2014 Cinderella Royal Family 5K

With a 6:30 a.m. start, I was able to “sleep in” the morning of the Royal Family 5K! All kidding aside, I like that the 5K start time is a little bit later than most Disney races. I was glad I didn’t have to be on a bus by 3:45 a.m. for once!

I was excited to introduce my husband and my dad to the runDisney experience – they were excited for their first Disney 5K as well!

After arriving at the 5K reunion area, we met up with Heather and her family.

We chatted for a while and took this photo as a “flashback” to the Princess Half of 2012!

We also took a family photo! Look at all of those race bibs….there’s a first time for everything!

While waiting to walk to our corrals, I heard my name and it was Ashley! I was excited to finally meet her – and you know what? The morning of the 5K wasn’t the only time we ran into each other throughout weekend (I remember two other times for sure)!

So many people!

I was very proud of my husband for gathering up the courage to complete his first 5K! His friend Randy attempted to photo bomb us but it didn’t quite work out….

I thought the corral thing was very odd this year – we all lined up in an area apart from the starting line (I don’t remember doing this for the 2012 Royal Family 5K). After A runners began the race, B runners were allowed into the starting line area, and so on from there. It made sense and flowed well, but was different from what I remembered.

After a reaaaaally long time (there were 8 minutes between each corral), Corral E was finally able to GO!

This course was the same, typical runDisney 5K – we were led around an Epcot parking lot and in through the back area of the park.

That’s Test Track to the left…

The side of Mexico

I felt as if characters were rather sparse for this race. There were a few (maybe one or two) on the back roads before entering Epcot but the lines were INSANE. I also remember seeing characters in every country the last time I ran this 5K – not so this time around.

As we were strolling past Germany, I took a deep breath in and tried to embrace the moment. Happy Disney music was playing over the speakers, I was with my family doing a 5K, and the world just felt right. You know that feeling?

Well, the giddiness inside of me overflowed and I began skipping.

Disclaimer: Even though a lot of runners/walkers were participating in this race, there was not a crowd near my family or I. 

I was being silly and I skipped up beside Randy and said, “Isn’t this FUN?” My dad is a big jokester and started to skip as well. He said, “Look what I can do!” while we all laughed. I spotted Dopey out of the corner of my eye and turned to point him out to my mom. I scanned the crowd behind us and she was nowhere to be seen. My dad also turned and stopped altogether – he had a look of horror on his face.

That’s when I saw my mom get up….off the ground, her mouth dripping with blood. Thankfully, there was a bathroom nearby. I asked what happened – she saw us skipping, so she began skipping, too. As she was mid-air a runner/walker tried to dart by her and caught my mom’s foot. In turn, my mom pretty much face planted on the ground. Not only did her tooth cut into the inside of her lip, her tooth also CHIPPED IN HALF. Only a tiny piece of tooth remained attached to her gum. In my nine years of being a nurse, I’ve never seen a tooth break in half like that.

Thankfully, medics were in decent supply on the course. They were able to give her triple antibiotic cream for her hands and an ice pack for her lip. I was afraid the cut would need stitches because it wouldn’t stop bleeding.

My mom’s a trooper though – she didn’t want to quit, she wanted to finish the race.

After the incident, we didn’t make very many stops along the rest of the course for obvious reasons. My parents continued walking and any time I stopped to take a photo/video on the course, I caught up with them.

Mile 2!

“Backstage” behind the scenes in Epcot – notice the mirror!

As my mom was talking to a medic, these two stopped me – Monica & Walt of Disney Bride & Groom! It was SO nice to meet them, I love reading through their Run Happily Ever After recaps and I’m honored every time they include one of my posts!

The 5K course led us past Spaceship Earth and back out of the park again.

I was highly shocked when Jason began sprinting….and I do mean SPRINTING to the finish line. It took me so much off guard, I had a hard time catching up to him!

After crossing the finish line, we received our medals and snapped a few photos.

We took my mom to the medic tent (an area I’d never seen before, thankfully).

Since we were the only ones in the tent, I snapped this photo because I found it amusing that their stretchers were lounge chairs – makes sense but still made me giggle a little. (Had others been in this area, I would not have taken this photo for privacy and confidentiality reasons.)

By the time we reached the medical area, my mom’s lip was no longer bleeding (only oozing a little). She did not require stitches, but we decided it was in her best interest to have her tooth taken care of that day (if possible).We were very grateful that no major harm was done - it could have been much worse.

Did you know there’s a concierge medical service available to travelers in the Orlando area? In non-emergent cases, health care providers even make “house” calls to hotel rooms! I had no idea!

Our friend (Randy) provided us with the number to call and I spoke with a nice and super helpful attendant about my mom’s issue. Within 5 minutes, my mom was set up with a dentist in the Celebration area for 1 p.m. that afternoon. It took several hours, but her tooth was rebuilt and you couldn’t tell anything was wrong (apart from her swollen lip)! (Please note, we were not provided this number by anyone affiliated with runDisney, Disney, or anyone in the medical area.)

This service is able to take care of a wide arrange of medical needs – with so many people visiting the Orlando area on a daily basis, it’s nice to know that services like this are available. Accidents and emergencies happen and issues arise – I’m thankful my mom was taken care on the same day.

Check out the video I put together of the Royal Family 5K below!

Have you ever had to use medical services after a race?