Tinker Bell Half Marathon - Recap

Do you know what 3:38am is??

Really freaking early for a race wake up call.

But still later than Becka and I woke up for Princess Half Marathon. RunDisney, the things we do for you....

There was surprisingly little chaos considering there were 4 chicks getting dressed, and my Emergency Bag o' Sparkle helped costume up a couple of us.

We headed down to the lobby to meet Julie right on time, then over to the neighboring hotel to catch the shuttle to the start. 5 minutes later, we're walking miles and miles through Downtown Disney to the starting area.

Miles might be an exaggeration. But it felt like forEVER.

We managed to miss the Half Fanatics picture (again), because we seem to forget that everything at Disney races take a billion years. The upside to showing up (relatively) late, though, is there was NO ONE in line for the restrooms.

Headed over towards the corrals, and randomly ran into Dave!

Becka is the speedy one in our group, and was legit in corral A. The rest of us were B... so Becka started with us. She's awesome.

Since we knew we were going to be acting ridiculous, and taking a billion pictures, we started at the very back... which gave us a fantastic view of the men forced to start in Corral C. And man, they looked UNIMPRESSED with that. Particularly one that we named Angry Red Guy. He looked angry, and within the first mile, angrily sped past us. Heh.

Anyway. Starting line. Fireworks. Off we go.

Now. The course.

Disney World is an entirely different beast than Disneyland. WDW is surrounded by.... Disney property. The entirety of the races there are all run on WDW property, so there can literally be characters at any point on any race. Disneyland, however, is surrounded by Anaheim and Garden Grove. So the majority of the race is run on the city streets.

Miles 1-1.5, boring, dark, slow, billions of people.

And then, the pictures started. And the ridiculous.

We came out of a tunnel next to It's a Small World, and ALL THE PRINCESSES!

And it was downhill from there.... We stopped to use the real bathrooms. Stopped for EVERY character picture. Stopped to take ridiculous pictures in front of the course photographers.

{what is happening!? Capt Hook is a dirty critter...}

{running!}

{yes, yes we DID stop mid course to pose. That happened.}

This is how you end up with a 1:08 5K time (and, ps, our 1st mile was in the 11:30 range.......).

At mile 3.5-ish, we headed out of the parks, and onto the streets of Anaheim.

Mile 4.5, we were captured being obnoxious by Team Sparkle paparazzi...

At mile 5 we took an extended restroom/water break, and stood around while we downed our GU's (and by now, we were like a zillion hours in, and FAMISHED).

Mile 5.5-ish, we crossed over from one side of Manchester Ave, to the other, but had to go over a raised median. Really, RunDisney? Bizarre.

Mile 6.5ish, two interesting things happen. First, we're made aware by the course monitors that we're about 12 minutes ahead of the sweepers (the ones who collect the folks not meeting a 16min avg pace). Ridiculous happens....

But second, we pass a bakery/coffee spot. And voice our desire for a latte. And get told by some cranky chick that, apparently, it IS NOT LATTE TIME. Noted, cranky-pants.

This was about when I started feeling bad - some of these folks were legit working hard and killing their own race - that was what they trained for, and they were executing their plan. But some of them were just not trained, or not doing well, or whatever, and we were... Ridiculous, and having fun, and being super obnoxious.

Sorry I'm not sorry?

Miles 7-9 were through kind of a sketchy area, with bars over windows and doors, lots of liquor store, and blah. Around mile 10(?), there were some sorts of military garbed men high-fiving and playing music - that was awesome.

Mile 11 we headed back into Disneyland, this time via California Adventure...

{He's my FAVORITE! He makes me SO HAPPY!}

{our reserved energy was used to sprint in line for characters. You know, so we could save time....}

{so many arms, flailing}

Around mile 12.5, we were ROASTING. It was SUPER sunny, and a billion degrees, and hello, it's been a billion hours. And the cast member said.... just one more turn! You're almost there! We have no legit idea, because our Garmins were all reading different mileage.

Turns out? Not one more turn. Not one more at ALL. Dirty liar. There were a few turns, a small hill, and then some more turns, and the smallest chute ever. We sprinted in what we thought was the last 800 (lies). And....

Giant size-of-your-face-spinning-Tink medals.

Team Sparkle snapped a rad picture of us at the finish line (and provided the world's most delicious donut ever ever EVER)....

and, seriously, did you SEE Julie's costume?? Amazing.

After, we walked a BILLION miles back to the shuttles, and waited for (I swear) 10 years.

For an inaugural race, it was all pretty smooth, with only a few exceptions - 1. one of the early aid stations ran out of Power Ade; 2. The up and over the median course weirdness; and 3. The walk back to the transportation area was not well marked, and the buses were erratic.

I'm being nit-picky, because RunDisney should know better on all three counts, but none of these are really deal-breakers. I'm totally doing Tink 2013.

Anyway, back to the hotel, then to lunch at Red Robbin...

Then Kat was awesome and drove Becka and me back to my place, where we extracted all the kids from The H (did I mention he hosted a slumber party AND baby-sat everyone while we raced and ate lunch? He's pretty rad), and tossed them in the pool.

