I look forward to this race each year. It is my absolute favorite race. It helps that I'm a big Disney nut and the half marathon distance is my favorite race distance.
It's a double race weekend!
Since I had a race on Saturday, I decided to go to the expo after work on Friday. For lunch I ate a Big Mac combo plus a Filet o' Fish sandwich. The drive over to Disneyland was rough. The parking at Downtown Disney was packed and very busy. I'm sure it's always this busy on Friday nights. Shirt and packet pickup was the same as it has been the last couple of years. You first go to the underground parking structure next to the Disneyland hotel to pick up your bib. Then you go back up to the expo in the convention hall to pick up your shirt and goodie bag.
This year The Lasting Commemoratives booth was passing out a free poster. But you had to send them your email address and they would in turn email you a coupon to print out. You would need this coupon to exchange for the poster. What a clever way to collect emails.
Free poster
Race day
Goal A: sub 2:00
Goal B: sub 2:10
I got to the Mickey and Friend's parking structure before 4am. Parking cost was $15 this year. I walked downstairs to use the restroom before taking a nap in my car. At around 5am, I walked over to the start area. A couple of my Marathon Maniac friends spotted me. I hung out with them near the gear check area. The volunteers there were pretty chipper. They were enthusiastically welcoming all of the runners. We took some pictures, used the portapotties for one last time, and then headed over to the starting corrals.
Waiting in corral A
The race
While waiting in corral A, we spotted some costumed friends that we met last year. "Russell" and "Kevin" had upgraded their costumes and hoped to take a picture with Dug. But unfortunately Disney does not bring out the characters from Up for this race. I also bumped into Chicrunner. I did not know that she was running the race. It took a second for me to figure out her costume. On the starting line screen, it displayed that there were 551 remaining legacy runners. I wonder how many will be left by the 10th year?
I met "Russell" and "Kevin" last year
Chicrunner as Mike Wazowski
I started the race off at what felt to be a comfortable pace. I wanted to make sure that I did not run any miles under 8 minutes. It was crowded as usual. I was passing a bunch of slower runners, but there were plenty that was passing me. Just like last year, my fast friend passed me just after the second mile. She went one to finish around 1:30ish. I kept the pace as evenly as possible. Just like a couple years ago, Marathon Mitch was waiting by the mile 5 marker.
Coming up to mile 5
By about the 10k mark, I had to shut things down because I just didn't have the fitness for a half marathon. My friend caught me at an aid station where I was dumping water on my head. I began taking walk breaks here and there. It was cool to see my coworker and her kids cheering inside the Angels Stadium as I ran around the warning track. There was chaffing in the inner thigh area that was really annoying. I had to convince myself to jog it in instead of walking too much. I coasted to the finish line just under 2 hrs. My legs were very tired and felt very spent.
1: 8:12
2: 8:20
3: 8:23
4: 8:35
5: 8:41
6: 8:39
7: 9:24
8: 9:07
9: 9:43
10: 9:18
11: 10:24
12: 9:33
13: 10:13
13.1: 0:52
Finish: 1:59:22
After picking up my finisher's medal with a legacy runner lanyard. I met up with a couple of my running friends in the finishing area. Volunteers passed out chill towels, Powerade, water, a box full of post-race snacks, and bananas. I loved the organization of this race. Every aspect of the race was very well organized. They had enough bananas to feed an army.
Box of snacks
Lots of yellow bananas!
Normally I go to the nearby the Original Pancake House to eat brunch with my friends, but one of them didn't run the race this year so no post race brunch was planned. I wanted to get my 15 dollars worth of parking, so I decided to stick around. After dropping off my race stuff and changing out of my race shirt at my car, I walked back to the finish line to watch some of the final finishers. I then walked over to the World of Disney store to check out their stuff. I usually buy a new necktie every year. This year I ended up buying a Turkey Leg cap and a Turkey Leg shirt. I wish they would start selling turkey legs in Downtown Disney just like they do over at Walt Disney World.
Turkey leg cap
Turkey leg shirt
I can't wait to run this race again next year. I'm glad that I got my legs healthy enough to finish the race under 2hrs even with a 10k race the day prior. This is one expensive race, but it is worth it. If there's an issue, they always take care of it the following year. One thing about this race is that I wish they would do a more significant medal update from year to year. For the first time, this year's race shirt did not have a picture of Mickey on it. I will try and sign up for the race again when I'm at the WDW race expo.
Finisher's medal with Legacy lanyard
Shirt and medal
1 comment:
I love ChicRunner
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