Pre-Race
I had trouble figuring out my goals for the race. I knew the 10k was going to be a fun run in costumes but the half-marathon had potentials for a massive PR. It was flat and I knew my running speed was better than Hospital Hill Half Marathon, in which I PRed on a nasty hilly course. Could I do 1:35 or even 1:30 on this flat course? Who knows. One thing was for sure, to get me there I wanted a pace group. Unfortunately, the fastest pace group they had was 1:40. What?!
At some point leading up to the race, I decided to just spend my time with 1:40 pace group and enjoy it. I had PR'd in two races over the previous three weeks. I think I was due for nice "relaxing" run.
Packet Pickup
We spent about three hours in lines. It was crazy. First pickup your bibs by waiting outside in the 90 degree sun and eventually into a parking garage-turned-packet pickup. Then you snake out of the packet pickup and into the expo where you pickup your t-shirts. Want to buy some race merch? Pickup your merch and wait in the 2 hour line (no joke).
We were so happy to get done with the expo.... so we could go into Disneyland and California Adventure just to wait in more lines.
10k
While Joe VI and I had discussed bringing back Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, we decided to go a different route:
Cinderella and her ugly step-sisters! Naturally, Cinderella (Lauren) made all of our costumes like a good step-sister should.
It may not look like it, but I let my beard grow out for a week or so. I'm pretty patchy when it comes to my facial hair.
The race started around 6:20 for our corral. It started going around the south side of the park before returning and entering California Adventure and then into Disneyland before finishing. We got a ton of comments thanks to Lauren's "wicked" crafting skills.
By the time we finished the race, we finally came up with our finish-line photo:
This was posted on the runDisney website!
While wondering around in the huge post-race area, I ran into Casey from twitter!
We had an opportunity meet when I did Rock'n'Roll Las Vegas two years ago. If you look at the "Start" section of my race report, that first photo shows Casey in the yellow hat behind me! We just had no clue how close we were at the time!
Half-Marathon
The race started at 5:30am and I took off pretty early to get near the front of the "A" corral. My sister-in-law Rebecca picked our hotel and fortunately the Starbucks inside of the hotel opened up at 4 am for the race. Nice!!! Naturally as soon as I lined up in a fairly vacant corral I needed to go to the bathroom. By the time I got back it was crazy crowded. So much for that.
I did FINALLY line up next to the 1:40 pace group and, frankly, just stayed with them the whole time. We had a group of about 20 people but there were only about 4 or 5 left by the time we hit the finish line. The race started going through California Adventure and then Disneyland. That took about 3 miles. The rest of the race was through industry sections of Anaheim but we did take a trip through the Angels baseball stadium. They did have a mile or so of vintage and new sports cars lined on the streets, which was rather nice. None of them would let me take their cars for a spin though.
I ended up finishing 1:38:56, which was only 90 seconds away from a PR. It also meant our pace leader was a bit fast, but that's ok.
So that put me 23rd out of 969 in my age group. I guess when put that way, it sure seems impressive!
By the time I crossed the finish line I had earned four medals:
10k Finishers medal
Half-marathon Finishers medal
Dumbo Double Dare Finishers medal
Coast-to-Coast Finishers medal
Tons of bling!
Proof
Joe and Lauren finishing the half.
My sister-in-law Rebecca finishing her half (and earning her Coast-to-Coast). Yes, she was Snow White carrying that apple the entire way! Rebecca's friend from high school is in the purple top and green skirt behind her.
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