Birthday Disneybound

What's a girl to do for her 30th birthday? Go to Disney World, of course! To celebrate, we booked one night at the Caribbean Beach resort and a Keys to the Kingdom tour in Magic Kingdom.

We started out the trip by hanging at the resort and checking out the fun pirate pool. We don't usually make it to the pool during race weekends so it was nice to have some chill time. Plus, it was definitely warm enough for a swim.

Our first park of the weekend was Animal Kingdom. I absolutely love Animal Kingdom! It's so beautiful and perfectly themed. I really feel like I'm somewhere else when I'm there. I wore my brand new Kiss the Girl athletic top for the perfect mermaid vibe. We grabbed dinner at my favorite Animal Kingdom restaurant Satu'li Canteen and then it was off to park #2.

Guess who else turned 30 in May? Hollywood Studios! It's so much fun sharing an (almost) birthday with a Disney park. Fun fact: My baby sister shares an almost birthday with Animal Kingdom. We didn't really do much at either park but I just love hanging out and enjoying the Disney ambiance.

The next morning, we headed out super early to Magic Kingdom for our tour. I really wanted to do the Keys to the Kingdom tour because it takes you behind the scenes in Magic Kingdom and let's you see how some of the magic is made. It was a lot of fun and we had really great tour guides. The tour includes lunch at Pecos Bill, which is another favorite. We got unlimited guac which is not longer on the regular topping bar. They sure know the way to this girl's heart!

I got in touch with my villain side for day 2. I paired my Evil Step Villain top with a red circle skirt and black belt. I knew I needed to be comfortable for a five hour walking tour during Florida summer. There were plenty of water stops and rest breaks during the tour and the guides did their best to have us stop in the shade but it was still quite hot by the end of the tour. I was really happy that I had opted for cute and comfy.

One of my friends saw this photo of us and asked if that made Will Cinderella's dad? I told him it didn't matter if he was Lady Tremaine's first hubby or Cindy's dad, it didn't bode well for him. lol

We ended the trip at Epcot for a really brief visit before heading home. What a magical Disney trip!

Dapper Day Spring Meet Up

I've absolutely loved all of the wonderful people I've met through Disney events. I've got my runDisney crew and I've started to get to know some Dapper Day ladies as well. This year, I attended the Main Street Style podcast meet up. Paola lives in Florida so she usually hosts the Disney World meet up but this year Margaret and Cailey flew in from out of town so all three of the hosts were there!

There were so many lovely ladies and dapper gents at this meet up. Dapper Day is the best for people watching. It was quite hot this year, per usual, but that didn't keep everyone from wearing their finest to Disney. It's not unusual for me to see one or two people dressed up on a given Disney trip but there's nothing like vibe of Dapper Day.

It really feels like a scene out of Easter Parade where everyone is out showing off their most fabulous outfits. There are always great Disneybounds and true vintage outfits but there are plenty of cute, more casual retro outfits as well.

The meet up was really great. Everyone was admiring how fabulous each other looked. It's great to meet some kindred souls!

Luckily, Will was in full blogger hubby mode and snapped a bunch of great photos.

If you missed my outfit details post, you can check out this year's Dapper Day post here.

Dapper Day Spring 2019

Dapper Day is one of my favorite Disney days each year! It's a sort of fashion flash mob where people dress up to go to Disney like they did when Disneyland first opened. Many people dress in a vintage style but all dapper looks are welcome!

This year, spring Dapper Day was forecast to be in the upper 80s so comfort was key in picking out my Dapper Day outfit. Usually, I stick to cotton or linen for these super hot days but this year I had an ace up my sleeve.

Just before Dapper Day, Crowned Athletics released their newest princess running top inspired by my favorite princess Belle. I had some yellow cotton sateen in my stash set aside for a yellow circle skirt so I whipped on up last minute to wear with the yellow Belle top. So, tada!

I absolutely adore this top! It's so beautiful and I love the lace detail in the back. It's so perfect for Belle. And it was so comfortable. I think this is the most comfortable Dapper Day I've ever had. It's usually hot in Florida!

My friend Melissa came out with me. She wore a really pretty pink vintage repro dress. We didn't plan our outfits together at all but they look really nice together. And her hair turned out so cute!

We had loads of fun checking out the Flower and Garden Festival and eating tasty things. Epcot definitely has the best food options so I'm glad we ended up going to the Epcot Day. Overall, it was a really amazing day. Dapper Day is an awesome time for people watching and we saw so many great outfits and bounds this year!

I can't wait for next Dapper Day!

Eat My Crust 5k Race Recap

My very last race of the season was the Eat My Crust 5k on May 5th. It's a pizza themed 5k that my local running group was doing as a team race so I decided to join in on the fun. It's a pretty popular 5k given that there's free pizza afterwards and it's sponsored by a local pizza company. I wasn't planning on any pizza (darn dairy intolerance!) but it did boast a pretty cool finisher medal!

