runDisney Princess Half Marathon 2013!

 I finally completed the runDisney Coast to Coast Challenge. It was the most wonderful experience I've ever had and I was able to cross off some things on my Bucket List.

If you've read my previous posts you'll know that we were in Disneyworld for the runDisney Princess Half Marathon Weekend. It was a very special year for the runDisney Princess Half Marathon, it was their 5 year anniversary, I love that they designed a special medal just for that and that all the commemorative items had the years on them (2009-2013).

 The half marathon was on a Sunday and because I had a bad experience and almost missed the start time for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon 5 weeks earlier, I had set my alarm to 3:00AM, 3:05AM and 3:10AM, just to be sure. I had actually had a dream the night before that I woke up an hour after the start time and rushed there and what not, so I wanted to make sure I would wake up on time. I got hardly any sleep, in fact I was up about 10 minutes before the first alarm would have gone off anyway. I had set up all my running gear and costume the night before again and just got ready and off I went. The hotel had a special gathering to wait for the bus for all the runners in front. There were already a bunch of people there when I got there. I do have to be honest and say that they did not have the pickups scheduled very well. We stayed at the All-Star Movie Resort, this is a third hotel in the All-Star Resorts, all the buses that were sent to pick up the runners kept filling up at the first two resorts so none of them made it to us. We waited for what seemed forever, at least 45 minutes, finally there was a cast member who called the bus driver directly and asked them to come directly to the Movie Resort and then we got onboard and off we went, I felt bad because it did not fit all the runners, so others had to wait even longer.

Once we got to Epcot the walk was faily close to the bathrooms and water station before the starting line. Then it was about a 10 minute walk to my corral, I was again in corral "A" and this time since I had more time and there weren't that many people in my corral, I was able to go to the very front of the starting line. Maybe this sounds weird, but it was a really cool feeling to be right there with all the Elite runners and the stage was right next to it, rather than seeing it on the big screen.

Sean Astin was just hanging out there while waiting for his interview, and I yelled out "Sean can I get a picture with you" and he said that he had to finish something and that he was going to be back, I figured that was never going to happen, but it did, he finished his interview and came back looking for me, so I got a picture with him and another girl right next to me got one too and then he left. I was so lucky and it was so sweet of him to do that. Ali Vincent, the first biggest loser female winner was there as well, she was so nice and talked to all of us and took ton of pictures.

I waited for about an hour or so and then it was time to start. All the Elite runners lined up in front of the ribbon and we all got to stay behind it, there were about 10 of them or so. Once the fireworks went off we were ready to run, at first I tried to keep up with all the people in the front, but I soon realized that wasn't gonna happen, so I slowed down my pace to make sure I can finish the race. It started out on the freeway and at 5:00AM it was already so hot and humid, which I was not used to being from Seattle and all. About 5 miles in I saw the sign for Magic Kingdom, it made me smile and pick up my pace just a tad. The first characters we came to was all the villans, there were about 7 of them or so, the queen from Snow White, Kruella from 101 Dalmatians, the mean sisters and the Mom from Cinderella. I had to stop for them since there were so many of them then came Lightning McQeen, this one was for my son and then we entered Magic Kingdom. It was still dark and Main Street and Cinderellas Castle were all lit up, tons of people cheering on. I was able to get a couple of pictures in front of the castle and there were a couple of very nice EMT guys who took my picture on the side of the castle, as we ran through Tomorrow Land and Fantasy Land and Frontier Land, that's where I saw Jesse from Toy Story, had a get a picture with her. then it was the castle, the line for Minnie and Mickey was sooooo long, but I had to wait, I could not, not get a picture with them at the Castle. The girl behind me took a picture of me and the back of the castle and finally I got a couple of pictures with Queen Minnie and King Mickey and off I went. Tons of photographers were right outside of the castle and then we started making our way back to Epcot.

At around mile 8 is when the heat and humidity started getting to me and my mind was playing games with me and I kept telling myself that I've done this before, no problem, I'm almost there, now I just need get back to Epcot and I'll be good to go. Then I heard the song on the loudspeakers by Alicia Keys "This Girl is on Fire" on repeat, and they had a fire truck and fire fighters out there cheering us on. There was something about that song that just gave me new energy to keep going. Every since then that has been my go to song for my runs and every time it comes on it makes me want to be faster and keep going stronger.

Right before mile 11 hit, it was all uphill and this was tough, at this point I saw Jeff Galoway right in front of me, I was trying to keep pace with him, but man is he fast, his walk-run-walk program works, I'm thinking about trying it out, because I was so exhausted by that time that I could not keep up with him. Granted his is an Olympic Gold Medalist, but I thought I had an age advantage which apparently ment nothing :) Finally I saw the Epcot ball and I knew I was almost at the finish line. I heard them announce that Sean Astin finished and I told myself to just finish it and then its all over with. It felt so good to finally cross the finish line, I could not even remember if there were characters at the finish line, I just wanted to finish.

