Magic in Every Mile - runDisney Meet Up Recap

**warning, picture intensive**   On Friday, I was one of a few lucky participants to attend the runDisney Disneyland Half Marathon Meet Up with Jeff Galloway at Disneyland.

 

 

 

Our group met up under the Sorcerer hat outside of Downtown Disney, and just after 6am, we were off, with Jeff Galloway leading the pack in our run-walk-run (30 seconds, 30 seconds - this definitely took some getting used to!).

We took off through Downtown Disney, into Disneyland, through Adventureland, Fantasyland, the Castle, Down Main Street USA...
 

 

 

There's room for one more......

     

 

 

Then on to California Adventure....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, Sparkle, tell me about Hood to Coast!

  We finished up at Animation Academy, where runDisney had coolers full of cold water (it was 6:45am, and already HOT and HUMID).

...and, had bibs and tee shirts for everyone registered for the half marathon on Sunday (RAD).
Our first speaker was Ferren Kelly, the head of runDisney.

While Ferren declined to reveal even a hint of the 20th mile SPECTACULAR for the Disney World Marathon, he did say that they are in discussions with ALL Disney parks worldwide.... and that they'll never run a race that doesn't run through a Disney park.

Some other tidbits that he shared:

• There are currently no plans to make Dopey an official event.
• 60-65% of the runners running Disneyland Half this year were women
• For the first time ever, the majority of runners in the Disney World Marathon in January will be women! (If you haven't registered yet, there is still a chance - go, do it!)

Next up was Jeff Galloway.

Jeff gave tons of great tips for our race Sunday - a lot of people were concerned about the heat, and his suggestion? Slow down. Thankfully, I'm an expert at slowing down.

Dimity and Sarah from Another Mother Runner were on stage following Jeff, discussing the importance of making time to get your work outs in.

As Sarah said, she doesn't magically have an extra 30 minutes in her day that no one else has, she just MAKES the time to make it happen. I know this is going to sound snotty, but whatever - I work full time, I have three kids, and I trained for 2 marathons. There's no magic recipe. You just do it, if you want to do it. If you don't, that's cool, but claiming you don't have time... it's an excuse.

Our last speaker of the morning was Suzy Favor Hamilton, a three-time Olympian and the holder of seven U.S. National Championships. Suzy shared her story of overcoming depression, and gave us a little pep-talk for Sunday.

And then she danced.

After the dancing was over, Mickey came out in his track suit for some pictures!

runDisney hosted breakfast for the meetup at Flo's V8 Cafe, part of the newly-opened Cars Land!

As with everything Disney does, the themeing is amazing.

And then.

Honestly, running with Jeff Galloway, exciting. Running through the (second) happiest place on earth, very exciting. Pep talks from olympians and some of my favorite authors? Super exciting.

But then we went on a private tour of Soarin'. I don't think there are even WORDS for the amount of exciting involved here.

Sorry, no pictres allowed - very secret things!

On the way out of the meetup, some guy stopped me in Downtown Disney, and asked for directions to the expo, you know, because I look like a runner.

Really? Was it the sparkle, or the shirt that gave me away?

It was a fantastic morning, seeing the ladies of Team Sparkle is always a good time, and I finally got to meet SBS and Dimity. Thanks so much to runDisney for hosting!