopped! Flora is at least a character I’d never seen before, so that was something.
Further up the road, just before we reached the Polynesian Resort, Cinderella and Prince Charming were hanging out by a gazebo. Normally at the golf course, they have the cute little Mickey Golf Cart out, but it was nowhere to be found. Instead, we ran across Jafar a few hundred yards down. We passed. He’s out for Not So Scary every year, and I’ve never bothered with him then.
Next was the food stop where they give out the jelly beans. Jay and I both took two packs each. I know they’re for running, but I’m seriously thinking about buying some for when I’m pulling double shifts at work!
I stopped HARD when I saw the next character, however. Just before the road opened up on the way out of Magic Kingdom was Shan Yu from Mulan. The only time I’ve ever seen Shan Yu was at the Villains Unleashed event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2014, and the line was two hours long.
I started to smile and then Shan Yu did a kind of warrior pose, so I did the warrior pose. Well, Jay didn’t get the memo, and he kept smiling. Whoops. I probably should have kept smiling too.
We passed Lady Tremaine and the Stepsisters again, and ran hard until we hit the 15K mark. Then began the long steady trek towards Epcot, of blazing sun and slanted roads. The roads on Disney Property seem flat when you’re in a car, but they’re often at a slight angle that my bad knee hates.
There’s usually a Green Army Man at the top of the ramp to Epcot. Instead, this time there was a high school band, color guard, and some cheerleaders. A bunch of the band kids were having a blast and getting down, dancing with their trombones, and the cheerleaders could not have looked more miserable.
What a perfect example of high school.
The Cinderella Mice were still out when we reached the next point, where the course doubled back on itself, with a much shorter line this time. We continued anyway.
Coming into the bus area at Epcot, there was my favorite sign I have ever seen on a RunDisney course, to the point I laughed out loud. It said, “Touch here to roll a constitution check.” with a blank D20, which is a type of dice you use in DnD. I pointed it out to Jay and he started laughing too. They noticed our laughter, and even though we didn’t dart over there to touch it, they flipped it to show us the back and it said, “NATURAL 20!”
It’s really funny, if you know anything about DnD. If you don’t, I really don’t know how to explain it.
Once we entered the backstage area at Epcot, Tinkerbell and a Fairy Friend were there. We continued on, and the course took us up behind the Land, behind Soarin’ and we entered the park up next to Figment. I’m pretty sure I saw a bathroom back there that I’ve never seen before, that I’m going to have to go check out the next time I’m in the park.
I quickly forgot about the bathroom however, because I screamed when I saw Bolt standing out in front of Figment. Bolt is one of my favorite movie characters of all time, and the only one who even can appear in the parks. (The other two are Simba and Roo.)
So, we stopped for Bolt, and then made our way across Epcot, and ran across Panchito in Mexico. We were this close to the finish line, I figured what’s another minute, so we stopped for him too.
We made our way into the last backstage area, and I slowly got more excited as I realized how close we were getting to the Guardians construction. We got to run right next to the building, and under the little bridge bit that connects it to the Universe of Energy building. Jay and I were staring, looking for any little detail we could see. No one else had a clue, or seemed remotely excited about it!
We were almost to the turn for the finish line stretch, and there were three security guards cheering and dancing their hearts out, and having the time of their lives. It made me SO happy!
We hit the thirteenth mile marker, and I took Jay’s hand, and we started our mad dash for the finish line. We’ve actually never tried to run any sort of distance holding hands before. We usually just grab hands right before we cross. This made maneuvering around people tricky, but we did it!
Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy were all chilling near the finish line and waving. Normally they’ve let us stop for selfies, and we started to slow down to try to selfie with Mickey, but a lady on the microphone was yelling for us to keep going. I was sad, but I wanted to follow the rules.
Jay looked at me, “Are you sure? We can stop.” “No, they’re telling us to keep going.”
We sprinted the rest of the way to the finish line, and then moved down to the medals.
THEY’RE STILL HANDING OUT THE MEDALS, INSTEAD OF PRESENTING THEM AND IT MAKES ME CRAZY.
I actually couldn’t fit my medal over my hat, so Jay undid the lanyard part and helped me put it on.
It was almost 10:00 am, which is the latest I have ever finished a race. Based on prior experience, we figured they’d be pulling the characters at 10:30 am, so we hustled over to the characters to get a photo. We decided on Anna and Elsa’s line since they’re in their outfits from the new movie. To our surprise, the waits were only about twenty minutes, and the cast members working the lines weren’t saying anything about the characters leaving.
When it was our turn, Elsa was out in her new outfit, and she asked Jay if I dragged him all over the course.
“You have no idea.”
I wanted to take a picture with the logo on our way out, but the lines were really long and I was too tired to care, so we took one with the logo on the bus sign instead.
Like I said before, I will be running the Princess Half every year for as long as I can run, and now Jay will be joining me. He prefers the Wine and Dine Half Marathon, and I prefer Princess Half, so these will probably be the two races we do every year. We have decided we’re going to put more effort into being ready for Wine and Dine in November, but in the meantime, we have the Castaway Cay 5K to look forward to next Sunday, right after our wedding!
