Monday, March 4, 2013

Royal Family 5K

Not only was I able to talk my parents into coming down to Orlando to watch me run the Princess Half Marathon (I think they may have rethought their decision once they found out how early we had to be out the door every morning), but I was also able to somehow talk them into running the Royal Family 5K with Ryan and I! This was going to be my dad's second 5K and my mom's very FIRST!

So the Saturday of our trip to Walt Disney World, we all got up around 4:30am EST (remember, Ryan and I were still on PST so these early hours were LIKE EXTRA EARLY for us) to get ready and head out the door by 5am. 

Yes, I did dress up like Minnie Mouse as a matter of fact :) I was actually surprised how well my ears stayed on (I got them for my birthday a few years ago and haven't really worn them since, but figured this would be a PERFECT opportunity to break them out again).


We got to Epcot with plenty of time to spare (you can never really be sure about the traffic, parking, time to corrals, port-o-potty lines, etc - so I would ALWAYS prefer to be better safe than sorry). We took a few pictures, grooved a little with the pre-party DJ, and then headed to our corral - B. [I should probably warn you - Ryan had control of the camera throughout the race, so please excuse most of the crazy photos.]





They sent off corral A with fireworks and then walked us over to the starting line (we even got our own fireworks). In just a few moments we began our 3.1 mile run through Epcot.  [Ryan didn't practice talking pictures on the move, so sorry for the blur :) ]









WE DID IT!! And we SMASHED the time we were aiming for (even with the humidity that was upwards of 90% - HOT AND MUGGY - which made it pretty difficult to run in). My mom thought she was running 14 minute miles - but much to her surprise we ran each of our miles around the 12 minute mile pace (that even included stopping for a picture with the Epcot ball, taking a few walk breaks for a painful hip, etc). We even crossed the finish line with the four of us (my madre, my padre, my hubby and I) all holding hands!!




Of course I had to make sure Ryan got pictures of us getting our medals. (I did forget that I was wearing my ears though, the the volunteer putting on my medal had quite the difficult time getting mine on me). 



Doesn't my mom look SOOOOOOOO excited and proud of herself?!



We had an AMAZING time!! Even with the weather conditions being less than perfect, we still rocked the run and had a blast every step of the way (okay, maybe not EVERY step, but looking back it was a great experience where many memories were made that will last a lifetime).


Once we napped and got cleaned up, we had to take another medal shot.



AND BY THE WAY - How amazing is it that my mom, who said she hated running (and would stop as soon as she was done with this 'silly' 5K) has ALREADY decided to run another 5K race with my dad?! I guess once the running bug bites you it is hard to get it out of your system :)

2 comments:

TWINS RUN in our family said...

Fun! We added your link to our post of race recaps! :-)

Ali said...

Great recap! I love your minnie costume :)