13.1 - We Did It!

Way back in April, Kevin and I signed up for the Disneyland Half Marathon.  As the temperatures creeped up above 110 degrees (Arizona's August was the hottest on record), we had sitters come over at 5:30 a.m. and even earlier, so we could hit the pavement on our training runs.  We'd freeze our water bottles overnight, but within an hour they'd be melted and warm.

As the date approached and work schedules threatened to do us in, we considered backing out.  But ultimately, we decided to see our goal through.  That's how on labor day weekend, at 6:00 a.m., we found ourselves lined up with 12,000 plus other individuals, listening to a particularly cheerful MC root us on at the start.  He claimed Mickey and Minnie were up there with him, but really, we couldn't tell from our place in line.  I have to say this though, the Disney folks had the best sound system of any endurance sports event I've ever participated in.

The first 4 miles were great fun, as we wound through both Disney and California Adventure Land.  Lots of well-known characters (Pluto, Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella, Darth Vadar...) and all the park personnel were out cheering the runners on.  Runners would stop during the race to go get in a line and get a photo with their favorite character.

Snow White's line seemed particularly long.  Personally, I was thinking, "Hey, don't you know there's a race going on?"  But I could tell Kevin was sorely tempted when he saw Tigger.

Between miles 9 and 10, we had another fun adventure.  The race route went right through the Angel's baseball stadium.  We ran through the infield and could watch ourselves on the jumbo tron.

Kevin only cursed once, at mile 12, but I reminded him that this was a Disney race.  As we rounded a curve toward the finish, he also called out to a silent school band, "Play Something!"  Runners around us chuckled.  Kevin responded, "No, really.  Play Something!!"  He was looking for a little motivation into the home stretch.

We finished, holding hands, in 2 hours and 15 minutes!!  A 10 minute, 18 second mile pace, which was well below our goal, made us very happy.  The funny thing was that we actually got faster on the latter half of the race, because the first few miles were so slow due to all the other runners we had to be careful not to trip over!

All in all a great run!