I just got back from six days in Disney World. Always a fun time!

This trip marks my third time traveling for Disney races — the Princess Half in 2009 and the Goofy Challenge in 2010. My Goofy Challenge partner joined me again to run the inaugural Marathon Relay this year. After two marathons and a 50K this fall, I was happy to “only” be doing a half marathon this trip.

We arrived in Orlando on Friday morning and got the (very crowded) expo taken care of. We were disappointed that there was no merchandise for the relay! Sure, it was smaller than the other races (we heard only about 1,000 teams were registered), but nothing? I would have liked a wine glass to go with the one I purchased for the marathon in 2010!

Friday night we hopped on a ferry boat from our resort to Downtown Disney, where we’d be meeting some bloggers/Tweeters at a meetup organized by Katy (the singing runner). Aside from my relay teammate, Katy was the only one I “knew” in our small gathering (originally planned for 14, we wound up with 7), but it was a lot of fun meeting new people!

We were exhausted after our day of travel, but still wanted to play and headed into the Magic Kingdom after dinner for a quick visit. Gotta squeeze in as many rides on Space Mountain as possible. It was lovely seeing the castle all lit up, but it’s January, Disney. Enough with the Christmas decorations and music!

We slept in a little on Saturday to recover from a busy day, and headed into Hollywood Studios. A somewhat smaller park, we were hoping not to wear ourselves out too much the day before our race. Plus we had an early (3:45pm!) dinner at the Italian restaurant there. Love my pre-race carbs. I couldn’t get a later dinner reservation, but it worked well. We were back to the hotel and asleep before 9pm.

With Disney races come early wake-up calls. Since we have to be on a bus by 4am, we were up at 2:30 to make sure we had time to get ready and eat breakfast without cutting it too close. I was happy for weather in the 50s at the start — chilly, but a big improvement from the below-freezing weather we had in 2010!

The lines for the port-o-pots seemed longer than they were last time around, but perhaps I waited to long. And then the walk to the start seemed more crowded and slower-moving. But that could be because I headed over later, since I was stuck in line for the bathroom. It wasn’t a bad wait, though, once I finally made it up to my corral!

Since I put in a half marathon time for placement among mostly full marathoners, I was a lot closer to the front than I otherwise would have been. Corral B! It was nice starting early. I was worried I might be too slow for this corral, but it was perfect. My pace fell right in with the crowd.

I’m still on a quest for a sub 2-hour half marathon … but I didn’t think Disney was the place for it. I haven’t been doing speedwork, but I did have a couple of good, fast 15Ks last month that made me think I might be able to do it. However, I could tell race day it wasn’t going to happen. I kept settling into a 9:30 pace, and I was OK with that. I wanted to be comfortable and enjoy myself!

As a marathoner, I felt a little lame just doing half the race. But I’ve done the whole thing here before… and it was pretty awesome knowing I was almost done once we got out of the Magic Kingdom. (Sorry full marathoners!)

My finish time was 2:04:08. That clocks in as my third-fastest half marathon, and my best time since 2010. Not bad!

Once I finished I grabbed some food and took a shuttle back to the marathon finish area to wait for my relay partner. I wandered around, sat in the sun, and watched the awards presentation. A little lonely, but it was still fun!

(outtake here!)

We didn’t leave until Wednesday afternoon, giving us plenty of time to play. I’m not sure when I’ll be back again, but I think I got my Disney fix for a while!