Disney’s Princess Half Marathon Recap

The second half of earning the coveted Pink Coast to Coast medal this year was the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  It was also the second leg of the Glass Slipper Challenge, so that meant that upon crossing the finish line we would get THREE medals!  Yes, Disney, just shut up and take my money.  Since it’s the Princess Half, we wanted to run as our favorite princesses, but with a twist.  I have previously been Ariel (here and here) and Merida last year, and Aimee went as her alter ego Wonder Woman twice. So to change things up, we decided to be Belle and Ariel, but in their day dresses/town dresses/blue dresses.

Belle & Ariel

For Belle’s dress, I used McCall’s 5467 and blue milliskin shiny spandex from Spandex House.  The apron is from Simplicity 2330, and the t-shirt is a white wicking Danskin v-neck from Walmart.  I cut the bottom off of the t-shirt and sewed the top to the blue part of the dress so Aimee wouldn’t have to wear two layers in the lovely Florida humidity.  I used a strip of the discarded shirt to make the iconic collar.  But the best part of the costume was the basket.  It was a Dollar Tree find that I sewed a bit of foam to for a more comfortable grip.  I put a neat square of the discarded shirt fabric in the bottom to act as a napkin and I put a tiny Beauty and the Beast paperback book in there as well.  SO many people commented that they couldn’t believe she was going to carry a basket for 13 miles.  And Aimee even looked at me like I was nuts when I handed it to her when we were unpacking.  But it weighed practically nothing and proved to be very handy for carrying her phone and the gels they handed out on the course.  And the napkin even acted as a hanky when her nose started running, so it was worth hauling it around.  We even found a runner dressed as Gaston when we were walking to the start:

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My Ariel dress was a round neck Danskin top from Walmart sewed to a corset made from black Supplex fabric and New Look 6480.  The pattern had a lot of pieces, so I merged most of them together so I just had three front pieces and one back piece. You want as few seams as possible to avoid chafing.  I used the skirt pieces from Jalie 2215 and altered the front to come into that little V at the waist.  I also cut my shirt just under the armpits so I would only have a single layer of fabric between me and the wet blanket of air Florida likes to put over the Princess Half.  I thought about running with a dinglehopper (fork), but ultimately decided against it due to fear of impalement during a fall.  I also made a huge hair bow from an online tutorial, but you can hardly see it in the pictures.

steamy princesses

The race weather gave ‘hot & humid’ new meaning.  It was at least 70* at the start and the air was so wet it was like running through clouds or something.  It’s hard to describe other than it was just so WET!  We were drenched by mile 1 (maybe even before), so we decided to take it slow so we didn’t exhaust ourselves for the whole day.  We had parks to go to later! So for the first time ever, we stopped and waited in lines for pictures.

Castle shot:

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Mile markers with our corresponding princesses:

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Mile 12

And this great shot of us & the princes/heroes:

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As soon as I walked over, Prince Eric motioned for me to come over and stand with him and said, “You’re with me.”  Swoon!  I replied, “Why, Eric, this is all so SUDDEN!”  Hahaha.  He got a kick out of it.  I’m surprised I was so witty at this point.  I was ready to be done!  But that little break gave me such a boost and before I knew it we were in Epcot posing for the paparazzi:

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Eventually we were done and were beyond thrilled to go through the chute and get our bling!

Finish line face

Belle and Ariel with bling

After a dip in the pool and a much needed shower, we celebrated at Epcot with prosecco and pizza at Via Napoli. We ran into Belle in France on the way and stopped to tell her about our day.  She does not get all this running business and says she prefers to walk into town.

Belle at Epcot

You gotta love a place where you can walk around in a tiara and no one thinks it’s weird.  This was my fourth and Aimee’s third Princess Half and we’ve decided not to do it next year.  That’s because we are running the FULL marathon next January!  We are so excited and I’ve already started planning the costumes.

4 comments

  1. Thisha says:

    I love your Ariel inspired runfit. I’ve been looking all over for this Ariel to run in for my first ever runDisney race. I’m not doing the 1/2 but taking my chance with the 10k for motivation and inspiration to do a 1/2 next year. Anyways, I am wondering if you can share how you made your runfit, or do you or would you make and sell? I’m crafty just not great with sewing. =)

    • jenny says:

      Thanks Thisha! I described how I made my costume in my post, but if you’re not into sewing you could buy a running skirt from runningskirts.com or sparkleskirts.com and just make the top. You could buy one black and one white workout top from Walmart (around $6 each) and cut the top off of the black one and the bottom off of the white one and then bond them together with Lite Steam-a-seam 2 by the Warm Company (don’t get the Pellon kind; it’s garbage). It’s kind of like hem tape, but it’s stretchy and works with steam, so it will hold on a hot day in Florida. Good luck!

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