Disneyland Half-Marathon

EVENT: Disneyland Half-Marathon

DATE: Sunday, September 5, 2010
LOCATION: Anaheim, CA
RACE BEGAN: 06:00 am

FINISH TIME: 02:30:21

While I wasn't planning on "doing Disney" anytime soon, I was given the opportunity to finally run this race in place of K.C. (my classmate)'s mother, who had a running-related injury and had to sit this one out, so in the spirit of not wasting the entry completely, I was asked to step (or run) in.

We (K.C., K.C.'s husband J.T., K.C.'s parents, "The Ukrainian," and I) had our pre-dinner in Fullerton, CA at The Old Spaghetti Factory. I have not been there for a decade, so it was interesting to see how popular the place was, and how many new options they had. Out of curiosity, I opted for the gluten free pasta with mushroom/marinara sauce. It was all right, but the noodles sort of reminded me of Asian noodles, most likely because they were probably rice-based. Still, the portion wasn't large (didn't finish, though), and for a pasta dinner, it wasn't THAT heavy.

We headed back to the hotel sans "Ukrainian" and managed to get five people (of which 3 were racers) to sleep, wake, and get ready in one room. Not bad!

I have many pics from the race, but here's the jist. First, the view from the corrals.

So the whole time, the "running joke" was that since J.T. did not finish the race last year due to eating it on a "Botts' Pot" (those bumps on the road) we were VERY careful to avoid them...

Wave start = long wait time = photo op!

Early on, we got our Tower of Terror on. The fog added something...

The lovely (and blurry -- darn camera phone) couple.

The earlier miles contained sights such as these. Strangely, no Mickey, Minnie, or other such classics to be seen.

Thanks, volunteers!

And when we got out of the park and things got shady and boring, we were thankful for people like these:

Me trying to keep myself entertained on the "beautiful streets of Anaheim."

Mile markers like this one graced the course, though I did not have time to snap until this point.

The best part of all was the Honda Center/Angels' Stadium! We got to run on the field!

Our adoring fans...

Jumbo-tron treatment!

And finally, the FINISH can be seen in the near distance. Auto PR for J.T. finishing his first half-marathon.

The medal! I took a photo because I was planning on giving it to its rightful owner (K.C.'s mom), but she didn't want a medal that she didn't earn. Makes me feel a little less noble for claiming a medal I did not earn in the past...

Overall, the course is mostly flat (a few hills), but very narrow in some parts. The best parts are the beginning, mile 9 on the baseball field, and the end. The streets outside of these areas were uneven and not glam. The weather held up well -- overcast the entire time.

The course support was amazing. So many schools came out to support us! The workers in the theme park were great, too! And announcements over the speakers that went something like, "Ladies and gentlemen... the course narrows so please use caution" were awesome and very theme-park-esque.

Thanks, K.C., J.T., and parents for a fun race and your hospitality. Thanks also to "The Ukrainian" for getting me where I needed to be. This race was definitely one of my favorites because I got to document and have fun, high-fiving and thanking people. It was great running in company, as it made it go by so much more quickly. Usually, I'm so caught up with trying to get done ASAP that I don't enjoy myself at all. I think I was smiling most of the time. All in all, a great come-back race for me, since I haven't raced since June.

Finally, since this time belonged to K.C.'s mother, I felt no pressure to try to prove anything, which I think was great because I am not sure my legs can take my normal half-marathon efforts yet. My legs are sore from today at any rate. 13 miles is still 13 miles no matter how you do it. I definitely need to train more before Camarillo...

P.S. Note to self: If I ever run this race again, I should come in this (below -- photo from 2008). Definitely should have considered it beforehand.