This past weekend featured the sixth Disney Princess Half Marathon weekend at Walt Disney World. This year there was a new race, The Enchanted 10K. And along with the new race came a new race challenge: The Glass Slipper Challenge. Those running both the 10K and the half marathon received the Glass Slipper Challenge medal in addition to their 10k and half marathon medals.

I made a quick trip to Florida to check it out. Oh, who am I kidding – I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to come home with two new pieces of bling bearing my favorite word: Inaugural. 🙂

If you read my blog on last year’s Princess weekend, then you know what a fiasco the Expo was. This year was a whole lot better since the Expo took place at Wide World of Sports, where there was plenty of room and parking. I didn’t arrive at the Expo until Friday evening, and there were still a lot of people there, though it wasn’t overcrowded like last year when we could barely move through the aisles. They were running low on some official merchandise already, and I again missed out on my “challenge” magnet (like I did for the Dumbo Double Dare). Disney does pre-orders of other small items like pins and necklaces – I wish they would offer it for the magnets, too.

The merchandise area in the Field House, where packet pickup was held, didn’t have much of a selection of merchandise left at all – lots of bare walls!

There was still a decent selection available at the main Expo in the Josten’s Center, though I didn’t think there was much of a variety…on the other hand, I don’t know what might have sold out already since it was the end of the second day by then.

I thought it was interesting that those doing the Challenge could pick up their packet and their goodie bag (with the shirts) all in the Field House, and didn’t have to visit the Josten’s Center at all (but where’s the fun in that?).

At the entrance to the Josten’s Center there was a fun photo opportunity – two of Cinderella’s very handsome footmen.

Most of the usual Expo vendors were there. Those selling running apparel were doing great business helping runners put together last-minute princess costumes for the races. There were some really clever ideas.

Except for the Glass Slipper Challenge participants, shirt and goodie bag pickup was in the Josten’s Center. This year’s shirts are made of a nice lightweight tech fabric – it’s very soft and silky and I really love it! They are also short-sleeve. The grey is just ok but I really like the other two. They were also true to size, which I appreciated. There were men’s sizes available as well. I’m so glad that Disney has finally seemed to start offering men’s and women’s shirts for all of their races. It’s also very nice that women who would rather have the unisex cut have that option. There is a shirt exchange area at the Expo, and it’s also good to see that process has been made easy.

Speaking of shirts, this year there were a couple of race shirts in unisex sizes and non-girlie colors. That has been one of Lee’s complaints, so it was nice to see that. Most of the guys who run the race are very supportive and really get into the spirit of it, and have no problems wearing a tutu or skirt! So they deserve some recognition, too.

I re-visited the Expo on Saturday morning, this time using the buses. They were efficient and the wait times were short – they did a great job with the buses this year. (I heard that the buses to the races were pretty trouble-free also.)

I didn’t run the 5K, which was held on Friday morning before I arrived. It was the regular Epcot 5K course, and it sounded like those who ran it had a good time. The Kids races were held on Saturday.

The Enchanted 10k started at Epcot at 5:30 a.m. I was staying at All Star Music and decided to drive rather than take the bus. Because I knew the 10k had a lot fewer runners than the half marathon (10,000 vs 24,000) I let myself sleep in a little and set the wake up call for 3:00 instead of 2:00. Still way too early…yawn. But at that time I had no traffic, though there were still a lot of people who had arrived ahead of me!

With the princess theme it was almost a requirement that you run in some kind of costume, be it as simple as a tutu, wings, or a tiara – or all of the above. It was very interesting to see the creative things that people did to represent a particular character – just with the right colors you knew someone was dressed as Rapunzel or Ariel, yellow tank top and a rose was obviously Belle. Given the huge success of Frozen, Anna and Elsa were very popular this year, and I saw a fair number of Olafs, too.

I wore a new Cinderella costume that I had put together with various pieces of running attire – in the past I’ve worn a purchased costume with the skirt cut shorter. It worked out pretty well for me, though it was still a little too warm given the weather. As usual, it was a Disney race weekend, so Florida was having unseasonably warm temperatures. Sigh. It had rained the day before and it was a warm and humid morning – I think it was 70 when the race started and the humidity was close to 100%. Ugh.

They had start corrals for this one, and I was in A. I ended up very near the start line, and that was great! When I got to the mile markers the time displayed was almost exactly my time! It also meant the course was much less crowded for me. (And this is not Lee – it’s his “twin”, fellow Team AllEars member Dave!)

We ran the same 10k course that was used for the WDW 10k in January. I still don’t like the course very much, though. The first 3 miles is all on roads looping around the perimeter of Epcot, and it’s pretty boring. Though there were a couple more characters in that section this time. The coolest thing (literally) was seeing Elsa on an overpass – and it was snowing! She was talking to runners below – asking if we liked snow, and if we wanted to build a snowman – she was great!

The first character stop was the White Rabbit about mile 1. Even though I had started at the front a lot of people had passed me and there was a long line so I went on, and not too much further were Pocahontas and Meeko, with a fairly short line.

Just after mile 3 where we went backstage into Epcot were the toy soldiers.

We ran into Epcot just between Norway and China. In January Daisy was there, but I think that created problems with line backing up onto the race course, and this time there were no characters until we got to Jiminy Cricket in Italy. Short line there, but long line for Tiana, Naveen, and Louis at the American Adventure so I passed them. They were just past the mile 4 sign.

Marie was in front of France, also with a short line. Another character stop in World Showcase would have been nice, but they did have three within a fairly short distance.

The course exits Epcot at the International Gateway and loops clockwise around the Boardwalk area. Goofy was in front of ESPN Club, same as January, but also had a long line.

Just before we went backstage at Epcot again we saw the Genie and Lumiere puppets, which I had first seen at Disney California Adventure when World of Color opened.

We came back into Epcot by the Imagination Pavilion. Donald was in the breezeway – I was very surprised that there was no line! But we were less than 1/2 mile to the finish, so I guess people just wanted to get done?

Anna and Elsa were featured on the mile 6 sign. Only .2 left!

I finished in a little over 1:04, including multiple photo stops, and I was VERY happy with that, especially given the heat and humidity. I really like the 10K distance. Since I don’t have to wear a fuel belt I feel a lot lighter and more free.

I got my (Inaugural) 10k medal and my Glass Slipper Challenge wristband.

I was very thankful for volunteers handing out bottles of water at the finish line – there had been three water stations on the course, but I’d lost a lot of water along the way. (In other words i was a hot, sweaty mess!)

We had the usual silly runDisney refreshment box. I did enjoy the Almond Roca and the chocolate covered blueberries, but it’s not REAL food.

For the most part I thought the 10k went very well. I wish it were a more interesting course, but at least they improved that first three miles a little bit by adding a couple of additional characters. Elsa and the snow were really fun.

Coming up – the Princess Half Marathon.

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