This was by far the hardest race that I've ran, I think the heat and humidity had everything to do with it. The course and the characters where amazing, but when you are coming from a cold rainy Seattle winter to a hot humid Orlando winter, it makes a huge difference in how you perform.

I had my Tinkerbell Half Marathon medal in my running fanny pack during the run, so when I finished I put it on with my Princess Half Marathon medal and then I went on to finally get my Coast-to-Coast medal. When they were cutting off my wrist band, I asked them if I could keep it to put in my scrapbook, they wouldn't let me, so I asked it I can at least just keep the part where it says Coast-to-Coast challenge and they cut it out for me and let me keep it!!! RunDisney is the best, they really do an amazing job putting these events together. I'm hoping to do a lot more of them in the future. They are far for me and expensive as well, but a girl can hope, right?

If you were there, let me know what you thoughts were about the race below!!!

Keili

Disney Movie All-star Resort Review 2013

The reason I wanted to write a review on this Disney property is that I wanted you to know what kind of an experience we had and what my family and I thought about it.
We went to Walt Disneyworld is for the runDisney Princess Half Marathon. Because we were traveling all the way from Seattle and it's very costly, we wanted to stay at a Disney value resort to try to save as much money as possible.

As we were driving to the All-Star resort we realized that the Movies one is the farthest one back out of all the three All-Star resorts. So it takes that much longer to get to the parks. But okay, that's not so bad, right? As we were driving to check in, the front of the resort was very plane, just some huge stars on the building and that's about it, okay, I can handle that. As we walked in, It really took me by surprise, how cold and empty the lobby felt. The lobby was huge, they really could have done so much with it. Across from the check in area they had a little movie theater area set up, again they could have made this so awesome. Instead it had a few chairs with a small TV that was playing old Mickey cartoons. This is the Movie resort, the room themes were Toy Story, Fantasia,  101 Dalmatians etc, they should be playing those cartoons that fit the resort and that kids can have interest in. My four year old son watched it for a minute because didn't get it and then I had to keep him entertained for what seemed like forever while my husband was checking in.

Once we were all checked in, we drove to our building. I really wish I would have known that this was a MOTEL and not a hotel :( When they say "resort" I assume it going to be a nice place, well needless to say I was really disappointed. The room itself was small, the sink was located outside of the bathroom, so when I was getting ready for my races Saturday and Sunday morning at 3:00AM I had to do it in the dark as I would have woken up my husband and son, and a toddler who wakes up at 3:00AM would not have fun at the parks, do you agree?

The décor of the rooms was worse than a Motel 6, honestly it had a very 70's feel with the colors being orange and blue and it didn't feel very Disney. The only Disney things that I saw was that a towel was shaped into a Mickey Mouse shape on the bed and the border along the top of the wallpaper was Disney themed. The little shampoo bottles and soaps were also Mickey Mouse themed.
I just think that they could have done so many cool things with the theme and didn't really maximize the Disney theme. When I go to Disney, I want all Disney all the time. I can never get too much Disney and my son was all excited about being there, however when we were in our room it didn't feel like we were in Disneyworld. Also keep in mind since it is a MOTEL, there will be people walking by your door and windows way late into the night, no matter where your room is located at.

The beds were comfortable, but the room was really small, there was a table and chairs, but to be honest, they took up so much room, that I'd rather would have had more floor room, so my son could have played with his cars on the floor. Its hard to play with cars on the bed, but we made the best of it. Thankfully we didn't spend too much time at the room.

Our building was the Toy Story building, just outside is where they had a little play area that had a huge Woody and Buzz statues, which said no climbing. If you are going to put no climbing on those, you really need add other kinds of things to the play area where kids could climb on and have fun at. Don't get me wrong it was super cute, they had it look like Andy's room, with a huge door and everything, but other than look at the statues, there was nothing fun for kids.

The pool was nice, they did have a small kiddie pool off to the side as well that had warm water and plenty of room for the little ones to splash around. We went there in February and it was pretty cold, so the pool water was so cold, we did take a dip in it, for fun. I would imagine though that the kiddie pool would get super crowded during the summer time, since it is pretty small.

The food building was right next door by the pool, it was all cafeteria style, we only ate there for one breakfast and it was nice, the food was reasonable and there were things you could buy to bring into the parks with you.

Also, as we were in the parks and as part of the Disney Princess Half Marathon while we were waiting for the shuttles to come to take us to back to our resort, we realized that there were about three times as many shuttles going to the other resorts than to the All-Star Resorts. Also, all three All-Star Resorts got put together on the same shuttles most of the time, so it was always so full since there were two other resorts it was stopping at.

This is purely just my experience there, we spent four nights there, to give you an idea how long we were there for.

Let me know if you have any questions and hope you have a better experience :)

Keili