Princess Half Marathon weekend, the one WDW runDisney weekend I wasn't going to do, until my friend Melissa and I decided to register at the last minute because we're crazy like that. And because we're extra and we found a travel agent with bibs still available, we decided to do the challenge despite the fact that my first half was in January at the WDW Marathon Weekend and she had her first full marathon the weekend before Princess. This is why you need other crazy people in your life to push you to do crazy things.
Melissa and I went to the Expo Friday evening to pick up our bibs and go shopping. First stop was bibs. Usually, I like to check out the runDisney merchandise first since sometimes things sell out; however, we were a bit crunched for time and the bibs were the one thing we had to get that evening. Plus, I had already made piece with the fact that Princess weekend expos are the craziest and things can sell out fast, as in by Thursday afternoon fast. The upside of going Friday evening was that the expo was very chill and we didn't really have to wait in line for anything.
After getting our bibs, we went over to the main expo area to check out the vendors and get our race shirts. I was really excited about the race shirts this year. I love the fact that runDisney has been doing fun colors for the last few race weekends' participant shirts! The colors this year were not typically princess-y but I loved them! The bright, bold colors are right up my alley! And most of the runDisney merchandise was in more traditional pink and purple shades so there was plenty for people who didn't love the shirt colors.
There were also a lot of fun photo ops at the expo. runDisney has really figured out the whole Instagram free marketing stuff. Pandora had an awesome one where they would put a Disney princess shadow behind you and then give you a free print of the photo. They asked for your email so I thought they might email a digital copy too but no such luck.
Then we headed over to the runDisney merchandise area. There was a really cool photo op with Cinderella's carriage but the line was super long so we skipped. The character photo ops were also over by the time we got there but we definitely got our fill of character photos this weekend so that was ok. Since this was my first challenge, I wanted to get the magnet. I keep all of my Disney magnets on my cabinet at work and I needed a 19.3 one for my collection.
I also ended up getting the three mini medal pins. I'm not really a pin person but I plan on using the pins as Christmas ornaments. I've seen a lot of people who put their running medals on their Christmas tree and I though the mini medal pins would be perfect for this sort of thing. Plus, they are actually cheaper than buying an actual Disney Christmas ornament (especially if you add in ornament personalization!).
My last purchase was a surprise to me, a fairy tale challenge baseball cap. I am not a baseball cap kind of a girl but I've been wanting to try one for running in. One of my Star Wars weekend costumes has a hat so I need to practice running in one. Plus, I wear glasses and I haven't figured out how to handle sun protection for my eyes for runs like runDisney where you start in the dark (and I definitely need my regular glasses) but you end in the daylight (where my prescription sunglasses would be really nice). I saw this hat and thought it was really cute so it came home with me.
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Princess Half Marathon 2019:
Part 1: Expo-You are here.
Part 2: 10k Race Recap
Part 3: Half Marathon Race Recap
Part 4: Fairy Tale Challenge Race Recap
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