Strangely, Gabby LOSES HER MIND when her eyes get wet.

Yeah. That's her being escorted out of the pool to dry her eyes. Weirdo.

Took Becka and A to the airport (BOO!), then headed out for dinner with the H and kids.

Delicious.

The end.

Official finish: 3:20:46

5K Split	1:08:40
10K Split	1:52:03
15K Split	2:28:54

Ha.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

OMG YOU GUYS I AM FREE AND CLEAR TO RUN THIS WEEKEND AND IT'S GOING TO BE FANTASTIC AND I'LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT ALL 3 THRILLING MILES NEXT WEEK!

If you missed it, I'm very excited about this development. And The H is probably just as excited. He denies it, but I'm pretty sure I've been on edge the last several weeks.

Mohawk, anyone?

....and, Becka ran a marathon today. On her treadmill.

That's pretty much the most bad ass thing ever.

So, my weekend plans are... run 3 miles.

Have a good weekend.

Making out in Lancaster just to pass the time...

1. You guys. Not running is freaking boring. And nothing makes for a boring blog more than a boring life.

2. Did you know I'm friends with a celebrity?? Look (<- that's a link). It's true. Don't be too jealous.

3.I had to also stop doing the DVD's pretending I was exercising, because my shin started HURTING after some of that stuff. I had already stopped doing the jumping stuff, because pretty sure if I can't run, I shouldn't jump on Jerk Shin. But.. hurt anyway.

4. You know what this means? Suck Less, bitches.

5. I spent all of last weekend pouting excessively, being angry at strangers, and horrifying my gentle husband. And shopping, but not buying anything. Something in this list will be changed this weekend. You can guess which one.

6. In typical "My Body Hates Me" fashion, I've easily dropped 3lbs in a week. WTF.

7. I'm going to screen Breaking Dawn Saturday morning, before I take #1 and #2 to see it. Take THAT, Jerk Shin. You get to watch sparkly vampires make babies. Ha.

8. I think Becka should do the 100 miler. Don't you?

9. I went to Yogurtland last night with my internet friends, and didn't take a picture, because I'm a sucky blogger. No content already, hey, watch me make it worse! Good thing Monica is a good blogger, because she has pictures.

10. Some super sexy man was hitting on Skinny Runner a LOT. How she passed up on his hot, hot offer to buy him some FroYo, I'll never know. I mean. He HAS $400 COMING TO HIM, SOON! You could retire on that. Fact.

11. I'm sooooo excited to see Hungry Runner Girl next week!!!!! (Sorry, could you pick up those names I just dropped?)

12. I'm trying to come up with fun fundraising ideas for Team Gab. Got any?

13. What if she side-eyes you, like this? Does that help?

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Three Things Thunrsday - Gabby Update Edition

First, work out last night... I did something crazy, and somehow challenged Becka to 20x400. I don't know what I was thinking. But it happened.

Plan was: 1 mi warm up, 20x400, goal pace 2:15, 2 minute RI, 1 mi cool down.

Actual: 1 mi warm up @ 11:04, 2:12, 2:10, 2:10, 2:10, 2:11, 2:09, 2:09, 2:12, 2:06, 2:12, 2:06, 2:07, 2:06, 2:08, 2:05, 2:01, 2:04, 2:03, 2:02, 1:58. Phew.

*****************************************
1. Gabby is doing GREAT. She's still in her first "cycle" of maintenance, so our clinic visits have been few and far between. We've been going every 2 weeks, to check blood work, but so far, everything is looking perfect.

2. Because of her diagnosis, she is being granted a wish from the Make a Wish foundation! We met with our volunteer wish granter's Tuesday night, and had a ton of fun. Among the things requested...

• A pony


• Drums and cymbals


• Rock climbing


• Ice skating (because she's 5, she knows how. She just needs someone to teach her. The wisdom of 5)

3. Last night, after my 9 mile run after work, I came home, and she was busily working on cloth diapering...

on herself.

I don't know.

If I could talk I'd tell you...

• I ran 67 miles in October. That's my highest mileage month ever. Two half marthons in there helped, I guess.




• For someone who hates the cold, I was dismayed to find this in my weekly forecast...
  
  
  
  Perfect running weather, though, I guess.




• I'm really hoping to PR at Iron Girl Del Mar this weekend. My current 5K PR is 33:05.




• Who am I kidding. I bet I kill that.




• I am itchy to take a vacation




• I have no plans to any time soon. Bummer




• Halloween at the Giraffy house was very mellow. #1 decided she was too old to trick or treat. #2 went with some friends. The H was working. That left Gabby and me on our own.




• We had a grand time. I tried to take a picture, and these were my options from her...
  
  


• She was rpetty much a rock star, and walked two miles! This is kind of a huge deal for her - normally she tires out well before then.




• People and their insistance on finding an easy way to being healthy fascinate me. I'm not sure why hard work and committment are such a tough thing to grasp.




• Someone told me I was judgy about people who constantly complain about being overweight or unhealthy, but aren't interested in putting in the effort. It's true. I probably am. I don't care.




• If you're going to choose to be lazy, at least embrace it, and stop pretending. I could respect that.




