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!

Three Things Thursday: Awesome/Not Awesome

1a. I've been super exhausted lately. Last night, I think I went to bed and was passed out by 10pm. Awesome.

1b. Until I woke up, sweating and heart racing, at 3am, because I'd been dreaming about running from zombies. Not just, like, jogging through the woods from zombies. Like, with my entire family - all my kids, my parents, my brother and sisters, all of us. IN A SMART CAR. I don't even know. It was stressful. Today, still exhausted. I feel like I stressed out, all night. Not Awesome.

2a. Disneyland Half Marathon is this weekend, and with that, comes Becka and A!!!! I love when they visit, and so does Gabby - she's been counting down the days until they get here. Awesome.

2b. wtf.

Not awesome.

3a. I got 400's back on my schedule this week. I LOVE 400's. Awesome.

3b. That's what I thought Sunday when I saw that on my schedule. Turns out, I like them a lot less when I haven't been doing ANY speedwork. They're fast. And hard. It was not awesome.

Three Things Thursday

This kid has the WORST luck.
We went to #2's end of year vocal concert last night, and left Gabby with our neighbor, her BFF's mom. Somehow, Gabby managed to fall at the playground, and land on some mystery thing, gashing her leg open.

7 stitches later.... It looks like this. <- warning, that's kind of gross.

This poor kid, man. Karma owes her one.

On the bright side, at least she's well enough that she can run around a playground. It could always be worse.


Race  Schedule
Updated my Come Run With Me! page... Mojave Narrows Half... that was a questionable Scwaggle impulse buy. I'm not 100% sure I'll run, and for $22 I'm not super heartbroken over it.


I might have gone a teeeeeeeeny bit Disney crazy. It's not my fault. Wine and Dine is my Coast to Coast race this year. Goofy - that was a no brainer, it's the 20th anniversary of the Marathon, and if I'm running the Marathon, might as well do the whole weekend.... Tink, I plan on running every year to maintain legacy status. I'm not really sure how Disneyland ended up on there, but Becka's running, so OBVIOUSLY I am too.

Anyway. So 5 Disney races in 5 months. That's a lot of costuming pressure!! Flights look pretty ridiculous, too. I'm confident the Food and Wine Festival after party and 20th anniversary bling will be worth it, though.

Also, I added a tiny local 5K 10 days after I run Seattle.

What could possibly go wrong.


Counting Down....
2 days until I see Shannon at Wet n' Wild 5k!
9 days to Seattle....
28 days to Disney World...
45 days to San Francisco...

Zoinks.

And now, what you've all been waiting for......

The FUNNEST HALF MARATHON EVER

Looking for just the facts? I liked the corral systems. It made a HUGE difference for me to be in Corral C instead of Corral Z like in Princess. Race started on time. Course support was fantastic. Tons of water stations. REAL bathrooms if you know where to look. Course entertainment was great - IMO, not quite as good as at Princess, but ONLY because I would have preferred characters to cheerleaders and bands, but had it been a non-Disney race, I would have considered the entertainment great. The course? Meh. I was not a huge fan, but again, because I would have preferred a more Disney-centric course... and that's a tough thing to pull off in Anaheim. Flat, fast course - I think the last 3 miles or so are a slight downhill even, so even though I would advise NOT to go out with a PR on your mind, it's totally a PR friendly course.


I've been putting this recap off, because I don't even know where to begin.

I was also kind of waiting to have the "official" finishers pictures with Team Jam and our medals, but apparently.... Brightroom has lost them.

Cute. But not really.

So, I guess the best place to start is where I left off on the 5K/Bloggy Breakfast/Bloggy Dinner post (did you miss it? Link HERE).

After the Bloggy Dinner at Cheesecake Factory (Freaking YUM), The H took allllll of the kids for a slumber party.

If you're keeping track, that's our three (12, 10, and 4 yrs old), A (5) and H (4). That is 5 against 1. He's a brave, brave soul.

Becka was awesome enough to let me crash in her room, so we were super duper close to the start.

And man. She was not joking when she said the fireworks were, like, 2 inches from their room. Holy smokes.

Got our stuff together, and was in bed shortly after 10. And I was utterly calm - not nervous at all, and as a result, slept like a baby, until that damn alarm at 4:03am.

While I was getting dressed and ready to head out, I realized that I sucked at packing stuff - I forgot my handheld, my inhaler, my arm strappy thing for my phone, my camera (hence the "borrowing" of some of Rose's pictures)... All of which made me really commit to running for fun with Fruit Fly and Rose.

Anyway, we headed over across the street to Disneyland. Obviously some of these folks that were speedwalking past us had never raced with RunDisney before, because... if you have, you know it's a whole lot of hurry up to wait.

Becka and L were hoping to hit the Half Fanatics group picture, but we didn't quite make it in time... but we did immediately run into Fruit Fly and Biker Boy! Considering how many people were at Disneyland this weekend, it's SHOCKING how easy it was to find each other all weekend. Crazy!

Then, we literally ran into Rose heading towards the starting corrals. B and L were in corral A, but FF and I were in corral C... and somehow, speedy Rose was in D!

