I ran my first ever Half Marathon on Sunday. Where else would I do it except Disneyland?! Who else would I choose to run with other than my wonderful daughter Christie? She talked me into this back in February when I was sidetracked and busy planning my mother’s wedding.
Our men folk decided to cheer us on from home so we girls had a weekend to ourselves. Well more like 36 hours, but it was all girl time. We got stuck in some holiday traffic on Saturday morning which is never fun, but eventually made it to Disneyland. We pulled into Downtown Disney parking and headed in to the Expo. There were lots of people coming out with their bags and the more people we saw the more excited we got. We found our way to the area the bib numbers were being handed out and found that for some random reason I was in a faster Corral than Christie. We figured we would just sneak her into mine, no biggie. Found our goodie bags, hit some vendors, bought Christie a running outfit, some Jelly Belly Energy Beans and headed for the car. Not bad, it’s still barely 4pm.
We found our Hotel and checked in. Thankfully Don travels a lot so our free room was upgraded to a “more spacious Family Suite”. Wow! Thankfully we were upgraded as the room would have been VERY tiny otherwise. As we began to get our things ready for our run we realized I have no bib ties for my spibelt and no safety pins in the kit. We decided to go back to the Expo to buy some. Of course because that was logical. A little farther to walk this time along with jokes that we should be using our Garmin’s to track our mileage and we made our $1.00 purchase and left. My feet were already hurting by the time we made it back to the car as I was walking in flip flops. Oops!
We dined at the Cheesecake Factory and headed back to our room by 8:30 pm for showers and early bedtime. Christie had a hard time sleeping. She SAYS I was snoring but I don’t snore so I’m sure she’s crazy.
0300 came VERY early. Quick wake up showers, gliding our bodies up and dressing in a sleepy yet excited state followed by microwave English muffins with Peanut Butter and an apple served as breakfast. Not the normal pre run fare but it’s what we had.
We rushed out the door when Christie was SURE she saw the shuttle on the other side of the street. We wandered out into the dark at 0340 and walked to a nearby hotel that was on the shuttle list and waited. We finally saw a shuttle pull up across the street, so we darted across 6 lanes of no traffic and thankfully the driver saw us as he was pulling away and picked us up. We made it to the Downtown Disney Shuttle Parking and had to walk to the other end of Downtown Disney. Again, why didn’t we turn on our Garmin’s? Grrrrr
We gathered with other early arrivers in the Lilo parking lot, which would become the Family Reunion Area, and waited for instructions on our Corral assignments. We found Fellow Bakersfield Distance Program runner Diane Daves and chatted until we were called to our corrals.
Christie and I took the LONG walk to Corral F which was up a hill quite a way away from the starting line. As we walked along with 1000’s of the 14,000 other runners we felt like sheep, trudging along, pressed against each other with NO idea of what lay ahead of us. We finally found Corral F only to hear that no, even if we stay at the very back, a G person can not enter the F corral. We had not seen a single sign to show where G was so got directions which included going back the way we had come, against the 1000s of people still coming our way, back around the corner and parallel to the D,E,F corrals. Of course that’s where it is. Again, why aren’t our Garmin’s on??
We finally settle into Corral G so we can run together. It’s now 20 minutes until the wheelchairs take off, which is 7 groups before us. Time to sit down and try to stay warm. A little before 6 both of our bladders are bursting so Christie tries to go through the crowd to the outhouses along the entry road. The staff told her she couldn’t go out even though there were tons of people in that section which was overflow G corral. We found out later that not only were these overflow G corral but also some A, B, C, D, E & F runners who were trapped when they got in to go to the bathroom and were not allowed back out OR were late arrivals to their corrals and had to start in this overflow area.
Finally the other corrals began to move up towards the starting line and our gate was opened as well. Our leaders led us toward the starting line where we were able to spread out a bit. Those from the overflow area were rushing to get ahead of all of the rest of us. What did we care? We weren’t trying to break any records. We were there to have fun!!!
We got the GO announcement and everybody surged forward. There were blankets, sweat jackets and various other objects strewn everywhere. I nearly kicked a cell phone that was on the ground so stooped over to pick it up as I walked along. Big mistake! You could almost hear the brakes behind me as people surging forward screeched to a halt and/or swerved to avoid a rear ending accident. Sorry. Somebody would be looking for this and the next person may step on the phone and break it. I figured I would hand the phone off to an official at the starting line but soon we saw a woman trying to gather things off the ground, camera, chapstick, money and “YES Thank you, you found my phone!!” Yeah! Not even to the starting line and we’ve made somebody happy which made us happy.
Finally we crossed the starting line and started our Garmin’s and were off! Our original plan was to walk for 5 minutes and then run a minute, walk a minute. With all the walking we had already done that morning we decided to just start out with a light jog and go right into our intervals. Our pace was in the 11’s to start with and I knew there was no way I could keep that pace up for 13 miles so I slowed down quite a bit for the second mile.
