The Mouse House Run

Today was the Disneyland Half-Marathon. Back in February, Elizabeth, Jan and I ran in the Surf City 5K and planned on running in a 10K in May. Elizabeth decided to also sign up for the Half-Marathon, which I decided not to do, until I read her blog and found she decided to participate in it because of her friends (Jan and I). Shoot, that meant I was going to have to participate in the Half-Marathon too. I signed up and a didn't think much of it since September was a long way off; remember, we signed up in February. Fast forward to yesterday. First I find out the Jan is battling walking pneumonia and wont be joining us, then Elizabeth, Terri and I arrived at the Disneyland Hotel late in the day for check-in and realized that was a mistake. They ran out of S-M-L t-shirts. How that happens I'm not sure. We all order a specific sized t-shirt when we register. They must've let people change their shirt sizes so those of us at the end have to wait for them to mail ours to us. Then we were in line for the runner's goody bag, and they were almost out of them. Now this one I couldn't understand. They were expecting 13,500 people for the Half-Marathon and around 5,000 for the 5K and Kid's Runs. I don't get. The lady in line behind Elizabeth was just as frustrated but reminded us "to not let this spoil the magic." Good advice.

Elizabeth and I met at 4:30 this morning to carpool up to the race. There wasn't as much traffic as we expected so we arrived at the "starting line" by 5:20. The wheelchair participants started at 6:00 am with the elite runners starting at 6:02 - that wasn't us. By the time our group started it was close to 6:30. We planned to walk it but ended up walking and jogging - probably a 60/40 split. Throughout the race there was entertainment along the way. Not just the other participants, but also bands, cheer teams and dancers along the route. The best part, besides the finish, was entering Anaheim Stadium with a bunch of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts cheering us on and even squirting us with water. There we saw Bettina and Rachel - thanks you too, you'll never know how much it helped seeing you! - but never saw David. From the stadium back to Downtown Disney we had about 3.5 miles to go. And a l-o-o-o-o-ng 3.5 miles. Even though I spent the rest of the day icing my knees and some pulled muscles, I'm ready to go again next year. I'll train more and be ready. In fact, I'm already signed up. Come on Jan and Elizabeth - time to sign up! Here are some photos of the event.