Disneyland Half Marathon Recap

So, yes. It is about two and a half months late but who's counting? Today I am finally giving my Disneyland Half Marathon race recap! This race was the most fun race I think I will ever encounter in life. The joy that Disneyland brings truly lifts your spirits even though you're running 13.1 miles.

The day started at 4 AM. Fun.... I had set out my race outfit the night before that way I wouldn't have to rush in the morning. As my alarm clock went off that morning, I went into race mode. I'm pretty sure I was half asleep while throwing my hair up in a ponytail thinking "Wait, why did I do this again? Am I really about to run 13.1 miles?" Besides the fact of my thoughts, I kept getting ready. I went out into the living room area of our hotel room and opened the fridge. I had purchased a peanut butter strawberry granola type breakfast from the Jamba Juice in Downtown Disney the night before. I tried to eat a few bites and then me and my brothers were out the door!

Our hotel was about 10-15 minutes walking distance from the start line. But that morning it truly only felt like a three minute walk. I was so nervous! They were rushing people into corrals so we followed the sign to corral E and got there smoothly.

Our corral was on the free-way part. As the time got closer and closer, our corral kept scooching forward. Soon enough, corral A was off! I think after this happened, that was the worst part. It truly meant that this was happening. But the waiting and waiting for each corral to start was killing me and my brothers! Can we just start already?

Once it was corral E's turn, we went up to the starting line. Butterflies were going crazy in my stomach right about now. We were actually near the very front of our corral so we were right next to Mickey! As quickly as we got there, we were gone! It happened so fast. It was time to run...

Mile one felt like it took forever! I wanted to get into the parks already. As we were in the backlots behind Cars Land, we hit mile marker 1. One road took you to mile 2 and another road (which was blocked off ta the time) took you to mile 12! Me and Brad started laughing and each wished that we were at that point. we had lost AJ right before this point. He went ahead, but we could still see him. We were dodging runners and then all of a sudden we turned a corner and we were in California Adventure!

After passing Tower of Terror, awful cramps came to my side. These same cramps had come only a week prior to the race every time I ran. I prayed before the race that they would not come, but sadly they did. While exiting CA Adventure, I wanted to walk so bad! It was killing me, and I could hardly breath! I told Brad to leave me because I wanted to walk but he wouldn't let me. He gave me a few encouraging words and told me to run it out. So, basically crying and wincing with pain in every breath, I continued to run. Tons of people were in the area between CA Adventure and Disneyland. If I were in a better mood, I might've high-fived some of them or given them a smile, but instead I was crying.

As you can see, I was trying to put pressure on the cramps...it didn't help. I must've prayed about a thousand times while running through Disneyland. At one point I even said a quick prayer out loud! Brad promised me that if I still had pain, we would walk at mile 3. Well, as we were going by Adventureland, my cramps vanished. This had never happened in my training. I had always had to walk it off and rest. I thanked God a thousand more times and kept praying that the cramps wouldn't come back. When we reached mile 3, Brad asked me if I wanted to stop. Uhhh no!! I was feeling awesome!

Soon after, we ran through the castle and it was so awesome! I will never forget that moment. We then went on to Tomorrowland and then into Toontown. This is where we went into another backlot to exit the park. This backlot was soooooo cool. Did you know that Disneyland has a full on farm back there? Ya. They had horses, goats, and even a mini horse on display for us to see. It was awesome. 

Next, we were onto the streets of Anaheim. Brad tripped on the overpass. Ha. We walked a little bit throughout mile 7. Then we got to mile 8 which was all of the cool, old cars. After that, we headed onto a trail and then into Angel Stadium! I was kind of lagging behind Brad every once and a while, so a few steps before the trail I told him he could go ahead. 

After the trail, I was in Angel Stadium! The crowd was so awesome and crazy! My mom and Lex were screaming at me, but I had my headphones in so I didn't even see them. In the video you can actually hear them yelling my name. Lol. 

After Angel Stadium was the hardest part for me. Mile 10 felt like it lasted 30 minutes. It took forever. I just wanted to get back to the Disney areas and be done at this point. Miles 10-13 were rough and involved lots of water stops and pain in my legs. Finally I saw the mile 13 sign and I was ready to be done! I ran through the finish line, grabbed my medal, snack box, and water and powerade. I downed that powerade like no other. It's all I wanted in that moment. 

After searching for my family for the next 45 minutes, I finally found them and we took many pictures before heading back to the hotel.

One of my favorite pictures.

My precious

After we got back to the hotel, we showered and took a very, very long nap. We headed into the parks that night and I wore my medal! I tried to take a good castle/medal picture but the lighting didn't work out.

Crazy eyes from the flash

My first dole whip!

It was really nice to go into the parks and have everyone congratulate you! Every single Disney cast member told me congrats! I felt awesome. Thank you runDisney for putting on such an amazing event. I will definitely return.... :) 

Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend: Disneyland Day 1

I am going a little bit our of order from my last post about spectating the 5k on Saturday. Our first actual day in Disneyland was Friday. Since we went to the expo and couldn't check into our hotel till three, we didn't end up getting to the parks until about five. That meant getting amazing sunset pictures of the castle!

As we were finding a place to have dinner, we went through the Fantasy Faire. This is a new addition to Fantasyland and I had never been to it before. I loved Rapunzel's little tower and the Flynn Rider wanted signs!

After we ate, it was time to go on some rides! We let Alexandra and my mom choose the first ride since they would have to head back early for the 5k. They decided to go on....Splash Mountain! The line was pretty long, but it was so hot and extremely humid that the line was worth it. It almost felt like we were in Disney World with all of the humidity throughout the weekend. It was pretty bad.

