2014 Inaugural Glass Slipper Challenge

What is the Glass Slipper Challenge?

It's a 19.3 mile new adventure held in Walt Disney World. You run the Disney Princess Enchanted 10k on Saturday followed by the Disney Princess Half Marathon on Sunday and earn three medals.

In addition to these 2 races, I added a third one to my challenge: the Royal Family 5k on Friday with my family.

Thursday, February 20th - Expo

At 10 am, we headed to the expo located at the ESPN World Wide of Sports Complex to pick up our bibs and the ones for 4 other friends that were arriving late that day and couldn't make it to the expo on-time. It was a little bit hectic but we survived.

This is a big and dangerous expo for all Disney fanatics out there. You can find everything from runDisney tutus to New Balance Disney themed running shoes.  My advice is to leave the wallet at the hotel :-)

Friday, February 21st - Cinderella Royal Family 5k

I signed up my mom, husband and kids ( 8 & 5 year old) for this race. The start time was 6:15 am at Epcot. We took the bus around 5:00 am and walked to the staging area. My son was very sleepy and tired. My daughter, on the other hand, was excited and ready to go.

My mom and husband walked the 5K with my son. My daughter and I ran it all the way with several stops to greet the characters. First, we visited Mulan and Mushu in China.

Then, we swung by Morocco and said hi to Jasmine and the Genie.

We travelled to France and met the Beast.

We finished the race with big smiles on our faces!!

After the race, I met with my friends:  Belle, Ariel, Cinderella. My Sleeping Beauty crashed almost immediately.

After the race, we went back to the hotel, took a long shower and headed to the parks for about 10 hours. Next day, we'd repeat it all over again.

Saturday, February 22nd - (Inaugural) Disney Princess Enchanted 10k

I woke up earlier today, at 3:00 am, after a few 4 hours of sleep. My running costume: Pretty Pink Minnie.

I took the same bus as the day before and headed to the staging area to meet my friends. We did some warm up exercises as you can see in this video :-)

The course was a big loop around Epcot with many miles on the highway and few on the park. I would have preferred it the other way around. My favorite was seeing Elsa throwing artificial snow to the runners. I remember wishing she could freeze the park for us. It was pretty hot and humid.

I also enjoyed seeing the characters from The Princess and the Frog, Goofy, Pocahontas and finally Donald Duck.

I love the finisher's medal for this race. After the race, I asked Rapunzel for advice on how to keep my hair straight with such humidity. She said "you need to comb it all the time or it will tangle". Big laughs!

After the race, we went back to the hotel, took a long shower and headed to the parks for about 10 hours. Next day, we'd repeat it all over again.  Deja vu'

Sunday, February 23rd - Disney Princess Half Marathon


For the third day in a row, I woke up at 3:00 to get ready for the race. Now I was tired! Zzzzzz. My running costume: Maleficent.

This race, however, was different. This was my husband's first runDisney event. We planned on running it together from beginning to end.

My plan worked for the first few miles until we reached Cinderella's castle.  

Around the corner, there was Tomorroland. I stopped to take a picture with Buzzlight. My husband continued running. "I'll catch you later", I yelled.

Little I knew that Mickey and Minnie were around the corner. Of course, I had to stop again to take a picture with them. The waiting line was 10 minutes now.  

At mile 6 or so, I spotted a group of spectators dressed up as the Sleeping Beauty's good fairies. They were holding a poster stating "You are running Maleficent". I am pretty sure they were talking about me. I had to stop to take a picture.

There was also a very long line to greet Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip so I didn't stop but they both looked at me at shouted "Stay away Maleficient!". hahaha this was awesome. I love that they are totally into their characters!!  

At mile 11, I was passed by my husband as we were crossing a bridge and heading back to Epcot for the last mile. "Aha we are going to cross the finish line together after all", I thought. Of course, this didn't happen as I spotted Sofia The First. Ok one more picture. 

After meeting her, I couldn't get her song our of my head. 

I was a girl in the village doing alright

Then I became a princess over night. 

Now I gotta figure out how to do it right

Thank goodness there were only 1.5 miles left. I saw my husband at mile 12 and thought "cool! this is it! together forever!". Naaa, the moment he saw me he took off. "Heeeey, wait for me!". Now who is competitive in this family? Just in case you are wondering, we are still married. We even took a picture together after the race. See our happy smiling faces? :-) I am just kidding. I am very proud of my husband as he decided to run this race in the last minute with absolutely no training. 

For finishing the Tinker Bell Half marathon earlier this year and the Princess Half Marathon, I received a special limited edition pink Coast to Coast medal. It's adorable. These are all the medals I received over the Disney Princess Marathon Weekend:

Royal Family 5k, Princess 10k, Princess Half, Glass Slipper Challenge and C2C special edition.

Have you enjoyed my recap! I have included lots of pictures not to bore you with three recaps and an long mile-to-mile report. However, if you are interested in more details about each one of these races, you can visit The Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend official site. They are all pretty flat, easy courses and what's most important lots of fun!

