Disney Princess Half Marathon - confessions of a medal whore

Look, I don't only race for the medals. But I do love a medal. I especially love races where I earn more than one medal at a time. (See: Goofy Challenge, Coast to Coast, and even the Pacific Peaks series between Rock 'n' Roll Portland and Rock 'n' Roll Seattle.)

I don't particularly like "women's races" -- I'd hate to feel left out of a "men's race" (right, Katharine Switzer?), so races that essentially discourage men from participating are not super cool with me. And, yes, I'm sorry if you find running with men intimidating. But my running partner is a man, and I'm always happiest running with him.

Enter the Disney Princess Half Marathon. I've never run it, though it has some appeal, given that it's a Disney race that I haven't run. The problem? It's a really long way to go for a half marathon. Besides, if we're going to Florida in the winter, we'd rather run the full... or the Goofy... in January.

But of course... when I hear about a new medal, my ears perk up. For 2014, RunDisney introduced something called the Glass Slipper Challenge: run the Disney Enchanted 10K on the Saturday, then run the Disney Princes Hall Marathon on the Sunday. A mere 19.3 miles, two days, THREE MEDALS?!?!

What's more... well.. there's a new, special version of the Coast to Coast Medal for people who run both Tink and Princess halves:

Oooh. Pink.

And, yes, that would make FIVE MEDALS for running three races. It's a mini-GoofyBell.

But Wil and I realized we may be coming to the end of our current obsession with Disney races. Not that we won't run the Tinker Bell Half Marathon every year -- I can see us still doing that even when we stop running many other races. And one day, maybe we'll find ourselves in Florida in February for a trip for Wil's birthday. And we do LOVE Disney World.

But one day we want to trek to Machu Picchu. I want to summit Kilimanjaro. We'd both like to visit India, Thailand, the Galapagos, Antarctica... the list goes on. And while I plan on continuing to chip away at my 50 States project, I think that means cutting back on trips to Florida. Because, really, this would beat any medal we could ever earn:

image from FamousWonders.com

Registration for the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend opened (to the general public) today - and, unsurprisingly, the Glass Slipper Challenge has already sold out. I'm perhaps more surprised that the Princess Half Marathon is only 50% sold out... but I'm guessing that most people who can complete the half are easily able to also complete a 10K the previous day. Also surprising: the Enchanted 10K is only 60% sold out. I seem to recall that the 10K coming up in Disneyland this September sold out super quickly...

Now, registration for the 2014 Tinker Bell Half Marathon doesn't open for a few more weeks... but I will definitely be signing up on the first day. I've got a streak going!