My best friend and I wait ALL YEAR for this. Seriously, we spend 361 days putting our kids, husbands, jobs and lives first, with the carrot of these four days at Princess Half Marathon Weekend to get us through! We eat too much, drink too much, laugh too loud, log too many miles and don’t get nearly enough sleep. And then we can’t wait to do it all again the following year.
So when I felt a sinus infection coming on about a week and a half earlier, I marched straight to the doctor. Sinus infection AND bronchitis, I was told. Not great news-but hey-I rarely get sick, and I’ll be fine by Princess! Except I wasn’t. Two days before take-off I was back, for more meds, more inhalers and a third diagnosis-walking pneumonia.
Pre-Race Huddle
The night before the 10K, my best friend, Tiffany, and I had a heart-to-heart. The 5K had gone well that morning, but my cough was getting worse, and we knew we wouldn’t get a lot of sleep (again) with a 2:00 a.m. wake-up call and a 3:30 a.m. bus ride. Luckily, we were both placed in Corral A for the 10K, so we knew we had a bit of a buffer to play it by ear if the course got tough for me. We laid out our race costumes and bibs and logged a few hours of precious shut-eye!
Corral Confidence
My doctor had given me the green light to run as long as I didn’t push it. He even said the running would make my lungs feel less tight. Fingers crossed, we looked for friends in our corral, mugged for selfies and took our signature “shadow picture”. We had coordinated our running costumes for this year’s theme-Beauty and the Beast-and were all decked out as Provincial Belle (me) and the Beast (Tiffany). What could go wrong?
The Enchanted 10K
Just like the day before at the Princess 5K, corrals were released in mini-waves and we were on our way! We always run for a solid five minutes before we start our intervals, and I felt pretty good. It was when we resumed intervals that I knew I was in trouble. As long as I was running, I was fine. It was when I stopped to walk that my body became wracked with coughing.
We passed under Moana, who was waving and encouraging us from the overpass. How Far I’ll Go was booming out over the loudspeakers, and everyone was excited and singing along. Not long after, we ran through the Welcome to Disney World tollbooths. Normally, my typically giddy self would be snapping photos and documenting every moment, but I was a bit in my head worrying about how early we were in the race, and how awful my lungs felt.
We needed a new plan-the starting and stopping was killing me. My cough was so dry that no amount of water could help me. Even my newest accessory-the inhaler in my Sparkle Skirt pocket-was of limited value. We determined that I couldn’t run intervals, and Tiffany hadn’t trained to run straight through. We were going to have to split up. Surprisingly, this upset me even more than the idea of just being compromised health-wise.
The new plan involved me running as far as I could, then taking an extended rest to recover. (Think really long intervals!) This should work, as I had recently run the Wine & Dine Half in November in 2:21, only stopping for character stops. We were hoping my rest breaks would coincide with character lines, giving Tiffany a chance to catch up and allowing us to run together for short periods of time. I raced ahead and got in line for the Old Hag from Snow White.
Well, somehow I missed Tiffany. Or she missed me. And then I had to stop at a port-a-potty. (When you are a 48 year old woman with a bad cough who’s had multiple pregnancies you realize for the first time just how important it is to keep an empty bladder! LOL!) I texted her, but it was never received. I was on my own, and heading into the World Showcase at Epcot.
Luckily, there were a few character stops not that far apart, and real bathrooms, too! I met with Pinocchio and Geppetto in Germany, then Marie from the Aristocats in France. There was also an awesome photo op with oversized champagne bottles, but I was a little out of sorts and kind of overshot it.
As I headed into Disney’s boardwalk area, I was becoming increasingly disoriented. The cough was bad and my chest felt tight. I was still looking for Tiffany and had no idea if she was behind me or in front of me. I passed Genie in his vacation wear and decided not to stop-a rarity for me. Then I did something I had never done during a race-I took a phone call! It was Tiffany, and she had finished the race! I remember being so confused…how could I have gotten two miles behind??
At this point I was standing behind cones on the boardwalk, out of the way of other runners. In my infinite wisdom I decided this would be a great time to try a running jump for the Photopass photographer since there was no one around as I re-entered the race. It was not my best idea. LOL!
At that point I just wanted to finish and be reunited with Tiffany. I bypassed Royal Minnie (and her very long line) and stopped only for a jumping pic in front of Spaceship Earth. (This one went a little better.)
I finally crossed the finish line, collected my medal and found Tiffany. She had been waiting to meet Aurora and was at the front of the line. I chugged down my meds with some Powerade and posed for the cameras! I was in Beast Mode now that we were done!
Now off to celebrate surviving the 10K! We headed straight to a pre-park opening breakfast at Akershus, where we got to meet Belle in all of our coordinating glory!
But the most fun we had was reenacting the Belle and Beast topiary scene in Epcot’s France. We had to rely on the kindness of strangers, but we finally got the picture just right!
Princess Half Marathon
The good news-we had logged more sleep than we ever had before a Half. We were in bed by 10:00, guaranteeing us a full four hours! (Don’t laugh-this is a VAST improvement from the year before, when we closed Hollywood Studios after an evening of drinking and dancing at Club Villain and missed the last bus!) My body was also so tired from the exertions of the day that if I was coughing, I didn’t remember.