It's also a point to point course through some pretty neighborhoods in a nice area of town which sets it apart from a lot of the local 5ks. I thought they did a great job with transporting people from the parking lot to the finish line although there were a lot of people who arrived without giving themselves adequate time to make it to the start line early. My experience is that a lot of local runners like to roll in just before race start but I'm in full runDisney mode and like to get there plenty early.

The course was a bit crowded at the beginning but soon we had the full width of a two lane road to run on and I didn't have a problem navigating my intervals. It was warm and humid for this race but I wasn't planning on a PR. I just wanted a good strong effort to earn my bling.

The race ends on a high school track which I thought was pretty cool. I had been having issues with soreness in my quads the whole week leading up to the race but they felt fine until I tried to sprint to the finish line. Then they let me know that sprints were not in the cards. I was kind of concerned after the finish that I might have injured myself but I took it very easy after the race and I feel totally fine now. Lesson learned. No weighted squats the week before a race.

The finisher medal was a really cool spinning pizza medal. It was the 8th annual running of this race so the medal looks like an 8 made out of pizzas. So cool! I ended up 9th in my age group with a time of 33:51 which is just 10 seconds shy of my 2nd best 5k time. I was really happy with it. It was my last race in the 25-29 age group. Alas, the 30-34 and 35-39 age groups are much more competitive so I have a lot of work to do if I want to place in an age group in the next decade!

The 5k is still my least favorite distance of all that I've run but I did really enjoy this race. They had a lot of booths and activities going on after the race. Plus loads of post race snacks-pizza, a variety of fruits and breakfast tacos. I just stuck with water this race but it's nice to see a variety of food options as I've been to plenty of races where they don't offer any post race food options that are dairy free. It was a great way to finish out the Florida running season.

Star Wars Rival Run 2019 Part 6: Kessel Run Challenge

Star Wars weekend includes a special challenge. Back when they had runDisney races at Disneyland, there was a light side weekend at Disneyland to match the dark side weekend at Disneyworld and you could earn the Kessel Run Challenge for running the half at each weekend. After the Disneyland races were canceled, they added a virtual half marathon so the Kessel Run could continue. I've already written all about the Virtual Half Marathon and the Rival Run Half Marathon.

So after the Rival Run Half Marathon, I got the coveted Millennium Falcon medal. Seriously, it's a beautiful medal. It's a bit thinner than I was expecting but it's still plenty heavy. The Kessel Run merchandise sold out really fast this year so I bet everyone else thought it was cool too.

We had to go share our medals with Chewie! He was so excited to see our medals! You can't really see in the picture but he's holding our Kessel medals.

I really enjoyed this challenge. I had a 14 mile run in my Rival Run Challenge training plan so it really was a no brainer. It was $70 on top of the Rival Run Half Marathon or Challenge for the Kessel Run Challenge which included the virtual and half medal plus a special gift when you pick up your virtual half medal at the expo. (This year it was a mini medal pin of the virutal medal.)

You do have to register through the Kessel Run Challenge and not through the Rival Run weekend page. There was mass confusion over this this year and they might change it for next year but make sure you read all the fine print before registering.

The one downside to this challenge is that the medal is pretty similar year to year. The ribbon changes a lot but the base medals look very similar. If you aren't a huge Star Wars fan, you may not want to do it more than once. Ditto if you aren't a huge fan of virtual races. But I did really enjoy it and I could see myself running it again in the future. I love Star Wars!

For me, this challenge really was the cherry on top of the race weekend! Doing the Kessel Run Challenge is the only way to go home with 6 medals from a Star Wars weekend unless you do Dopey. (Star Wars weekend 5k, 10k, Half Marathon, Challenge, Virtual Half Marathon, Kessel Run Challenge)

******

Star Wars Rival Run Posts:

Part 1: Expo
Part 2: Joyful Miles Meet Up

Part 3: 10k
Part 4: Half Marathon
Part 5: Rival Run Challenge
Part 6: Kessel Run Challenge-You are here.

April Running Recap

April mean that Star Wars Rival Run Weekend was finally here! Whoohoo! I signed up for the challenge and ran the 10k and the half marathon that weekend.

The 10k was a just for fun race. We stopped for loads of pictures and I definitely had a personal worst time this race.  The half marathon I ran for time and I ended up with a 10 minute PR. I ended up with so many medals from running the Rival Run Challenge and the Kessel Run Challenge. You can find detailed race recaps here:

Part 1: Expo

Part 2: Joyful Miles Meet Up

Part 3: 10k

Part 4: Half Marathon

Part 5: Rival Run Challenge

Part 6: Kessel Run Challenge-coming soon!