The first set of outhouses which were around 1.5 miles had HUGE lines so we just kept on going figuring we would hit the second group. When we finally got into Disney California we ran directly to the first set of restrooms we knew about, which happened to be right at the Mile 2 marker. There was a short line but it moved quickly and I swear I never knew I could hold that much liquid in me and run. I’m pretty sure the fact that I was able to run so much faster after that was because I didn’t have to hold my bladder and run at the same time!
Lot’s of character opportunities that we HAD to stop for. We would see them up ahead and run as fast as we could to get to them, take our photos (rest time) and then run again. This worked well for us and although it made our 5K time really slow, when you consider how many times we stopped within that 5K, we did pretty darn good! We made it to the 4 Mile drop dead zone with 2+ minutes to spare. Woo Hoo, no sweeper van coming along to pick us up.
After Mile 4 we moved out of the parks and onto city streets. Our goals then became running until the base of the overpass so we wouldn’t lose the time walking up the hill, running to the next stop light or to the Mile Marker sign when we’d see it ahead. We were still basically following the walk 1 run 1 pattern, but trying to switch it up to keep it fun. There were families and friends as well as random people cheering from the side of road here and there, but there wasn’t as much entertainment to keep us entertained. The miles from 4 – 9 were really hard although every mile or so there was 1 couple with a sign reading GO TIFFANY GO that kept me motivated. I don’t know who Tiffany was but I know her family worked hard to get around the roadblocks to beat her to the next mile marker and still meet her at the finish line.
About 5.5 miles we came across a Mariachi band and some dancers. This was kind of cool and fit into the neighborhood we were in. The music was a nice break from the sounds of huffing and puffing. This is also when my hips really started to bother me. This happened during my 10K run as well and I knew I could keep going as long as I took short strides and didn’t push it too hard. The 10K mark I thought I was ahead of my time from August 21st, however now I realize that I was 3 minutes behind my Howlin’ at the Moon time. Oh well.
Between Miles 8 and 9 we went behind the Honda Center and along the Santa Ana River. Yeah. Um. The Kern River has more water in it. Rare, but for once true. The smell wasn’t bad but it was dusty. We passed a bum with his cart who looked rather annoyed and confused that we had invaded his quiet morning as well as some crazy on his bike TRYING to ride the bike trail in the opposite direction as us. You would have thought he would have given up long ago with the throngs of people running through this section and simply stepped off the trail. At this point I remembered I had Jelly Beans and consumed them to try to get some energy and guzzled some water. I was still chewing about the time we were running into the Angels Stadium. This REALLY got us motivated as the path through the parking lot as well as all the lower seats were filled with various boy, girl and cub scouts and their parents. TONS of cheering kids that held their hands out to give you a high 5 as you passed by. Of course we had to stop and take a photo or two!
Angels stadium seem to energize everybody, or maybe it was the Cliff Shots they were handing out (I didn’t eat one I had beans) but every bodies spirits seemed to be lifted in the group we were keeping pace with. A little more laughing and chatting could be heard which was helped pass the time. We needed to use the restroom again before Mile 10 but went beyond it as we didn’t want to somehow fall behind the 16 minute mile requirement by being held up at the restrooms, which of course were conveniently located BEFORE the 10 mile mark. Again, how does one hold so much and still run? My speed should have picked up but my feet were really tired by 10.5 miles and my hips were done. Onward we trudged.
Mile 11 was immediately followed by a long tunnel almost completely filled with cheer leaders from various schools. I had to laugh when one of the gals running behind me commented as the cheers bounced off the walls, that we were in Cheerleader Hell. They were cute and bouncy and full of energy that none of us could even think of having. They were shouting out names as we passed by, and it was nice to hear your name being shouted in a cheer from a stranger. It was also really nice to leave the Loooooong tunnel and get some peach and quiet back. We also passed this guy walking the opposite direction while in the tunnel. Not sure WHAT was up with him. No medal visible and looking dejected so maybe he was just DONE?
At 11.5 miles we ran through our last water station. I filled my water bottle again and actually downed 2 cups of PowerAde. I had not been taking it but my legs and back were starting to cramp so I think that was a mistake. It tasted great and I wished I had been taking it all along. Mile 12 was REALLY long and took us back behind Disney California and toward the Downtown Disney area. I didn’t think we’d ever get to the 13 Mile Marker but when we saw it we sprinted a little bit.
It was after taking the 13 mile photo that it clicked that we had another .10 miles to run! Really? How in the heck did I forget that??? Onward we went into the friends and families that were left in the cheering section, through the finish line crowd which included Mickey, Minnie, and Chip & Dale.
Wow! We had just complete our first ever Disney half Marathon!!! This was the farthest I’d ever run and I was almost too tired to celebrate. We limped away to get our medals, get some ice for our injured parts and have our photos taken before limping onward to munch on fresh bagels, oranges, banana and PowerAde.
The event was over and we slowly made our way through Downtown Disney, to the shuttle and back to our room for a shower before driving home. Downtown Disney NEVER seemed so big before and of course again we wondered why we had not reset our Garmin’s to measure our distances.
Running Disney was a great experience. I wish I had been better prepared for the event, but I’m thrilled with the outcome. Christie and I have already decided we need to do this again next year as well as doing the Princess Half in Florida for her 30th Birthday. It’s all about the Coast to Coast Medal now!
