Disney's Royal Family 5K 2013

Holy Crap I signed up for a half marathon.  What's even worse is I signed up for one at the end of February, which means training all winter.  I hate the cold.  Ben gets mad because I refuse to do anything when it gets cold. I come home from work and hibernate until work again the next day.

Training or not the race was here.  I wasn't as prepared for it as I wished I would have been but I knew I wouldn't have an issue keeping at 16 minute mile (as required by runDisney).

The race was on Sunday, we also had a 5K we signed up for on that Saturday.  We got in town on Thursday night and went to the Expo on Friday.  It was a cluster of a mess. This was our first rD race but from word of mouth we learned the Expo is usually at the ESPN Wide World of Sports but due to the Braves being in town for some boring baseball stuff they moved it to the Coronado Springs Expo Center and Resort.  We finally got there after being bused to Downtown Disney, then to Coronado (there was no parking or drop offs allowed at the Coronado) it was a mess.  But after a few hours we made it through to get our bibs, shirts and swag bag.  Unfortunately the Expo was so crazy we didn't get a chance to look around much or go into the Official Merch Tent for rD gear.  (bummer)

From there we headed to enjoy a day of the Magic Kingdom.

Enjoying my Dole Whip Float in my shirt :)

We got up early Saturday morning to enjoy a 5K through EPCOT.  It was awesome.  They had all the fire lit up for the IllumiNations show in each country and music pumping through it.  We didn't listen to music for either race and decided to enjoy the scenery.  If you haven't run a long race without headphones you should try it.  It's amazing to hear how many beeps and technology people run with.

We finished that race up and headed all stinky still wearing medals and bibs to Be Our Guest for a post race meal.  (Which was delicious!)  We rode some rides and enjoyed the park before heading home to clean up - try our first ice bath.  I can say it wasn't too terrible.  We've read - and we are no professionals - that it can help muscles heal quickly so we figured we'd try it since we had the half marathon the next day.

That night we carbo-loaded in you guessed it, Italy.  Where else?  Although I don't think carbonara and lasagna followed by a Grand Marnier Slush in France are what the experts mean by fueling your body but it's Disney.

We headed back to the hotel - Port Orleans Riverside (I HIGHLY recommend it.  This Southern girl was excited to see the ceiling fans in the rooms!) - to try to get some rest before our 3:15am alarm for the race the next day................