The next week was all about recovery. I did lots of walking and an easy 2 mile jog for my long run. We spent several extra days at Disney after Star Wars weekend so I didn't do a lot of formal exercise sessions this week.

Then it was on to the beginning of summer training. My goal is to hang out in the 10k zone for my long run. This week, my phone had serious issues. Both my interval timer and my Map My Run app kept shutting off so I had to kind of guess my time and distance. I think I ended up around 7.5 miles. Either way, I did enjoy this run in some beautiful weather.

For the last weekend in April, I did some short sprints on Saturday. One of my summer goals is to include some sprints in my training plan. Then I ran 6 miles on Sunday before going to Dapper Day (recap to come). Going to Disney after your long run counts as extra runDisney training right?

After a really high milage month in March, it was nice to have most of the month to do more relaxed runs. And I've also been adding in some tougher strength workouts to focus on some other areas of my body.

Star Wars Rival Run 2019 Part 5: Rival Run Challenge

The Rival Run Challenge was supposed to be my first runDisney challenge but then my friend Melissa and I impulsively decided to do the Fairy Tale Challenge in February so welcome to the recap of my second runDisney challenge. For those of you who don't know, Princess, Star Wars and Wine and Dine challenges involve running a 10k on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday. (Marathon weekend has it's own challenges which are extra because marathons....) The upside of my spontaneous Princess weekend racing was that it was a nice practice run for Star Wars Weekend.

I was actually able to train properly for the Star Wars Challenge, which was nice. I can run a half marathon and I can run a 10k but it's something else to do them back to back with a bunch of Disney park time thrown in for good measure. I ended up using the Jeff Galloway challenge training plan available on the runDisney website by picking up at week 8 after a one week recovery post Marathon weekend. Princess weekend made me move a few things around, but over all, I stuck with the plan and it paid off with a half marathon PR! (Which I hope to crush in the fall when it's a) cooler and b) I haven't run a 10k the day before.)

My favorite thing to do after a runDisney race is nap and then visit the parks to see the characters from your race. The characters love seeing the race medals and you get some really great interactions! Bonus tip: if the character does autographs, they'll sign your medal if you bring a sharpie. There are only a few Star Wars characters you can meet in the parks and none of them do autographs (hopefully that will change with Galaxy's Edge opening later this year!) but we still got some photos with them.

Kylo Ren was on the half marathon medal so we went to see him. He wasn't impressed with our bling but he did challenge us to join the dark side. I guess the First Order must have pretty high PT standards if a half marathon isn't impressive!

We also got some medal photos over by the Galaxy's Edge mural. It's going to be so amazing to take photos there for Star Wars Weekend 2020! The mural is still pretty awesome and it was nice to get some shots with the Millennium Falcon. And we rode Star Tours because you can't not ride Star Tours! Then we headed back to the hotel for yet another nap.

We capped off the night with karaoke with some of our friends at the Swan resort. It was a bit of an adventure getting there since we didn't want to pay $25 to park at the resort but we made it and it was an absolute blast. I'm not usually one to stay up late and especially not after two super early runDisney race mornings but it was worth it. I really hope this becomes part of our runDisney traditions.

For those of you considering a runDisney Challenge, I have a few tips and suggestions.

1) Practice those back to back runs. Even if you don't use the Galloway plan, make sure you do back to back runs to get your legs used to running tired. You will thank yourself when the half marathon rolls around.

2) Take care of yourself after the 10k. It's easy to want to go crazy at Disney and eat all the things and spend all day at the park but don't forget that you have another race the next day. Naps are highly recommended along with getting to bed early. Also, be careful with your nutrition and hydration. It's totally ok to treat yourself but I wouldn't suggest drinking around the world until after your half is done.

3) Take at least one of the races very easy. The competitive types among us might want to crush both races but that's probably not a recipe for success. I'm sure someone has PR'd both the half and 10k in a challenge weekend but many more people have ended up in the medical tent by pushing themselves too hard at both races. This is especially important if it is hot and humid like it was this weekend.

4) Bring something to hold your medals while at the parks and during travel. One of the best parts of a challenge is all the bling but I personally don't like wearing all of my medals all the time. They can be quite heavy and the constant clanking drives me nuts. Even if you do like wearing multiple medals, you'll likely want to remove them for more intense rides like Tower of Terror. I made mine using this tutorial from Heather but Joyful Miles also has a no-sew tutorial if you don't have a sewing machine. I was really glad to have my medal holders this weekend.

******

Star Wars Rival Run Posts:

Part 1: Expo
Part 2: Joyful Miles Meet Up

Part 3: 10k
Part 4: Half Marathon
Part 5: Rival Run Challenge-you are here.
Part 6: Kessel Run Challenge