back from the happiest place on earth... the races

Hey everyone! We're back from Disney and had an amazing weekend. Its always sad to come home from Disney... I think there should be some term for Post-Disney Depression. Whatever it is- Ive got it. It would have been nice to stay for just ONE more day.

Well, like I said we had a blast. We got there late Thursday and didn't do much but check in and go to bed. On Friday we went to Magic Kingdom, Saturday was the Royal Family 5K then pool time, and then Sunday was the Disney Princess Half Marathon. The pictures in this post are of Saturday and Sunday. I'll post Friday pictures later.

Saturday morning I got up nice and early with Steff and headed to Epcot for the 5K. Jim and Maddie stayed in bed as I would be done by 7:30am... didn't seem quite worth it to get Maddie up and dressed and down there for a whopping 30 minutes. However, the 5K was a lot of fun. It was cold and dark out- but there were Disney princesses walking around a DJ playing music. There were lots of cute families all dressed up in matching outfits running together. A few sets of women all dressed different princess costumes, etc etc. LOTS of tiaras. When we ran thru the Start Line there was confetti and "pixie dust" flying about. We ran thru Epcot which was very cool since Ive never been to Epcot. They had people from each country out in their costumes waving us on. Very cute. The course was super flat and fast and Steff and I did great. Unfortunately they didn't really track times but we know were under 30 minutes which is great for us.

Maddie and I celebrating with my plastic medal

After the yummiest breakfast at Denny's ever... we headed back to our hotel for a day of pool-time. Maddie wasn't very into the pool. This is about as close as she wanted to get. Oh well, maybe she'll like it more next time.

With Daddy

With Mommy

After naptime - we headed out to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and sightseeing. We then met Jims aunt and uncle for a yummy pasta dinner to get our carb load in before the big race! I think I crashed at 9:30pm and Sunday morning came VERY quickly especially with the time change. I wont even go into the drama that took place trying to figure out what time it was when I woke up Sunday. All I can say is that I was up VERY early.

Needless to say- I got to the race in time and what a great race it was! Lots of fun and anticipation at the beginning and as you might have guessed... 90% women. There were a few men running - one in a great frog costume. The course was flat and although a little boring during the long road stretches - the miles within Magic Kingdom and Epcot made it all worth it. We saw Jim and Maddie around mile 6 in Magic Kingdom. Here are some pictures Jim took.

Stopping for a quick pic in front of the castle

Back to the race looking cute in our matching outfits

Steff and I after we had just run thru the castle

Maddie snacking on the fishies

And here we are at mile 13. The finish line was just down this stretch. Steff is looking cute and waving to Jim and I'm still adjusting my hair. I was having major hair issues.

Almost done!

We finished strong and felt great! For Steff's first half-marathon she did awesome. We finished in 2:21 which was good considering how slow the first few miles were with all the people stopping and walking or just running really slow. There were also a few big hills at miles 11 and 12 which I will forgive Disney for since there were princes and princesses along the route cheering us on.

Maddie checking out my medal

Family shot

Princess Steff and Princess Emily

Im so glad we did the "inaugural" race and hope to do it again next year! All you princesses out there who want to run it with me.... mark your calendars ... March 5-7th, 2010!