• I just talked The H into approving a trip for me to visit my CO BFF. He said yes because, I quote, "Better for you to get it out of the way now and quit bugging me about it.". He knows me so well.




• Oh. Becka. I hear Feb. 3-5 are free for you?.....
  
  

We must travel in the direction of our fear.

This post was full of glorious, pain-stakingly selected images, because I swear, I know how boring and tough it is to read through a billion lines of just text. However, my photobucket was over max bandwidth, thanks to a picture i posted somewhere and have now removed. So I know pictures aren't showing, sorry about that, should be back to normal soon. But in the mean time, enjoy my bullet points and descriptions of what I intended this post to look like.

• I've been in a funk lately. Nothing is wrong, necessarily. I'm not unhappy, at all. Just feel... unsettled? I don't know. It's disconcerting.

{pretend there is a picture here of a superhero LOLCat leaping to my rescue}

• And when I can't pinpoint why I'm funk-ish, it's tough to figure out how to undo the funk.

{and one here of an LOLCat with a verrry low Care-o-Meter}



• I'm really, REALLY excited that I accidentally found that one of my favorite bands of ever is playing locally, THIS FRIDAY night. Seriously, it was fate. I'm destined to be at this concert. And, it was $18. NOTHING in OC is ever just $18. Fate, obviously. AND, they're playing my favorite of their albums in full. Weird, right? But glorious for me!

{here's a non-picture of the Lemonheads It's a Shame About Ray album}



• There's still time to register for the Richard Leary 6-Hour Challenge. There may (or may not....) be a couple other SoCal bloggers and myself hanging out on a blanket celebrating *ahem* a great race after we're done with our laps. And by celebrating *ahem*, I mean brunch. Obviously.



• If you don't think you can make it out on Sunday for the local event, there's a great satellite option as well - only $35, and you still get the tee and the fancy lookin' medal! Plus, the race benefits two great causes, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (link HERE) and Train 4 Autism (link HERE).



• The lovely Jesse at Journey Thru Life is celebrating a birthday today - go say happy birthday!
  {Random picture of Gabby with a french fry mustache}
  
  Becka reminded me this morning that we have FIVE RACES TOGETHER in 2012! That's SUPER exciting for me, because she's pretty much one of my favorite people ever, and it's rough on our BFF'ness that we live states apart. 2012 has to be fantastic now.

{picture of baby animals as BFF's, because we're cute and super cuddly. It's true.}



• I did a "recovery" "run" on Monday night after the worst 10 miler ever on Sunday. We tried to jog, but man. That was tough. Tired legs are lazy legs. BUT, it worked - I felt GLORIOUS yesterday. Who knew... Oh. Right. ALL THE OTHER RUNNERS did.



• The RnR NOLA madness Monday... holy crow. In general, I'm not really a fan of the RnR races. Too big, too expensive, not Disney, not worth it for me. I was talked into RnR Seattle, thanks to peer pressure from THIS one. But otherwise, I'm really not interested in NOLA, I don't really care for the city, the RnR series is just too big, too expensive, and not Disney enough for me. But that didn't stop me from spending a fair amount of time trying to convince The H I should go. Turns out, he knows us, oh so well. Heh.
  
{picture here of our text convo, concluding with him saying "You are not turning into Becka". Rude.}



• And now that he's aware he was kind of being punked, I apologize, H. It was all for my amusement. I'm a terrible, terrible wife. And you're stuck with me.

{Giggling LOLCat}

TTT - whiny edition

1. Back in January, when Gab first got diagnosed with leukemia and we started discussing treatments, the oncologist declared it a 2 1/2 year treatment plan. What they didn't mention, and I didn't think about, was the times where Gab's counts drop too low to recieve treatment. Every.single.time that happens, it puts everything on hold. So while I THOUGHT we would be in maintenance by the end of summer, turns out? Not so much. It's so incredibly frustrating. I'm really glad I ended up not booking a camp-site or something for August like I intended to. Making plans with Becka and A this for Disneyland Half... Disneyland? Out. Beach? Out.

And every time I complain about it, I feel like a dumbass, because she's REALLY had such minimal side-effects, there are so many ways this could have all been so awful for her... and I'm just bitching because I can't go frolick in the woods or something stupid. It's petty, in the grander scheme, and I try to remember that, but... it's hard, sometimes.

2. I *really* miss my kids. And I still have, like, 3 more weeks! What was I thinking?!

3. Those purple shoes hated me. What ought one do with a foot covered in blisters 2 days before a 10K?

Warning. This is gross.

I am FAMISHED

Goal A:

Finish and don't die.... Success!

Goal B:

Don't get swept.... Success!

Goal C:

2:30... Not so much success.

I ended up just over 3 hours. I also ended up stopping and waiting in line for a dozen pictures, and felt flipping FANTASTIC the entire time, AND my fastest mile was 12-13.1, through EPCOT, so... I'm calling that a success anyway. :D

Seeing Becka is always a good time, and meeting L was fun. A informed me that I'm her new BFF. I got to see an old friend from high school, who used to skip gym and algebra with me, and briefly met Little Fruit Fly and Leslie from Racing it Off.

Full report later!