Savvy's Princess Half Weekend - Yacht Club Resort - 2/21-2/25

Savvy’s Glass Slipper Challenge Weekend
Dates: 2/21/14- 2/25/14
Travel: EWR to MCO via United, DME to Disney’s Yacht Club
Cast: My immediate family, all very experienced:
Me (Savvy): 25
Sis: 22
Mom & Dad: 50
Highlights: Glass Slipper Challenge, Sis’s Birthday

PRE-TRIP REPORT

The Savvy clan is getting ready for one of our most unique trips yet. Did I say unique? I think I meant painful. Or maybe foolish.

First, let's flashback to earlier this summer, where I spent the morning at my physician's office, being diagnosed with yet another running injury. I came into work late, feeling pretty cranky and wondering how I was going to complete the Tower of Terror 10 Miler in a few months. As I began catching up on my emails, Sis started blowing up my phone with panicked text messages about the Inaugural Glass Slipper challenge. While I was vaguely aware that registration was opening for this new Run Disney challenge today, a 19.3 race was the very last thing on my mind.

Apparently Sis had nothing better to do this morning than monitor how quickly the GSC was selling out. At some point in that process, she became convinced that we needed to participate. It would be, after all, the only inaugural GSC. I don’t have those texts saved, but somehow I went from calling her crazy to pulling out my credit card and wondering stupidly how I had been roped into this.

Mom caught wind and wanted in on a race. There ended up being some big miscommunication where Sis registered her for only the 10K. Then Dad wanted in. Then they realized we were doing both races and decided they wanted to do both too - at which point the official challenge was sold out. So they ended up registering separately for both the 10K and Half Marathon. Lessons learned: #1 My family has poor, weird communication skills and #2 Run Disney has an equally weird registration process. My parents are putting in the same amount of mileage but getting one less medal, which stinks for them. Not sure why Run Disney needs to "limit" the amount of people doing the official Glass Slipper but will still let you register for both races separately. It doesn't make sense to me.

Sis is also miffed that we missed the Dec. 1st deadline to register as a sister-sister Princess team. If you're not serious about competing to win a team award, this is kind of pointless, but apparently you get princess sashes. Anyway, it was (shockingly) only a $15 per team registration fee, so Sis registered us as a team two weeks ago on Active.com. Even though she got a confirmation email, she later got a notice that registration was indeed closed, and her card was never charged. Oh well. To make up for it, she’s having t-shirts made up with our "team name" - the Crescent Lake Princesses, in homage to our home resort.

Anyway, training hasn’t been fabulous but at least I HAVE been training, which is more than I could say for the TOT 10 Miler. I have mostly been walking, throwing in a few minutes of jogging as long as I feel comfortable. My knee has started this new, scary thing where I feel sharp pain after coming back down from the jog. So I took a week off and scheduled an appointment with a new orthopedic doctor next week. I have this image in my head of my meniscus tearing in half somewhere around mile 5. I’m hoping an MRI will alleviate that fear.

Our game plan is to walk the 10K as a family, then complete the Half at our own pace. Sis wants to run with me, but she's at the point where she can run 11 miles straight, and I don’t want to hold her back. We’ll see.

As far as our itinerary goes, this is going to be one non-stop, non-relaxing weekend. Sis was in charge of booking dining reservations and Fast Passes, so I could very well have the details wrong here. As far as I can remember, it looks something like this:

Friday: Arrive early and head to the Princess Expo. Then head to MK for a late lunch at Liberty Tree. Back to the resort for an early bed time.
Saturday: Up and at 'em at 2:30 am for our first race, the Enchanted 10K. Fastpasses in Epcot with an early, carb-loading dinner at Via Napoli. Pool and bed early.
Sunday: Up early again for the Princess Half. Tentative breakfast scheduled at Kouzzina. Nap, recover, and relax until dinner at Cape May Cafe.
Monday: Likely heading back to MK and dinner at 'Ohana. Today is contingent on how well everyone is holding up.
Tuesday: Departure day.

Even though Sis's birthday isn't for another month, she also wants to "celebrate" while we are in WDW. I have to check with Mom, but I don't think anything is in the works yet.

That's all for now. I'll add another update at we get closer.

My one goal now is to keep my knees from falling apart before the race :D