Sunday November 13th:
3:15am the alarm went off but we were awake a few minutes before. We actually got about 6 hours of solid sleep the night before our race! That’s unheard of! We are usually lucky to get 2-3 due to nerves and excitement! So that was a huge blessing! We felt refreshed and ready to go! We ate a light breakfast in our room. We got dressed for our race and were out the door by 4:45am. We picked our hotel because it was fairly close to the start/finish for our race. We were through security and took a couple of pics in the staging area. We were in Corral E by 5am for a 5:30am race start time. The corrals were super small up front! We could actually see the screens and stage back where we were! Pretty cool! They honored and recognized our military and veteran’s before starting the race. Our corral crossed the start line at 5:55am since they do 5 minute intervals! Ryan and I already decided that we would each run our own races. He’s a much faster runner than I am. My goal was to finish the race injury-free. He wanted to get a fast time. So we said goodbye at the start and we met at the finish. They redesigned this race course. We had seen and heard how horrible it used to be. Their improvements were amazing! This was seriously the best course I’ve ever run! We ran through California Adventure, then into Disneyland and we ran through the Castle!!! Then off towards Angel’s Stadium. We ran the base line of the stadium and marching bands were on the field. There was a massive line of old veteran’s in uniform before we entered the stadium. I high fived each and every one of them! Such an honor! We left the stadium at mile 10. At mile 11 we could clearly see Grizzly Peak so we were just down the road from Disneyland already! We finished at the Disneyland Hotel Parking lot. I seriously smiled the entire race! My body held up! I felt fantastic and had no injury!!!!!!!! And somehow I didn’t cry when I crossed the finish! I’ve cried crossing the finish at all of my other races. This was my 5th half marathon! They even called my name out at the finish!! It was awesome!! This was a great course and not crowded at all! I think we had a good 4,000-5,000 fewer runners than previous races! I was a little slow on my time, but did take lots of pics along the way. Finish time for me was 2 hours 49 minute. Ryan finished in 2 hour 9 minutes! He was crazy fast but he had lots of fun too! There was plenty of shade on this course too. There was tons of great support along the course, lots of water stops, 4 medical stations, numerous bands and cheer groups too! I got my Super Hero’s Half Marathon Metal and then proceeded to the Coast to Coast tent and received my partner’s statue medal!!!!!! I got my Coast to Coast pic taken with my medals. It was worth it! Since it was unseasonable warm, they had wet cooling cloths at the finish, which was needed and appreciated. I grabbed a couple of bananas, waters, and a snack pack. I met with Ryan then. I got a solo pic for the half marathon finish and then we took pics together. I had my knees iced immediately after finishing the race preventatively and it seemed to help. We saw they had an AP booth and were able to show our passes on our phones (since we didn’t have anything else on us). They gave us a gift bag with 4 small cans of Coke and each had a different Marvel character on it. We slowly walked to our room, showered and got ready for the day.
We got to security just after 11am and lines weren’t as bad. But the lines at the turnstile were halfway across the promenade! We went into DL and grabbed FP for Space with a return of 3:10pm. We got in line since it was just a 45 minute wait. Then Star Tours with a 35 minute wait. We were only a little hungry (usually not hungry for a while after long runs) so we each got hand dipped corn dogs at the Red Wagon on Main Street. Then to Starbucks for iced tea, it was getting hot out. Off to Jingle Cruise with a 25 minute wait posted but really only 10 minutes, hilarious skipper today! We were eligible to get our next FP, so we went to Haunted with a 3:10 return. Off to Mr. Toad with a 20 minute wait. Pinocchio with a 5 minute wait. Then Snow White with a 5 minute wait. We then used our Haunted FP, love seeing the Hat Box Ghost here! And Sally’s new Gingerbread house on the dining table! Sally was in the graveyard scene. Very fun! Then off to Space to use our FP. We took castle pics with our medals. Then dinner at French Market. I had roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, beans and carrots and Ryan had the shrimp po boy. It was all so yummy! We took our cruise on Small World with a 25 minute wait. We caught their projection show while in line, very fun! It was nearly 6pm and we were pooped from our early wakeup and run. We grabbed a M & M Mickey Rice Krispie treat and another peanut butter sandwich and put them in our pack. We stopped at Wetzel’s and got bits and took those to our room too. We were to our room by 7pm. We relaxed and ate our treats. Lights out by 9pm.
Miles Logged 22 (including 13.5 from my race)
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way to go!
