Last July I agreed to my first runDisney race with a very close friend after a few mimosas (the ultimate confidence booster) and trained for my first ever half marathon for the 2016 Disney Princess Half Marathon weekend. I had always been intrigued by the race. I was familiar with the Disney World Marathon by accident, as my dad and I would regularly plan WDW trips in January and run into (pun intended) the runners at our resort. I had seen friends run the Princess Half in previous years looking incredibly happy and vowed that one day I would do the same. 

After an intense registration process, I was amazed to visit the runDisney website and see that there were multiple races, training and healthy eating tips, vacation planning suggestions, accompanying social media pages, and of course, a huge following of diehard fans. I quickly studied and printed out the Jeff Galloway recommended training schedule for “Beginner Runners.” At that time, I was running up to six miles, but still wanted to be cautious. My two goals for this race were to finish the race within the time constraints and have as much fun as possible.