Royal Family 5K

After an exciting couple of days in Disney World, it was time to run!! Princess 1/2 Marathon weekend started out with the Royal Family 5k.

The Royal Family 5k was my very first RunDisney race back in 2012, so you could say that it was a gateway drug for me!! I have been in love with Disney races every since!!

This year, my cousin, Kelly, would be running it with me, as her first ever race!!! Sharing this race with family and friends is what makes it so special!!

Morning came much too early, and even though I was super excited to get the race weekend underway, I knew not to waste too much "early morning energy" right away, there would be 2 more 2:30am wake-up calls to get through!!


For those of you not familiar with RunDisney, the races start at 5-6am, which I do not think is all THAT early, but having to be on a 3:30am bus to get to the start is a bit crazy in my mind!! I was used to it after running Tinkerbell just a month beforehand, but with the time change it really hurt me in Disney World!!

Anne, Kelly and I hurried to get ready. Anne, who doesn't wear costumes, went through her usual pre-race checklist. This was a race for Anne and not just a fun run, so she was taking her preparations seriously!!

Kelly dressed as Belle from The Beauty and the Beast for the 5k. She looked great in her tutu (which I proudly made!!) and yellow shirt. She had even purchased a sparkly yellow headband at the expo the day before! I could tell she was nervously excited!! She had NO CLUE what was going to happen once we left the hotel room and it was fun to be part of her first race excitement!!

I dress in my most elaborate costume (I'd only have to wear it for 3.1 miles!!). I had put together a Elsa costume from the movie Frozen (which is now my most favorite Disney movie!!). I was so excited about this costume!! I was such a fun one to put together! I even had snowflake jewels for my braid!

After getting dressed, we "picked up" Jack and Gus from next door and made our way down to the busses! While we were early, the busses were already there and we could sit inside and wait until they were able to leave!

It was a short bus ride to the Epcot parking lot! We hopped out of the bus and made our way to the starting line festivities! Along the way we ran into many of our fellow blogger and Facebook group friends! The atmosphere was amazing!!

I always like to run the 5k before the 1/2 marathon at Disney races, it allows me to get used to the weather conditions while running, stretch my legs and have fun with fellow runners!

The 5k is not a timed race (they do have a clock if you are interested in your time), but runners are expected to keep a 16 minute per mile pace. Families run in group costumes, and the whole run is such a party feeling!! If you have never run a 5k and it is on your bucket list, I totally recommend a Disney race!!

I was seeded in corral A for this race, but dropped back to corral D to run with Kelly, Meg and Sammy. This was the very first time I have ever dropped back to another corral, and even though there was no real time pressure, I was nervous about starting so far back.

I know I suffer from "Corral Panic", it is a really thing!!!! When arriving a a race, I can be the most confident person out there, I feel amazing and am excited to run, but while waiting for the race to start I usually turn into a very different person!! I can just about talk myself out of running the race all together, I go to a very dark place, and have a terrible attitude!! It is awful, and if I have to wait too long I panic!! It has happened in almost every race I have run before, luckily the last few races I have had my sister in the same corral and she has really helped with the panic, and with boosting my confidence again.

I thought that dropping back with Meg, Kelly and Sammy would be the same kind of thing. With friends to talk to, the panic wouldn't set in! This worked for awhile! Once corral A was at the starting line and given the GO to run, panic set in! I could have been running!! I tried to think about how great it would be running with friends (something that rarely happens!), plus I wanted to be there for Kelly, to support her in her first race! I thought I had it under control, until I heard that it would be a 10 minute wait between each corral!!!! WHAT!?!?! OMG!! I freaked out!! That would be another 30 minutes until I was able to run!!

By the time we finally made it to the starting line, I was ready to leave the race and just go home!! It was bad, y'all!! We got the signal to start running and I pretty much took off, not really thinking about my friends behind me, I just had to start running!!! Because of the LONG wait, I also had to go to the bathroom….bad!! I stopped at the first set of port-potties. Meg and Sammy caught up to me there, and a calmer me told them I would meet them at the first character stop.

Which I did, by then my panic was under control, but the huge amount of walkers was making pacing hard, and after the picture I ran ahead again. Kelly was doing an amazing job!! Seriously this girl was keeping around a 13 minute per mile pace!!! She passed me at the next character stop, saying that she just wanted to keep running!! GO KELLY!!!

The first mile and a half of the run is pretty much parking lots and backstage areas of Epcot. Once runners enter the World Showcase it gets fun!!! Really fun!!!

There was a good amount of characters to stop for during this part of the race, but the lines were insanely long!!! I stopped for at least 10 minutes to get my picture with Dopey, and the 1 picture the cast member took turned out blurry!!! Grrrr!!

Kelly caught up to me again for a picture with Jasmine, and I ran with her for awhile after that. I was getting tired of bobbing and weaving. That is when we saw the Beast!!! Kelly, dressed as Belle, HAD to get that picture!!!! The line was double that of Dopey's and I told her I was going to pass and just finish the race. Kelly got the cutest picture with the beast!! I am so happy she decide to hold out on that line!!!

I ran the rest of the way, the best I could. Being in the back corrals means that there will me many more walkers than in the front corrals. I have never really experienced this before, and it was really hard for me to continually try to get around them.

I seriously don't know what happened to Meg and Sammy, I felt like a bad friend, but I just wanted to be done with the race, the panic before even starting really took it outta me! I knew we would all meet up in the end, and we did!

After I finished, I was a sad that I hadn't stuck with Kelly. But it wasn't more than about 20 minutes until she crossed the finish line with a HUGE smile on her face!!! I was so proud of her!! Still am!! She is even considering another 5k!!! Wooo!!

We took some finish line pictures and made out way back to the Pop Century. I loved staying at this hotel, it was so close to the races!!

After showering, we headed to the Magic Kingdom for the day and enjoyed lunch at the new Be Our Guest restaurant!!







I just HAD to try the grey stuff…..it was delicious!!

We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, and then I had to hurry over to the Poly for #RunnersLove!!


From this race I really learned that my corral panic is real, and it affects me more than I thought it ever would. I decided that the rest of the weekend, I would start in my own corral. This was a sad discovery, I really wanted to run with Meg, but I knew in order for me to run a happy race, I had to run my own race!! I'm just happy that Meg understood, and supported my decision!!