2017 Princess Marathon Weekend Arrival & Expo

I can't believe that it's been three weeks since we were at the 2017 runDisney Princess Half Marathon.  It was such an amazing weekend.  It began bright and early on Thursday morning, February 23rd.  The girls and I had a 6:am flight to Orlando, so we were up around 3:am.

It's easy to get up that early when you are heading to Disney.  😀 💜  Once we arrived in Orlando, we took the Disney Magical Express to our resort, Old Key West.  Our room wasn't ready, so we left our carry ons with Bell Services, grabbed a bite to eat and then hopped on the bus to the Expo.  I think that next time we will plan on heading to the parks first and then head over the to the Expo.  It was very crowded at the Expo.  We got our bibs, race shirts and then I picked up a few merchandise items.

One of my favorite parts of the runDisney races is seeing my Disney friends!

After we were done at the Expo we headed back to our resort to meet our friend Meredith before heading over to Magic Kingdom.  

We headed back a little after 8:pm because I had to get up early for the 5K.  Stay tuned for more on our race experience!  Check out my video recap of our arrival and the Expo.

The 2017 Humana Dallas Rock n Roll Half Marathon

Well, I did it!  I completed my 5th Half Marathon today since I started running a year ago.  I was really hoping to PR (get a personal record) this race.  The odds were not in my favor for this race though.  It started when I went to the Expo on Saturday to pick up my bib.  My bib was nowhere to be found.  They didn't have it.  They sent me to another table to get a new bib and timing tag.  I was originally supposed to be in corral 12, but this new bib put me in 7.  I decided to stay in 12 to start the race with my friend Wanda. Speaking of my sweet friend Wanda...I think that she has forever spoiled me for a Dallas race.  She had booked a room at one of the hotels in downtown Dallas that ended up being right next to our corral and the finish line.  She invited me to stay with her.  It was AMAZING to be so close and to be able to take a shower right away after the race.  Thank you Wanda!  You are an ANGEL!  Ta-Wanda!!!!  (Anybody know what movie that is from?)😀

We got to our corral this morning and were ready to go.  I had my wireless headphones all synched to my Jeff Galloway app on my phone and everything was working great until the race started.  It sopped working.  I tried to fix it, but gave up because I wanted to focus on running.  Besides, there was supposed to be a band at every mile and this was supposed to be an awesome race.  Oh and remember my new timing tag?  Well, my friends had signed up days ago to track me, but they were tracking my old bib (that didn't race), so they got nothing.  I didn't even think to have them change to my new bib.  Oops!  Back to the race...it was SUPER muggy this race.  My sunglasses kept fogging up.  I was having a great pace until the 10K mark.  I was right on track for my goal of finishing the half in 2 hours and 30 to 35 minutes.  Then I hit the MOTHER HILL. It was awful.  It just kept going up.  😞  There were also MANY inclines that would mostly level off.  The saying "what goes up must go down" didn't really apply to this race.

I had to go from down here to up there! 

There are a few things that I noticed about this race.  They said that they had a band at every mile.  I don't remember there being a band at every mile.  I could be wrong though.  I also noticed that there weren't enough water stops along the race.  In fact after when my friend Wanda got to the water and Gatorade stop after the mother hill, they were out of water and Gatorade.  She said that they were trying to fill up water cups from a hose.  😒  I started to slow down around mile 7.  Between the heat, hills/inclines and lack of water stops, I was just barely holding on.  The highlight of the race was when I was just about to the finish line and saw the Dallas Cheerleaders.  One of my friends is a Dallas Cheerleader and seeing her beautiful face made my heart smile.

My overall time for the race ended up being 2:42:04.  My very first Half Marathon (the Plano Balloon Festival) was 2:42:13.  So, I did better then that one but not as good as the 2:36:00 that I did at the Dallas Half Marathon in December.  Oh well.  I'll just keep training and I'll use the next few months to focus on PR'ing the 5K & 10K's.  I know that I'll have great races and not so great races.  I'm just going to keep pushing through though.

Brunch after the race with some sweet friends!