Picturing the Princess Half

I know I'm late on this again, but it's better late than never...  I really don't have anything different to say about the Princess Half that I've already said in previous posts so I decided that this time I'd just focus on some of the pictures... Luckily they did change some of the characters you were able to meet...

The Ferrari Italia... My absolute favorite car that you can drive at the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

The castle was absolutely beautiful... I actually don't think I've run through it before when it wasn't completely light outside.

King Mickey... always a pleasure to see him.  Queen Minnie was also out, but needed to break for tea time or something along those lines.

Main street and the hoards of people who came out to support the runners.

Princess Tiana and the gang.

Mulan and Mushu.  

I don't think I've ever seen an opportunity to take a picture with Mary Poppins in this costume so I just had to stop and take advantage of it!

Resort Running

As it is Food and Wine season, I've been lucky enough to stay in the Epcot Resort area, The Boardwalk to be exact, for the last few days.  One of the reasons I was so excited to stay here is because I love running around this area.  Every Christmas I've run here and there's just a lot of memories connected to it.

I ran yesterday morning, as well as this morning, discovering where different sidewalks around the resorts go so I can expand my runs.  Right now I haven't done more than 3.6 mile around the area during this trip, but I think I've found some decently long loops.

This morning Hollywood Studios looked... magical.  Excuse the grainy picture, but I did take it on my phone...

Yesterday I watched Spaceship Earth disappear in fog, but I didn't get a picture of it.  Who knows what I might see tomorrow...

The sad part is tomorrow is our last day here, but considering I live close by, my friends and I might make a few early morning trips to some of the resorts for some runs, especially as the weather gets cooler.

Tower of Terror Costume... Check!

All runDisney races are super costume friendly.  I actually believe part of the fun of the races is seeing what other people are wearing.  I've seen a girl who had tied Pascal from Tangled into her hair (she was Rapunzel), a man dressed in a head to toe costume as Cinderella (running with his wife and daughter), and numerous other awesome costumes.

While I have always enjoyed looking at all the costumes at the races, I have never actually worn one to a race.  The farthest I got was wearing the 2011 Princess Half Marathon mickey ears during the race.  For the 2012 Princess my friend and I tossed some ideas around, but nothing ever got done.  But that is changing...

Last Halloween I was Angelica from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

This year, I'm breaking out the costume not for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, but instead of the Tower of Terror 10 Mile.  Yup, that's right, I'm finally going to wear a costume!

Considering I already have black capris and I'm not running in my wedge boots (they hurt enough walking around the Magic Kingdom that night), the lower half is going to be my normal running gear.  Luckily, it's already mostly in theme.  The top will be the same sans the sword (I know better to run with a pointy object, even if that pointy object is plastic).

Yes, there's still the chance of me backing out of wearing this costume and just wearing one of my awesome One More Mile shirts, but I will be trying to wear the costume and actually take part in the entire event, running and costumes both.

Run To Eat, Eat to Run

Tonight I have a Food and Wine dinner at the Grand Floridian.  It'll be a multi-course meal paired with wines from Domain Serene.  I was lucky enough to go to a Domain Serene dinner last year at the Flying Fish at the Boardwalk and so I was super excited when I got the opportunity to go this year.

While I am excited for all of the wonderful food I'm going to get, I'm also well aware of the calories that I'll be eating today.  So, I decided to hit the high side of my conditioning runs today.  I ran for 45 minutes which equaled 4.51 miles with the Galloway plan.

The run overall felt really good and my watch worked really well.  I'm finally getting used to the pace being calculated a bit slower than my Nike+ app.  Since I start my runs early, before the sun comes up, I found that the light was easy to turn on and off to check my progress.  You just have to tap the Bezel with two fingers and the light comes on.  You touch it the same way again and it turns off or you wait a few seconds and it turns off on its own.

So now I've burned roughly 500 calories that I can give myself for the dinner tonight.  Yes, I'm well aware I'll still be going over my calorie intake today, but I think I can make an exception for this amazing dinner.  In all honesty, I went to another similar dinner last week (I worked it, but still got to eat), and I really didn't gain much.  I think it's because I'm probably getting better nutrients and better food than I normally eat...

Tomorrow I should have plenty of extra energy and calories to do a killer workout, right?

More Races!

I have been meaning to sign up for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon for a while now.  I just haven't since there were still some major questions pertaining to my future.  Well, yesterday I got some great news, my future became a bit more secure, and now I've signed up for the Dine and Wine Half Marathon.

I'm super excited for this race because it provides a few new experiences.  The course is different, which is nice because I've been repeating the same course for Princess and Disneyland for two years now (Not saying those courses are bad, quite the opposite actually).  It's a night race.  I know, after all my complaining about running at night, I'm now running a race at night.  Who knows, this could permanently change my opinion of training in the evening.  Third, there's the after party which sounds like a ton of fun, but I should probably make sure I'm not working the next day.  Finally, it's just a new race for me!  That's always exciting!

Well, signing up for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon isn't my only exciting news...

I've also signed up for the 20th anniversary of the Disney World Full Marathon.  Yes, you read correctly, a full marathon.

