Disneyland Half Marthon (Race Recap)

Sunday, September 2
Anaheim, CA
Half Marathon #68
California Half #3
Disneyland Half #2
Weather - HOT and SUNNY

I was REALLY looking forward to my second Disneyland half marathon. I had such a fun time running Tinker Bell with Heather that I was understandably giddy about another matchy matchy costume and 13.1+ miles prancing through Disneyland. The funny thing, is that Heather and I had decided after running last year that we wouldn't run it again. But then it started to get close to selling out, and I panicked and registered anyway, the day before registration closed. And I'm soooo glad I did!

We carbloaded at Heather's house the night before. That chick can COOK. She made baked mac n' cheese. One kind with bacon, the other with green chili and chicken. SO DELICIOUS. We headed to bed decently early, and in order to get up STUPID EARLY to to be out the door by 4:15 for our first attempt at driving to a Disney race.

Race Day

Alarm for me went off at 4:01. Would I really need longer than 14 minutes to get ready? Once we finalized our costumes (Heather even made us TAILS, which I don't think either of us got a picture of) and headed out the door, we were really only a few minutes past goal time. We ate a tasty breakfast of donut holes on the drive over, and traffic wasn't really that bad. However. We couldn't seem to actually FIND the parking structure. And by the time we DID find it, it was backed up FOREVER. They were actually collecting $15 in parking fees from every single driver. By the time we parked, it was 5:23. We were in "A" corral, and gun time was 5:45. No worries... by this time, there was ZERO line for the bathrooms, we waltzed right up to our corral and actually had to wait for the race to start.

Mile 1 was the only "speedy" mile of the race. It was still dark, and since we were outside the park, there was nothing to look at. We caught up to Dave just before entering the park and managed to get a picture with him before we lost him.

I had warned Heather in advance that I hadn't tried anything further than 4 miles in two weeks, and that we were likely going to have to take it slow. Being experts at the slow, we stopped for EVERY character picture inside the parks, as well as using real bathrooms.

I was feeling ok through the entire park section, but around mile 4, I felt the knee starting to ache. We jokingly had an "A" goal of beating our super slow Tinker Bell time of 3:20. As the race went on, that seemed harder and harder to do. It never hurt as bad as West Virginia, but that is probably because as soon as it started to hurt, I walked. Like before, as long as I was walking, it was fine.

Anyway, the course was the same as last year, and they adjusted the boring section around mile 7 by having classic cars parked alongside both sides of the course for close to a mile. Definitely gave us something else to look at.

Unlike running Tink, there are NO character pictures after you leave the park in the very beginning. So that was a bummer. However, thanks to being so slow, we got to see lots of stuff we wouldn't normally see. We saw Sandy and her husband hanging out on the curb around mile 12, we saw a random chick stop to puke, we saw ALL THE COSTUMES. I think my favorite was a girl dressed as Perry the Platypus. So cute.

The last few miles it got pretty hot, and I really wanted to be done. The dumb knee would not cooperate, so we did a slow jog/walk and finished even SLOWER than Tink. A new PW!! (Or as Kim would say, a new Personal Underachievement).

Please enjoy the pictures the course photographers managed to get:

 

Caption for all of the above pictures: "We are the cutest and most fun EVER."

Official Time - 3:26:08
Official 5K - 45:43
Official 10K - 1:45:21
Official 15K - 2:30:36
Overall Place - 13098/14829
Gender Place - 7996/9340
Division Place - 1417/1647
Garmin Time - 3:26:09
Garmin Distance - 13.48 miles
Garmin Pace - 15:18 (ouch)
Mile 1 - 9:59
Mile 2 - 11:09
Mile 3 - 15:38
Mile 4 - 33:03
Mile 5 - 14:14
Mile 6 - 13:26
Mile 7 - 14:23
Mile 8 - 14:20
Mile 9 - 15:38
Mile 10 - 15:34
Mile 11 - 15:26
Mile 12 - 12:36
Mile 13 - 14:56
Mile 13.48 - 12:13

We collected our ginormous medals, our cooling towels and our box of random food. Then we made our way to Downtown Disney to get gelato bars. If you haven't had one, try one. They are tasty and delicious.

The Good:

• The bling. I love the bling.
• The characters. Disney really IS the happiest place on earth.
• Our costumes. So freakin' awesome. (Also, other people had really awesome costumes too).
• Running with my BFF! She's the funnest.
• All the aid stations were well stocked, best volunteers ever.
• The change to the middle (boring) part of the course by adding the classic cars. Thanks, Disney!

The Bad:

• The whole parking situation. Heather almost LOST HER MIND. It wasn't too bad for me, you know, since I was gorging myself on tiny donut holes from heaven.
• The earliest races EVER in the universe. 
• The mofo KNEE. (Not the fault of Disney)

Run Disney puts on a kick ass event. I love it. I know I'm paying a premium to run these races, and I do not care. I have so much fun. Cannot wait for the next one.

The rest of the day was spent lounging around, going to the pool, trying to figure out how to cure crotch chafing, and a trip to Yogurtland (aka, my new favoritist place on earth).

 

Bummed, as always, to leave SoCal.