My pose was supposed to be a spellout of the number 13 since that's how many miles I was going to run. I totally failed. I even tried it on California Screamin' and Space Mountain and it failed on those rides as well. But you get what I was going for right...?

Next, we went back to Main Street and got some dessert. We found these amazing cake pops that were HUGE! They put Starbucks cake pops to shame. My mom and Brad got chocolate cake covered in chocolate. I didn't think I could take that much chocolate so I got white cake covered in chocolate with white chocolate drizzle. So yum!

Definitely getting this on my next trip.So good.

Mom and Lex headed back after dessert while me and Brad hit up a couple more rides including Space Mountain, Pirates, Matterhorn, and TeaCups.

Yup. There it is again. The failed 13.

We were exhausted ourselves and headed back a little bit before the park closed. We did a lot for only being in the park for a few hours. It was such a fun evening :)

QOTD: Have you ever been to Disneyland for just the night?

Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend: Spectating the 5k

On Saturday, August 31, runDisney held a family fun run 5k that my mom and sister participated in! I was so excited for them because my mom worked really hard for this. She is not a runner and she really challenged herself by doing this race. I was so proud of her. My sister has Addison's disease which causes her to not be able to run long distances. Originally, her doctor told her to walk it, but she pushed herself and ran the whole thing! Dang girl.

Snapped this pic as I was exiting Downtown Disney the night before the race.

Anywho, while their alarms were set for 3 am, my alarm was set for 5:30ish. I was going to wake up, then wake up my brother and we would walk near the finish line and wait for them to cross. Well, plans don't always go through do they? In this case, I slept through every single one of my alarms I had set. Ahh!!! Somehow, my brain triggered the idea that I was supposed to be somewhere and it decided to wake me up at 5:50. I jumped out of bed and started brushing my teeth immediately. Next I through on jeans and a sweatshirt (bad idea) and tried to wake up Brad. I tried a couple times...and a couple more. By then I was so worried that I would miss them crossing the finish line that I ditched Brad. Sorry!

I was late for this very important date.

I was so, so scared that I was going to miss Lex and my mom and then they would be mad that no one was there to support them. So at this point I had no choice but to run. I ran down the very long street all the way to Downtown Disney. And it was hot. And I mean hot, humid, the whole deal. Keep in mind that I did this in jeans and a sweatshirt. Once I hit the stoplight that leads to the Disneyland Hotel it was time to walk through a sea of people. There were spectators every for the 10k along with all of the 10k runners moving in the opposite direction as me, trying to get to their corrals. It was a mess and a lot of "excuse me's".

I finally reached a pretty good spot of the finish line and stood my ground! I probably looked like I had just finished the 5k by how tired and sweaty I was. I ended up waiting their for about 20 minutes before Alexandra crossed the finish line. At first she didn't see me, but then she found me and we waited for Mom.

Alexandra celebrating her victory.

About 20 minutes after Lex had finished, Mom came through the finish line and saw us. She was so happy to see us! Next they both got their medals and I may or may not have sneaked into the runners area where they got food, water, and a goodie box.

Happy to get some food and water!

We headed into the family reunion area and took some photos with the medal.

So proud!

Ended the morning with a beautiful sunrise!

I was so glad that I actually got to see them cross the finish line despite my alarms not waking me up. I had so much fun supporting them! Great job Alexandra and Mom.

What Brad was doing this entire time...

Half Marathon Finisher

So guys, it's official. I finished a half marathon! It was so much fun and amazing and everything I hoped it would be. Well, except the part about being super duper sore during/afterwards. I will share a race recap later on but I thought I would share some race photos with you. Enjoy these awful looking pictures of me :)
 
My favorite is the lower left one. It was right after I ran through the castle. I tried to manage a smile as I ran by the photographer :)

QOTD: Did anyone run in the Disneyland Half Marathon?

**I do not own the rights to any of these photos. I did not purchase these. These photos came through Marathon Foto**

Train Insane or Remain the Same

Yesterday I ran a pretty hard run but only for a short amount of time. I wanted to run around 1.5 miles with around a 9:00 minute mile. I really want around a 9:00 or 10:00 minute mile for race day on September 1st (It will be here before I know it!) so I'm trying to train closer to 9:00 minutes that way I have some wiggle room.

I've kind of been getting bored in my runs, which sadly, makes me want to stop running. Then I end up not getting to my goal or not conquering what I wanted to. I haven't been really into my running playlist so I thought that maybe I should do a run without music. Didn't go too well. I lasted like a mile. Lol. So yesterday I thought I should change my course. Instead of running out on the streets, I ran around all of my connecting neighborhoods. It was kind of nice because I could set little goals to myself like "When you get to that green house, you can turn around and go back" or something like that. Whereas on the streets, I would get confused on which tree I set my goal at.

The new course actually helped me a lot! I ran at a 9:27 pace for 1.44 miles. I was done within 13:39 minutes (I didn't want a super long run yesterday).

I actually felt really good afterwards too. And lately, I have been feeling like I'm going to either pass out or throw up when I run. I felt so good but also completely exhausted afterwards that I literally laid down on my grass and stayed there for a while. People walking by probably thought something was wrong with me.

Yeah so that's me lying down on the grass. Great picture huh? But that face literally describes how I felt. Even though it was a short run, it was definitely a great run :)

QOTD: Have you ever had a great run, short or long?