This was a big year for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon. It was their 5th year anniversary. After work, I drove up to Downtown Disney. I arrived at about 5:15 pm where it was relatively easy for me to find a parking spot in the Downtown Disney lot. Per the usual, I made my way down the ramp to pick up my race packet. As I picked up my bib, the volunteer noticed that I was a legacy runner, so she informed me where to pick up my legacy gift. I took my photo for the Pixie Dust Challenge before heading over to the booth to pick up my gift. It was located just to the left of the legacy runner board. After finding my name, I got in line to pick up my gift which was a compact mirror. The lady told me, "sorry, they aren't giving out something different for guys." That's quite okay. I'm just glad they let us guys crash a women's race.
Legacy Item Pick-up booth
Legacy Runner board
Legacy compact mirror
I then made my way up the ramp to the expo. After picking up my race shirt and bag, I zigzagged my way through the expo trying my best not to buy anything. I was successful since they always gear all of the merchandise towards women. Before heading for home, I got in line to take a picture in front of the Tinker Bell background.
Expo
10k shirt
Half marathon shirt
Pixie Dust Challenge shirt
Ready to fly!
Friday 5/6
Friday night, I dug out my blue pixie wings to go with the blue Star Wars: The Dark Side half marathon shirt that I bought at Walt Disney World. I also dug out a pair of blue running shoes so that everything matched.
10k flat runner
Saturday 5/7
Per the usual, I got to the Mickey and Friends parking structure at about 3:30 am in an attempt to score free parking. This time I made sure to go to the lane furthest left. When I got to the booth, the attendant was attempting to charge my credit card but was unsuccessful. The other attendant was offering to charge it for her, but she declined and gave me complimentary parking. She told me that sometimes they'll have trouble with their machines that early in the morning. She also gave me an ESPN Zone info card telling me to stop in for a Pixie Punch after the race.
Free parking
Pixie Punch
At about 4:15 am, I used the parking structure restroom and headed for the staging area. I waited in the bleachers for my friend to show up where light rain started to fall. The mylar blanket that I brought with me turned out to be very useful. Thankfully the rain never was at any point heavy.
Once my friend showed up at around 5 am, we began heading over to the starting corrals. We made our way to the front of the corral so that we could get a good view of our friends up on the starting stage.
10k pre-race from Robert
I started the race attempting to maintain a 7:30 min per mile pace. However I felt really out of shape. After climbing the two overpasses during the first mile, I knew that I could not maintain that kind of pace. I pulled back on the pace and by mile 3, I was starting to struggle. I was still dealing with the usual sore left foot and sore right hip. The right hip was really bothering me during the last two miles. I kept fading and just couldn't get the right leg to move at a faster pace.
10k finish line
Click here for my Garmin data.
Per the usual finisher chute, I picked up my medal, a bottle of water, a bottle of Powerade, a mylar blanket, a banana, and a box of snacks. I had stuff to do later in the day and my friend had another race to get to, so we headed back to our cars at the parking structure.
10k medal
For lunch, I went out with my family to Daifuku to celebrate my dad's 71st birthday. As I was getting in and out of the car or even walking around, I was having discomfort in my right hip. I was hoping that it would clear up by tomorrow.
Dad's 71st birthday lunch
For dinner, I met up with a few of my good friends at JT Schmid's. I usually only get to see them at Disney races. There was an Angels game across the street, so that meant parking gets tricky for this place. Supposedly they had complimentary valet parking, but decided to just park at a cheap event parking spot across the street for $5. As I was crossing the street, I was feeling a bit disappointed as my limp was getting worse. I found my friends and we were seated after a short wait. I ordered a Grandpa Emil's Amber and a Grilled Salmon salad. The menu was a bit misleading. It said that it was a regular grilled salmon salad, but it was brought to the table as a Thai salad. Oh well, I have no problem rolling with the punches especially since I've had their Thai Salmon salad before. For some reason, I had trouble putting away the salad, but eventually I finished it. After we were done, we went our separate ways.
Grandpa Emil's Amber
Grilled Salmon Thai salad
Before going to bed, I dug out my orange pixie wings and my orange Team World Vision shirt to go with it. I also got out my pair of orange shoes to complete the whole outfit.
