This is my Disneyland half marathon race recap… It was the Saturday before the Disneyland half marathon, and I got a text from a friend that lives in Vegas asking if I wanted to come run the Disneyland half marathon with them.
Chase encouraged me to go and said it would be good to get my mind off of our failed IVF cycle. So I said yes, and made arrangements to get a ride down to Vegas with another friend who was also running the Dumbo Double Dare Challenge (10k & Half Marathon).
The Thursday before the race I traveled with Shelly and her family down to Vegas. The following day my friend, Celise and I drove to California and went straight to the expo to get our packets. We both got our wristbands so we could get our Coast to Coast medal at the end of the half marathon.
Walking the expo I met up with Kelly who is a founder of Sparkle Athletic. I’ve been following her for some time and she was a doll to talk to.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, eating out and tried to go to bed early so Celise could get enough sleep to run the 10k. I told them I was going to meet up with them at the end of the race and get some pictures.
Celise sent me a tracker to watch them, and I took my time getting to Downtown Disney where they were running through. I happened to check Facebook while I was waiting for them and this popped up:
I teared up! That was the sweetest thing anyone had done for me. Especially after all that Chase and I had been through. Then to have them both wear the Running with Infertility shirts from our Virtual Race that we put together AND have them dedicate the 10k race to me, just made the whole trip.
The next morning was the half marathon. We had a 3:30am wake up call, got to our shuttle to take us to the park and we walked through Downtown Disney to the family reunion area.
Celise and Shelly were in a corral ahead of me, even though I tried hard to let the volunteers let me into their corral. It didn’t make it easier when I saw other runners who should have been in later corrals be in the corral in front of me. We were really upset at that. They planned to stay at the back of their corral and I stayed at the front of mine. We planned on where to meet up before their corral started.
I was on the front line of my corral. I’ve never been a starter for a corral, and it actually gave me butterflies.
Mickey and Pluto cheering us on!
I also saw the infamous Balloon Ladies! They’re REAL guys! Not fake! Not rumored!
Stopped for a brief photo op
I ran about half a mile and caught up to my gals. We made sure to hit up all of the characters in the park, knowing that after only 4 miles in the park would be running on the streets of Anaheim.
We saw Shelly’s husband who paid to be part of the “chEAR squad” which allowed him and several others into California Adventure. Disney would not let the general public who came to cheer us on into the parks. Which was a bummer!
Tower of Terror – probably the last time I’ll see this ride…
Always a hand stand!
Storm Troopers
Disney Half Marathon Sign
Aurora and Prince Phillip
Other side of the castle. I like Disney World’s castle better.
After we ran the 4 miles in the parks we were on the streets of Anaheim. Which ended up feeling like a typical half marathon race. I was hoping that there would be music playing throughout the run, which didn’t happen (and I didn’t take headphones with me).
One of the best motivational signs I’ve seen.
At mile 6-7 both of my IT bands started freaking out and I was in a ton of pain. Thankfully the aid stations had biofreeze and I rubbed my legs out. It would help for a few miles and then they would seize up again and would apply more at the next aid station.
With those tough miles and not having music I really tried focusing on being in that mile that I was in, and that really helped me enjoy it even though I was in pain.
We ran through Angel’s stadium around mile 9. There was a huge crowd there with lots of youth (boy scouts/girl scouts) cheering us on. That was pretty fun.
I was bummed that we didn’t run through Downtown Disney to finish the race. But hey I finished having not trained for this half marathon.
I was SO glad to be done! You can see it in the back.
All finished! It went by quicker than I had expected.
My two medals!
All 3 of us (sad that Dan didn’t participate) with our medals.
After the race on our way back to the shuttle we had to get our bags checked for the 2nd time. Disney has a bag check before you buy tickets to the park. We were not planning on going into the parks we were just on our way through to the shuttle. Disney did not have a “no bag” line, or a “runner only” line so we waited for 40 minutes to get our clear bags checked to walk to our shuttle to get back to our hotel.
We finished the 13.43 mile run in 3:03:37. Which is better than our last half that we did in Florida.
Pros: Lots of aid stations/water stations, Felt like I could really run a lot (sea level), Volunteers were always smiling and helpful, Full water bottles and Powerade at the finish, I got to be in corral D.
Cons: We only got to run 4 miles in the park, I hadn’t trained for the half so I was SO much slower than Shelly and Celise, They gave us the same food pack that we got in January, There didn’t seem to be very many photopass photographers, They only had coffee gu left – eww (salted caramel).
P.S. If this is your first time here, be sure to check out our infertility timeline.
P.P.S. Check out this cute shirt in my shop!
