Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Run Like A Princess

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Back in November my best friend Mandi called me and asked if I would possibly want to run in the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon. Considering I’ve only ever run in 5Ks prior to this moment it sounded like a crazy idea but I had to admit I’d always wanted to run in this race so Mandi’s proposal was the push I needed to take on the challenge! Since the day after Thanksgiving (great time to start huh) I’ve been training and this past Sunday the big day had arrived. RACE DAY!

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my name on the list!                        Our Corral!

Mandi and I (neither of us huge early birds) along with Ben and Mandi’s Mom and sister and her kids travelled down to Orlando on Saturday. We stayed at a super nice hotel which I will talk about another day that was only about a 10 minute drive to Epcot which is where the race was scheduled to begin. We were supposed to be in our corral by 5 am and we knew we would have to walk 20 minutes to get there and there would probably be a little traffic on race morning so to be extra prepared we got ourselves up extra early and left our hotel by 4 am. After a brief detour because someone (ahem…me) missed the exit we came to a halt at 4:15 am and joined the line of 3 lane bumper to bumper traffic trying to get to the parking lot. 45 minutes later we arrived at our lot D 15-18. We rushed to the race area, checked our worldly possessions (keys, sunglasses, you know the important stuff), then hiked down to the race track to join 26,000 other princesses who were set to begin soon.

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Y’all I have never in my life been with so many people trying to go in the same direction! It was mayhem! Fun mayhem but mayhem none the less. So many of the ladies were dressed up as their favorite princess and the costumes ranged from adorable to awkward but it was so fun! There were even a few Prince Charmings among the crowd but I was thankful that my Prince Charming was in the hotel room sleeping because the ratio was about 10,000 to 1 in favor of the Princesses. Winking smileimage[3]

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It was such a cool experience! They shot off fireworks each time a corral began! There were people cheering all along the way and plenty of hydration stations and picture opportunities!

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Mandi did such a good job keeping up her pace! She ran the race much faster than I did for sure. I did well with my pace until I hit the Magic Kingdom and then I got sooo distracted by the glitz and glamour of the park that my time got totally thrown off. It was so pretty and magical! I really cannot wait to take John Brooks there someday…I’m sure he won’t be quite as enthralled by the fairy tale castle and carousel as his sappy Mama but it will still be fun.

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The back stretch was a little more spread out than the front but still crowded for sure. I had to run on the grass a lot because the road was completely blocked by other racers…crazy! After the longest 12th mile EVER RECORDED BY MAN I finally crossed the finish line, received my medal (hah!) and got lost in the family meeting area! A few minutes later I finally found my Ben and my extended Wiggins family (hah!) and we celebrated a huge goal achieved!

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I am so glad Mandi and I did the race together! I don’t think I could’ve done it without her! I hope to do it again next year and maybe make it more of a family event since John Brooks will probably be old enough to enjoy the parks by then.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, Paige! I am so proud for you. What a cool experience.

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