2014 - Surf City Half Marathon

Date:  Sunday, February 2nd. 

Starting time: 7:30 am

A couple of weeks before the Surf City Half Marathon, I received an email announcing a new challenge: The California Dreamin' Racing Cup. Basically, all finishers of the 2013 San Francisco Full/Half Marathon who finish the Surf City this February will receive a cool bottle opener medal. 

Since I ran the San Francisco Marathon last year and many of my friends were heading to Newport for the race,  I said to myself "Why not?"

Saturday, February 1st - Expo

We left San Diego at 2:30 pm and arrived in Huntington Beach jusssst in time before they closed the expo at 5:00pm. It usually takes us an hour and half to drive there but there was serious traffic that day.

Flashy hot-pink shirt for the women. Bright yellow for the men.

I love this running/surfer-style expo. It was  in and out for me, except for a quick stop to purchase a new pair of compression socks and cheap sun glasses. I had forgotten mine at home and I remembered that last year I was squinting my eyes for the last 4 miles of the race.  After the expo, we checked in at our hotel and went out for dinner at Vie de France. It was ok, nothing to die for! 

Saturday, February 2nd

I woke up at 5:45 am and headed to the hotel lobby 30 minutes later to meet my friends. It was verrrry cold outside, around 49 degrees. I had to borrow a jacket.  We carpooled to Edison High School at the Corner of Magnolia and Hamilton where a school bus would shuttled us to the starting line. We arrived at the starting line around 7:25. I usually like to be at the corrals 30 minutes before the race starts but my friends are more easy going. My friend Pretty has assured me it's an Indo thing. I don't know. I am half Austrian. I am usually on time :-) We took some pictures, wished each other good luck and finally got rid of our jackets. The sun was coming out.  Nice! I was no longer going to freeze to death!

I was assigned to corral 9 but we all started together in some random corral. For the first time ever, I was not paying attention. Maybe the Indo thing is rubbing off me?? We crossed the start line around 8:00 am. I ran without Garmin or music but I turned my RunKeeper app on just to have some stats to look at after the race. My goal was to enjoy the race and get that cool bottle opener. It was really just another training run. I was also having issues with my piriformis and IT Band so I didn't want to push it.

Mile 1-2

We started along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and passed the Huntington Beach Pier. 

Photo Credit: Surf City

Mile 2-5
We made a turn on Seaport and headed to Huntington Central Park. To my surprise, I was keeping it up with the 2:05 pacers. There was a little incline between mile 3-4, around Garfield Avenue. I remember thinking "Does Garfield dislike Sundays or Mondays? I don't know but I could eat a soup right now!".  It's so early in the race and I was already having weird thoughts! :-)

Mile 5-8
We were back on the PCH.  I spent these three miles chasing runners left and right. The 2:05 pacers had passed me but they were not too far away. Eli and Stephanie, whom I just met before the race, they are friends of friends, are doing their Galloway thing. They passed me. I passed them. They passed me. I passed them. This brings back memories of the WDW Marathon where I ran next to Jeff Galloway and his "entertaining" stopwatch. Beep beep. It's time to walk. Beep beep. It's time to run. Beep beep. It's time to walk. Jokes apart, I don't use the Galloway method anymore but I owe the man and his training program a lot for helping me out when I was injured years ago at this precise race course. At mile 7, I spotted someone wearing a rabbit costume with a poster that said "Cheaters. Cut through here". He screamed "You don't need to run the next 2 miles". Everyone laugh. 

Mile 8-13
This race course is an out and back. At mile 8 we made the turn.  The last 5 miles are almost flat, not entirely but it's not too bad.  At mile 9, I got chills literally. We had very strong winds making it impossible for me to speed up.  At mile 12, I saw the best poster EVER, it read: "WTH or Where's The Finish". This poster was made for me. Soon we saw the Huntington Pier. We were almost there!

I managed to cross the finish line with a big smile on my face, just few minutes after the 2:05 pacers. At first, I thought I'd ran a sub 2-10 ( yeah, I was back in the game), when in reality I finished in 2:14. It turns out that I started few minutes before the 2:05 pacers.  This happens when you run a race without a Garmin and time goals in mind. 

Overall, I enjoyed this race. It's not the best course in the world but it's worth for the medal, the shirt, the expo. I also love that there is a big group of Marathon Maniacs running this event every year and I am always lucky enough to have my picture taken :-)

2013 with Marathon Maniac's President

2014 Tinker Bell Half Marathon Weekend

Friday,  January 17th - Expo

This was my third Tinker Bell Half Marathon.  It was also the year that I almost went broke at the expo. New Balance and runDisney launched a new line of Cinderella and Goofy inspired running shoes for the adults and a Minnie special edition for the kids.

