Florida Runner Wins Princess Half-Marathon

It’s a big time for sports at Walt Disney World. ESPN WWOS has been hosting spring training for MLB and pre-season matches in professional soccer. The Princess Half-Marathon was run today and ESPN the Weekend starts mid-week.

Congrats to all the 17,000 runners. I hope every one had a good day. It was a great day for Jennifer Hanley-Pinto of Jacksonville, FL. She led virtually the entire race Sunday morning to win Disney’s 2011 Princess Half Marathon at Walt Disney World Resort.

Caitlin Latimer of Lexington, Ky. came in second with a time of 1:23:14, which was just 24 seconds behind Hanley-Pinto, whose winning time was 1:22:50. Heather Schulz of Orlando was third (1:25:01) despite running a faster time than last year when she finished second.

Yet as fast as the field was, no one could quite outrun Hanley-Pinto, 33. Latimer and Schulz stayed on her heels down the stretch but couldn’t overtake her as she finished ahead of a field of more than 17,000 runners. In all, more than 22,000 runners participated in endurance events throughout the weekend at Disney, including a health and fitness expo, a 5K and several kid races.

The weekend of events were all designed to celebrate and promote women’s empowerment, health and an active lifestyle. It’s widely regarded as one of the nation’s largest endurance race weekends geared towards women. I don’t know about you, but it’s great to see all those runners wearing princess attire take the mantle of Princess and make it mean someone strong, powerful, and empowered.

Disney’s Princess Half Marathon Weekend was the second of runDisney’s four signature events. The remaining two are the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend (September 2-4, 2011) and the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend (September 30-October 1, 2011) events. For more information or to registration for any runDisney events, go to www.rundisney.com.