Once in the corrals, we were still debating if we should start together in E, Tiffany’s corral, or if I should get a head start by starting in D, my corral. We decided to start together, and that I would run ahead and secure our spots in the longest character lines. At least that was the plan. After the National Anthem and fireworks, Corral E was off!
Our strategy worked well for the first few big character stops. We got to meet with Captain Jack Sparrow in front of the big pirate ship, and got a picture with the “Heroes”, too. The last few years they have included Flynn Ryder/Eugene, Prince Eric, John Smith from Pocahontas and some guy everyone debates…Hercules? We passed on meeting Princess Elena (Our Disney Jr. years are over, thank goodness!) and then went our separate ways when it was time to resume our separate paces.
I had every intention of pushing through. I thought about stopping for Mrs. Incredible up ahead, but was then relieved to see she was taking a break. Then I saw them-Villains! Dressed as Cruella DeVille, there was no way I was missing a photo op with both the Evil Queen and Maleficent! Waiting in the ridiculously long line, I felt a mixture of relief and panic. Relief to be in a line long enough to fully recover from the relentless coughing, and panic to be taking such a long break so early in the race.
I slogged the rest of the way to Magic Kingdom. I couldn’t get out of my own head. It was the first time since I started running three years ago that I just simply couldn’t put in the training and show up and rely on muscle memory. While I could still take in and appreciate the magic of running down Main Street, USA, it was secondary to the internal dialogue in my head monitoring my breathing, pace and stamina. It was humbling.
Tiffany texted me to let me know she was in line for Gaston behind the castle. It gave me some focus and I hustled between miles 5-6…running through the tunnel by the Contemporary, down Main Street, USA, and through Tomorrowland without stopping. I didn’t have a second to spare-when I got there Tiffany was only two people away! Gaston made googly-eyes at her, but when it was my turn I reminded him not to waste his time on good girls. He told me that he liked my style-and we’d get along just fine. 😉
We’d barely started running again when we came upon the Beast himself, directly in front of his restaurant, Be Our Guest! We immediately hopped in the queue-he was newly redesigned and magnificent! We’d be eating breakfast there the next morning, but the Beast only greets guests at dinner, so he’s pretty sought after, especially because of the weekend’s theme!
Now for the part of the race every Princess dreams of-running through Cinderella Castle! As we passed the carousel, we could see Frozen’s Anna, Elsa and Kristoff in the castle waving from above as Let It Go blasted through the sound system. We ran through the tunnel with more runners than we were use to, and then were rerouted one of two ways-to the front of the castle for photo ops there, or to the right for running photo ops with the castle behind you. We got front and center for the money shot!
It was a bit of a let down once we wound our way around Frontierland and exited Magic Kingdom. Another six miles of highway running still stood between us and finishing the Half. The sun was up, the course was narrow and crowded, and I was feeling increasingly worse. However, runDisney still had plenty of distractions for us! We passed Vacation Genie with his golf cart, tons of cheering fans at the Grand Floridian and even the elusive glass slipper itself!
Once we passed the green army man on the big hill, it was across the overpass and on our way into Epcot! I was thrilled to be running with Tiffany, and we’d be finishing the rest of this one together! We primarily walked between miles 9-12, which felt strange. My body was sooo grateful though. Mushu was waiting for us right inside the entrance to Epcot, and he had a great reaction when I commented, “Nice fur!” as Cruella DeVille! LOL!
We were now in the home stretch and dug deep to run in that last mile and a half! Requisite jumping pics by Spaceship Earth, some coordinated posing, and the cutest Princess Daisy character stop we’d ever seen! The Gospel Choir at mile 13 even had me singing hallelujah! LOL! It had been a rough three days of running, but it was all worth it!
For the first time ever in my short runDisney career, there were tears crossing the finish line. Tears that my body had allowed me to finish, tears that my training had held even though I hadn’t been able to run the week and a half leading up to the races, tears that I had such a supportive friend.
We collected our medal for the Half, then made a beeline for the Fairy Godmothers at the finish line, who were sprinkling runners with pixie dust! Next, we grabbed our Glass Slipper Challenge medals, our snack boxes and banana (phones) and headed over for a pic with Snow White.
We got one last surprise…we ran into the Princess Men! We met these guys when they ran two years ago, and this year they were all back (and heavily bearded!) to continue to inspire on the course! Though I could have used them earlier, it was exciting meeting them again and knowing they had their own amazing stories to tell!
My earlier tears quickly gave way to gratitude. I cannot tell you how much respect and admiration I have for women who run with on-going or temporary health challenges. Every mile was a conscious decision to continue, and I can’t imagine having that constantly in the forefront of my thinking. Our bodies are absolutely amazing, and I am grateful for what mine allowed me to do, not just this weekend, but every weekend.
Once I got home, much like childbirth, I conveniently forgot the worst of running 22 miles sick. Armed with four new shiny medals, two new prescriptions and more Photopass pictures than I’d care to admit, it took me less than a week to sign up for next year’s Princess’ Fairy Tale Challenge. I just hope this year I can leave the inhaler at home!
Jacqueline lives in Connecticut with her husband, two children and cat. You can follow her on Instagram at @morphingintominnie.
