Retirement Hiatus: Tinker Bell Half Marathon Recap

Ohhhhh, hi.

On Sunday, I ran Tink at the Disneyland Resort for the third straight year- I'm a legacy runner, and intend to run this event every year, for ever and ever. And ever. (Even next year, when they move the even to May. Honestly, this is a change I LOVE - people keep yapping about how hooooooootttttttttt it will be, but I feel like they are wrong. Our May mornings are cool and almost always foggy and overcast, and that is my most favorite running weather. And, PS, DID YOU KNOW the last three years, the January date has been HOT in the afternoon?).

Saturday, Becka and I volunteered at the runDisney Kid's Races, along with Sheila. We were lucky enough to get tasked with handing out medals - which was pretty much the funnest thing I've ever done. Do you know that kids are SUPER PSYCHED about getting medals?

Here's another Did You Know - dyk every medal is individually wrapped, and has to be unwrapped by volunteers?

If you've been watching national news lately, you might know that SoCal (and all of California, really) has been experiencing a crazy drought - January is supposed to be our rainiest month of the year, but it's been dry all month. Additionally, last week was HOT HOT HOT, and windy. It was not ideal running weather, which is the excuse I'd like to use for my 0 mileage lately (in reality, that's chalked up to sheer laziness). So I was really excited that the weather race morning looked cool and comfortable - and, if we were really fast, it would stay that way for the duration of the race, thanks to the super duper early start time of 5am.

We actually had some goals going into the race this time....
A Goal: Beat Becka's Baker's Dozen time of 2:48ish
B Goal: Sub-3
C Goal: Disney PR, sub 3:08

As always, we planned to stop for pictures, and always walking aid stations. Because I'm an excellent planner (more accurately, "excellent planner"), I made a point to charge my camera the night before - I carried a dead camera around during some race Disneyland weekend, and didn't want to repeat my mistake, so I made SURE that bish was charged.

Unfortunately for meeeeeeee, it never occurred to me to make sure there was a memory card in the camera. so... oops.

We (deservingly, duh) started in corral A, which I really think made all the difference in the world for us. We went out at a comfortable pace, stopped at about a dozen character pictures, and experienced NONE of the normal bottle necking and frustration we normally find through the parks.

Crazy, right? Who knew that running was the key.

Caption all: WE ARE THE FUNNEST.

Around mile 5, the course leaves the parks, heads through Downtown Disney, and past the Red Hat Ladies, who are SO great. They are for sure my favorite part of this race, they are so energetic and encouraging and loud and FUN.

And then mile 6, you're out in Anaheim, and the course is just the city from there. I don't love the rest of the course, I think it's FINE, but it's certainly not the same as running through Disney World. This year, I would have SWORN the course was changed, because I for real didn't recognize any of it.... but it wasn't changed. It was the same. I have run-nesia.

Anyway. I warned Becka pretty soon after leaving the park that I was not sure I would be able to maintain whatever pace we were at, because I was not feeling great. Nothing felt bad, nothing felt broken, I just know I haven't been putting in the miles, and was preparing us both for the eventual brain breakage.

I kind of implemented the same strategy I used at Holiday Half - just keep running (that isht is trademarked, don't steal it) - and SHOCKINGLY, it worked. Our splits, stolen from Becka:

Official Time - 2:41:23
Official 5k - 38:20
Official 10k - 1:29:27
Official 15k - 2:02:29
Garmin Time - 2:41:23
Garmin Pace - 11:48
Garmin Moving Time - 2:19:58
Garmin Moving Pace - 10:14
Mile 1 - 10:21
Mile 2 - 12:43
Mile 3 - 13:01
Mile 4 - 21:39 (This obviously, was the bulk of the pictures)
Mile 5 - 13:37
Mile 6 - 11:15
Mile 7 - 10:47
Mile 8 - 10:35
Mile 9 - 10:33
Mile 10 - 10:37
Mile 11 - 10:25
Mile 12 - 10:19
Mile 13 - 8:57 (!!?!)
Mile 13.68 - 9:39

Huh! When I realized what our time was coming in as, I was SHOCKED. I didn't wear my Garmin, so I was listening to B call out our pace at the mile markers, but didn't really put it all together. 

we are SHOCKED

 

Soooooo, we killed our goal, and obviously we were the Fastest People Ever, AND now for real I might retire?