Half marathon flat runner
Sunday 5/8
As with yesterday, I showed up at 3:30 am and made my way over to the lane furthest left. The booth attendant asked if I was a runner or a volunteer. I said runner and he still gave me a complimentary volunteer parking. Oh well, I wasn't about to turn down free parking. Even though I had gone to the restroom before coming to the park, I felt the urge to go again. I thought nothing really about it except that maybe it was just a bonus bowel movement from eating a salad the night before. What worried me more was that my right hip was really sore as I headed to the restroom. I bumped into my friend as I was headed back to my car. I didn't get to rest too much in my car, as I was getting some abdominal discomfort. So I gathered my race stuff and headed back to the restroom.
I almost took a DNS on this race. As I was sitting on the can, I thought about just getting back in the car and driving home. I had a lot of discomfort in my right hip just from walking around and to make things worse, apparently I had food poisoning from dinner last night. I had watery diarrhea, abdominal pain, and cramps. The poop had for the most part subsided, so I decided to give it a go since it would suck to lose my legacy status on the 5th year.
Before going inside of corral B, I waited at the entrance for my friend to show up. While waiting, it was pretty cool to see some of the costumes. Some of them were really good!
When corral B was released, my friend started with me and was planning to stay with me to make sure that I was ok. I could not run with a comfortable stride from the very first step. It was just a fast hobble. However things did get a little bit better as we got to the first overpass. I was able to run better as we hit the uphills. After we reached the first mile marker and turned into the park coming off of Harbor Blvd, I told me friend to take off. I told him that I would take my time and that he should go ahead and run his own race. I then snaked through parts of Disneyland and then at about mile 3, I made my way over to Disney California Adventure. After running through DCA, I exited the park at about mile 5 into the streets of Anaheim. I headed up Walnut St towards Broadway where I made a right turn. This year the Red Hat Society was relocated to the Center Street Promenade at about mile 8. This was where I started feeling very tired and rundown. I decided to start taking more walk breaks. At almost mile 10, I came up to a pair of runners dressed up as CDA members. I ran past them and pulled over to take a picture of them.
CDA!
During the last couple of miles, I ran into my friend as well as the legendary Jeff Galloway. For some reason, my right hip felt much better and I was finally able to run with a more comfortable stride. I tried to get my friend to push through the last mile, but he said that he needed to take a walk break. I started 3 corrals ahead of him, so I encouraged him to finish strong and left him. I pushed ahead just wanting to get it over with and complete the race. I got a nice shout out from my friends as I crossed the finish line.
Half marathon finish line
Click here for my Garmin data.
After crossing the finish line, I received my hard earned medal and got in line to get my Pixie Dust Challenge medal. After they checked my picture, they allowed me to get the extra medal. In the line next to mine was a lady dressed up as Rapunzel with Pascal on her shoulder. She had just received 2 coast to coast medals as well as the Pixie Dust Challenge medal. I pretty much ran the majority of my race around her. I congratulated her and took a picture of her as hers was one of the better costumes that I saw out there. Then I got a bottle of water, a bottle of Powerade, a mylar blanket, a banana, and a box of snacks.
Rapunzel and Pascal
This was the second time that I had run into issues on race day that almost led to the end of my legacy status. My stride was really awkward from the beginning and I dealt with abdominal cramps and pain every now and then. I was happy just to finish in one piece without crapping my shorts. I was grateful that I was actually able to run with a decent stride during the last mile or so. I'm pretty sure it's an IT band issue with the right hip. My brain felt a little foggy after the race, similar to the way I feel after completing a marathon. I might have been a bit dehydrated due to the food poisoning. I certainly felt exhausted. I was a bit surprised to see that my friends were all still at the finish area. After trading race stories and snapping a few pictures, we went our separate ways.
Half marathon post race from Robert
Pixie Dust Challenge complete!
2016: 2:28:06
2015: 1:48:59
2014: 1:44:31
2013: 1:55:35
2012: 2:08:41
It took me almost an extra 40 minutes to finish the race this year compared to last year. Oh well, a finish is a finish. As Ricky Bobby would say, "if you ain't first, you're last!" :) Here's to another 5 years!
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