Of course, my daughter felt in love with the Minnie ones and to my surprise I really liked the Cinderella ones. I am not a big Cinderella fan but I love how this shoe felt (very light and neutral) plus the blue-yellow-white color reminded me of my Canary Islands. So I ended up buying both. I also brought to the expo last year's Minnie edition to see if I could exchange them since they don't fit me anymore. Yes, my feet have grown over the year.  They told me that they didn't do exchanges at the expo but they tipped me off to check for its price on Ebay. Wow! $450 for my +/- $100 shoes. Seriously? I might keep them as a "collectable item". How crazy!

Also, this year runDisney launched their own line of tutus. I got the lime-aqua colored one from a friend at the WDW Marathon. It's cute for Disney races but it's kind of puffy.

Saturday, January 18th - Kids Race

This was my kids' second race at Disneyland. The first one was 3 years ago.

My little Tinkerbell can fly. Both feet off the ground. 2011

They were excited to run in California Adventure again. However, the race course for their 200 meter and 400 meter  run changed this year. It took place in a parking lot outside of the parks. What a shame! On the other hand, the kids' race was postponed until 9:30 am which is kind of nice. We no longer had to wake up at 5:30 am.  They both ran happy and proud. After the race, my 5-year old son asked if we could sign him up for the next one. My 8-year old daughter, on the other hand, asked if we could sign her up for the 10k.  "This is too short and I don't like the plastic medals. I want the real thing".  I know she can run 10k but she will need to wait until she is 10 years old.

Sunday, January 19th - Half Marathon

I went to bed at 11 pm on Saturday and woke up at 3:00 an on Sunday. 4 hours of sleep. Zzzzz

I met my fairy friends in the hotel lobby at 3:30 am. Zzzzz

We walked from the hotel to the staging area ( 10-15 min) and met more friends.

The race started at 5:00am.  My only goal for this race was to have fun. I stopped to take pictures at Paradise Pier where I met my friend Crystal.

I also stopped in Cars Land, Disneyland's Main Street and Small World.

It was cool meeting so many friends on the course! I ended up running 14.2 miles per my Garmin! Go figure! My finishing time was 2:18 ( 2:09 at mile 13). It's probably my slowest at Disneyland hehehe but so worth it :-)

For more information about the race course, see my previous recaps from 2012 and 2013

Tinker Bell 10k - Inaugural. 

This year was Tinker Bell 10K Inaugural. I didn't sign up because I thought it was at the same time as the kid's race but that was not the case. I wished I would have signed up. Beautiful medal! There is always next year!

Coming Up ….

My next runDisney event is the Inaugural Glass Slipper Challenge.  This is the WDW Princess 10k on Saturday followed by the WDW Princess Half on Sunday. You get a third medal for completing the "challenge". I am also adding a 5k on Friday with my husband and kids.

What's your next race?

I am still here!

My blog has been quiet for about 2 months, so I thought I'd write a quick update on what I've been doing lately. It's been busy at work and home but this doesn't mean I haven't ran at all. I've been working hard on a new challenge, the 30-plan plank nap challenge.

Naaa, I will rest when I am dead! No time for naps, people. Since my last blog entry, I've participated in a couple of races, including the following:

October 28th, 2013 - Rock 'n' Roll Los Angeles Halloween Half Marathon

This was my last Rock 'n' Roll race of the year. I completed 7 RnR races achieving "Rock Legend" status.  Out of all the RnR heavy medals, this is definately my favorite.

I can't say the same about the race course. I truly disliked the uninspiring route and the condition of the streets in LA. It was ugly and boring.  I wish they would have kept the original route. To top it all, I was suffering from both plantar fasciitis and piriformis. So it wasn't a fun day for me. Still, I enjoyed the Halloween atmosphere pre and post race as well as the company of my good friends.

Which came first: The chicken or the egg?

Sexy kitties, a bumblebee and "Dexter the HK killer"Plantkin

With my friend Tunisia the queen of planking

November 9th, 2013 - Mermaid Run San Francisco

Two weeks later, I was scheduled to work in San Francisco, a last minute thing.  Lucky me, there was a new race in town that weekend, the new Mermaid Run Sirena10 miler.  It was exactly what I needed to erase the bad experience I had at the RnR LA. As usual, we had beautiful weather, breathtaking views and guess what? Hardly a trace of plantar fasciitis. Yes, San Francisco has become my favorite place to run in the world! Nothing compares to running on the Golden Gate bridge. As for this race, there were a lot of added bonuses including a super cute technical shirt and a lovely finisher necklace.

November 28th, 2013

My last race was the O'side Turkey Trout in Oceanside. I signed up with my  8-year old daughter on Thanksgiving Day Weekend. I like their slogan: "Move your feet before you eat". We ran the entire 5k side-by-side without any stops except for water breaks at the stations. It was cold, windy but sunny. It was also our first time running together in Oceanside. This was my daughter's fifth 5k and her 4th this year. I truly enjoyed running with her but what I liked the most was the expression on her face as we crossed the finish line. She was tired, happy and proud. It was priceless!

What's next?  I am running the 2014 Tinker Bel Half Marathon on Jan 18th.
What about you? Are you training for a big event?