She totally crashed our corral, though, and took advantage of someone sneaking in a bunch of TNT runners.

Team Jam!
Please don't ask me where that name came from. It's not appropriate for sensitive eyes.

Fierce, right?

Unlike Princess Half, there were no fireworks for the Disneyland half start! Booo!

But we were off, and busy dodging folks throughout the first mile.

I wasn't a huge fan of the course, but I seem to be in the minority. I just thought it was kind of weird, and in general I dig Disney and would have loved a more Disney-ish race. But, I knew the course going in, so not a complaint, just an observation.

The first mile was outside of the parks, then headed back in around mile 2. There were not a ton of characters out, compared to Princess, but we sure took advantage of every photo op we could imagine....

And, really, we all know this is what you've been waiting for. The Funnest Half Marathon EVER, in pictures...

Don't hump the dog......


GOATSIE!
Also, of note, this is where the cast member got snotty and asked why we needed three pictures. "Don't you guys have Facebook? Can't you just.... tag?" Shut Up, Sucky Castmember.

Darth Vader bailed. Jerk. According to the Castmember, we could wait... if we wanted to. He'd "be back". I'm also pretty sure this is where the Castmember rolled her eyes at being asked to take three pictures with three cameras. Lame.

REAL bathrooms!


Evil genius = Rose

Zebra skins? That's not creepy. Not at all.

Somewhere around mile 5-6... man down!

So close!!!

Rose also = Sun Shade

Done. And, for some reason, eating our medals?

And, finally, my favorite picture, possibly in the history of always...

Followed immediately by us laughing like we're the most hysterical chicks ever.

Why? Because, we missed the photographer the first time, stopped everything, went back, and re-did the picture.

Funnest Half Marathon EVER.

Rose's recap is HERE, and FruitFly's recap is HERE.

Disneyland Half Recap - Expo, 5K, Bloggy Madness

Friday evening after work, I met Becka (link HERE) and our kids at the Expo.

Now, Becka and I were at Princess together, and I had no issues with that Expo.

THIS expo, for whatEVER reason, seemed like a cluster. Maybe it was the kids. Maybe it was the construction at the hotel. Maybe it was the volunteer with poor wording.... Whatever it was, I was unimpressed with the whole shebang. I ended up walking out with only a headband for race day, and nothing else.

Maybe that's the key to expo'ing - bring a billion kids and be quick to get out without dropping serious cash.

After the expo, we ran to Downtown Disney for a quick dinner, then I dropped Becka, L, A and H off at their hotel... then home for an early bedtime... #1 was running the 5K bright and early!

Friday morning, 4:45 came really early. REALLY early.

Luckily, #1 was up and ready to go, AND super stoked. #2 said she wanted to come as well, so we packed our sweaters (what? It was 62*!) and headed out.

We parked at Becka's hotel, then walked over to the starting area together. We found Fruit Fly and.... Biker Boy. No Rose :(. Unfortunately, Rose ate some funky calamari, and couldn't make it to the race, so BB kindly took her place (seriously, best BF ever).

#2 and I headed down to the only spectator area on the course - the courtyard between Magic Kingdom and California Adventure.

(Can I just say, how super bummed I was in this course!? Really, RunDisney? Only one spot for spectators? We can't even be at the finish line? Dumb.)

#1 is a super fast runner. Remember how she earned 2nd place in her age group a few months ago? So I was expecting to see her pretty early on, at mile 2.25-ish.

But 20 minutes came and went, no #1. We're having a grand time, cheering on the runners though, so it's cool.

Then 30 minutes. Still no #1. I'm a little concerned.

Then I see Becka and A....

Becka says she thinks #1 was in front of her somewhere. Huh.

I'm frantically looking everywhere - HOW could I miss her!?

Then I hear... "MOM!" I look over, and #1 was sprinting past me. No picture! Argh.

But I did see FF and BB, looking pretty pleased....

Turns out, #1 was taking her time with photo ops :D

So knowing that #1 was safely still on the course, I headed over to our pre-arranged meeting spot, the fountain in front of La Brea Bakery, and waited for everyone to head out. Apparently, the finish line was in some random spot, and they had to walk .25 miles-ish to get out to Downtown Disney. Lame, RunDisney. Lame.

We headed into La Brea Bakery, and proceeded to order a billion plates of kids French Toast, and meet the lovely RadRunner! Rad totally lived up to her name and gifted all of us with tons of GU.... and man, oh man, do I love GU.

#2 was totally impressed with Rad, as well - she sat next to her, and kept whispering things to me about her hair :D

After breakfast, Becka and L, their kids, and I hit up the expo one more time to stock up on some Team Sparkle skirts - I always race in these, and have gotten #1 addicted to them as well :D. After, B, L and their kids, and FF/BB headed to the parks. I took my kidlets home (still no Disneyland for Gabs - bummer :( ).

I ran some errands (thrill a minute, I know), took a quick nap, and then we headed out to the bloggy dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

Gab, me, Rose, Elisabeth, FF
#2, Becka
A, BB
Good food, fun conversation. Good times.

Next up? Disneyland Half, Team Jam, Crotch Shots, and Goatse. Don't google that.