Disney Half Marathon

A few months ago I could not run 1 mile. A few days ago I ran 13.1.  I did the Disney Princess Half Marathon; it was my first half marathon. Actually, it was my first race ever. I have always wanted to do a race ever since I stopped competitive sports-I have needed something to work toward and keep me feeling like an athlete, a competitor-I looked into doing 5ks many times but chickened out thinking there was no way I could run 3.1 miles. A friend of mine (Hey, Lisa!) had gotten into running and was always talking about it and posting her running workouts on Facebook. I started getting interested and inspired, and asked her a bunch of questions. When I mentioned I always wanted to run a race she told me to "Go for it!". So I did. Right to the half marathon. She was really encouraging and helped me with all my questions along the way! I ended up registering to run with a friend of mine (Hey, Christin!) who has run a marathon before and was interested in the Disney half.

Training was really hard in the beginning. My progress was slow and I was starting to get discouraged, but the fact that I had already paid for the Disney half really motivated me! I had to train with the jogging stroller, which made it even harder. It took me a month to get up to 3 miles. Before I got pregnant I would occasionally go out for a 3 mile "run"...but I was never able to actually run the whole time! But each week I got a little quicker, ran a little farther, and gained a little more confidence. I was floored when I made it to 4 miles! Then 5, and 6, and 7! I trained up to 9 miles, was planning on 10 but circumstances(sicknesses and such) got in the way at the end. My initial goal was to finish the race, then to finish under 3 hours, then 2:45, and so on... By the end of training I had moved my goal to 2:20..that's just over a 10 min/mile. Could I do it?

My alarm...eek!

This past weekend I headed down to Orlando: the half marathon had finally arrived! I was both excited and nervous! I had crazy thoughts running through my head...What if I can't do it? What am I thinking? What if it kills me? I spent Friday relaxing with my parents,and went for one last run...a quick 1 mile followed by light resistance training. Saturday was the race expo at the Wide World of Sports, we had to attend to pick up our race packets and bibs. That night, Christin and I carb loaded with some spaghetti and meatballs from Olive Garden, then headed to bed early...2:40 am was coming fast! I was way too excited and anxious and did not sleep very well. When my alarm went off I felt like I had just fallen asleep (why does that always happen?). I got dressed, prepared my breakfast (an apple quinoa bake, yum!), nursed Karis one last time, then headed out to Christin's to carpool to Disney. What is normally a 15 minute drive from her house took over an hour! Oh well, I had plenty of time on the car ride to eat breakfast and pump some milk (I did NOT want to get engorged while running, 6 hours is a long time to not nurse my baby!). We finally got there (at 4:30 am) and had to leave our jackets in the car as it was past the time for the bag check. It was COLD! Then we waited in line for 30  minutes to use the porta potties before heading to our corral. It was supposed to be a 20 minute walk and ended up being about 35 minutes. We were supposed to be in our starting corral by 5 am, but we got there not long before the start of corral A at 5:45 am. Yikes! At least we weren't just standing around in the cold! We were in corral D and started at 6:03 am.


Relaxing on Friday:

At the Race expo at WWOS:

The first 3 miles were AWFUL. There were so many people. Many were already walking and some were just slower runners. We were constantly having to weave in and out, around and back and forth just to get through the slow traffic. I think I added extra distance to the 13.1 from running around everyone. Our pace was forced to a slow 12 minute/mile! I was a little frustrated seeing my goal time slip away from circumstances that I couldn't do anything about. I had a lot of catching up to do! After 3-4 miles the traffic had thinned and there was more room to pass people, we could finally get into a groove. Around mile 5 we made it into the Magic Kingdom and were running through the castle at mile 6, almost halfway there! I felt FANTASTIC and didn't even feel like I was running! Mile 8 is when I started feeling fatigued, but kept pushing myself to stay on pace. Luckily Disney had a lot of entertainment to help keep us going...the characters were out, music playing, and spectators cheering us on and giving us fives. Christin and I had managed to run together this whole time. When mile 10 came around I was ready to be done...I wanted to stop and lay down on the side of the road! My pace slowly slowed, and Christin was getting further and further ahead of me. Each time she looked back for me I gave her thumbs up and told her to keep going, then I would push myself to at least keep the same distance between us. Mile 10 is also where the course started to suck...lots of hills!! We had to run up a ramp to get onto an overpass, and then there was another hill after that.  Way to kill my legs before the end, Disney, but I powered through and kept running. I think around mile 11.5 I finally caught back up to Christin and she did a great job encouraging me to keep going! The last mile was killer but I knew we were almost done!! I really kicked it up a notch and gave it my all, and even managed a sprint to the finish (just so I could be done sooner, ha!). But WE DID IT! We ran the whole thing, never stopping to walk!! I received my medal and was reunited with my hubby and baby. My final race time was 2:17:58, just over 2 minutes under my goal time! I couldn't believe it!! And I'm sure it would have been even better if we hadn't gotten held up for the first few miles. I finished 3089 out of 15, 784 runners. Not too bad for a first time runner.

Before the race:

All my stuff ready to go for the early morning

The line for the potties

Waiting in our corral

 

 

fireworks for the start of our corral

 

A pic of the start line from Run Disney. How crazy is this! So many people!

During the race:

This is a blind guy. Running 13.1 Inspired yet?

the crowd cheering us on.

Finished!:

crossing the finish line!

It was such an incredible experience! Yes, it was hard. Yes,It hurt (I'm still sore!). Would I do it again? Absoutley! Well, not the Disney race again, but I'd do another half! I feel so proud of myself  and nothing beats the feeling to finishing the race.  It was worth all the hard training. I am also inspired to try other things I have always wanted to do... now I want to do a full marathon, and a triathalon. I plan on doing a 10k in 2 weeks and a mud run 5 k a month after!!