Now, those who grew up with me and know me pretty well are probably surprised I'm doing a full marathon.  Heck, when I was a swimmer, I swore I would never run.  Then I started doing triathlons and eventually half marathons.  Still, even after my first half marathon I told my parents that I would never do a full marathon.  Well.... SURPRISE!

So, I have a few months to train for the full and I'm sure I can do it.  I have great supporters surrounding me and it will be a huge success when I'm able to finish.  So I guess there's something new to follow me on my blog for... to see if I survive the full marathon!

And you never know... if I survive the full marathon... maybe the Goofy Challenge will be in my future???

Marathon Dreams

I was driving around the Walt Disney World property today and checking out all of the stuff they've already got up for the Half Marathon and Marathon this weekend.  It made me start thinking about a few things...

First, it started bringing back memories of the Princess Half from last year which made me excited for the half this year.  I was wondering if they would have the same characters out or if some of the same signs will be out again?  My favorite sign they had on the course was about taking naps:

Still, now I'm excited for the Princess and getting anxious for that weekend to finally get here.

Second, I'm thinking about doing the full marathon in 2013.  This Sunday would mark 1 year until the race then so I have a lot of time to train and actually decide if I'm going to do it or not.  I have a friend running the WDW Marathon as his first marathon, and well his first race in general so I might follow in his footsteps (kinda) next year.

Never in my wildest dreams growing up did I think I was going to even consider running a marathon.  When I was competing in triathlons, I refused to even consider the farther distances because of the run... and yet here I am looking at doing 26.2 miles!  As soon as I decide if I'm going to do it or not, this blog will be one of the first to know...

Resting Through The Holidays

I was looking forward to running right through Christmas and New Years since I'd be staying at a Walt Disney World resort, but unfortunately life didn't agree with me.  

Earlier this week I twisted my ankle.  Appearance-wise, the only issue is that I have a pretty bad scrape on my knee (my dad likened it to road rash that bikers get when they fall).  Physically, my ankle has been sore for the past few days.  It's been getting better everyday though.  I found that walking on it actually made it feel better for a while.  I didn't let it stop me from living life (heck I still wore boots with a pretty good heel on them), but it did stop me from running for the week.

Luckily, I was walking... A LOT.  That got me a boost for the Holiday Booty Buster Challenge.  In fact, with all the walking I was doing I actually had one of my best weeks when it comes to the amount of points I earned.  Today, I got down to the gym at the hotel and got on the bike for a while.  Ended up making my knee a bit sore (probably cause by the scrape and hitting it on my fall), but overall it felt good to sweat again.  I also got some weights in there so I'm almost back to my normal routine.

My Christmas present to myself will be a day another day off of running followed by maybe a 1 or 2 miler.  Something short just to start working on strengthening my ankle again.

Good Luck Food and Wine Runner!

Tonight I will be resting and getting some sleep before heading into work tomorrow morning.  However, that is not the case for a lot of people.  Yes, most people aren't heading to work tomorrow considering it's Sunday, but that's not the group I'm talking about.  I'm talking about all those runners running the Food and Wine Half Marathon here at Disney World!

I have a few friends running the race tonight and I wish them all the luck.  The course looks pretty interesting and I'm thinking about doing it next year.  So, good luck to those running the race tonight and have fun at the after party!

They did pick a great weekend for the race.  Not only are there all the fun activities associated with the race, but you also have the opening weekend of Food and Wine.  I walked around it today and there was a lot of interesting and good looking food.  I had a lobster roll from the America Pavilion that was really good.

It is also Walt Disney World's 40th birthday!  I trekked over to Magic Kingdom this morning for all the festivities.  There were special shirts and other merchandise pieces, but they all went pretty quick.  I think the shirts were sold out in like 5 minutes!  They also had special event cupcakes for purchase.  When you entered the park you could get a special button, they had special park maps, and they had a special show and parade.  I was able to get right in front of the castle so I had a great view of the whole thing and it was pretty cool.  A few stories, music from the Disney World Marching Band and Dapper Dans, as well as all of the characters.  It was a great morning!

Again, good luck to all of the runners!  I'm sure the race will be a great one!

Checking In

While I may not have been updating, I have been working out and I can assure you I am sore.  I ran again on the treadmill 2 days ago and will be returning to the treadmill tomorrow.  I have also done another abs workout, part of a Yoga workout, and then the 30 Day Shred. 

I have to say... 30 Day Shred hurts!  But of course in a good way.  Jillian Michael's switches from working on toning using weights, to cardio, to abs and you do the pattern three times, although she changes up the exercises every time.  It keeps you working and I was sweating within like five minutes or so.  Again, it's really good, but really hard... and this was only week 1.  There are 4 weeks to the program so we shall see how those end up being.

Along with doing the normal circuit routine and running, I've also been walking around all of the Disney World parks for the last few days.  I've spent my days at the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  In summary, I've been doing a lot of walking and a lot of sweating because while it's not super hot or humid, it is still hot and humid in general and I am still a Californian at heart and not used to it.  Hopefully I'll acclimate to the humidity before August when it gets really really hot.  After the weekend's over I'll probably look at the different aspects of each park and find a workout to do if you're visiting...

Tomorrow will be a run, and possibly some yoga.  It all depends on when I wake up.  Then after?  Off to celebrate the 4th of July in the parks!