2013 Tinker Bell Half Marathon - Coast to Coast Challenge Finisher

I am late! I am late... for a very important date! 

OK here we go, my last Disney race recap... until Sept!

New Race Course

Some cool facts about this race

12,000 bananas were given out this weekend at the race.

Saturday,  Jan 19th - Expo

We drove to Anaheim fairly early on Saturday. My friend Jen picked me up around 7:00am.  We wanted  to hit the expo before anybody else for a chance to register for the (Inaugural) Dumbo Double Dare Challenge this fall. What is the DDD? It's a 10k on Sat followed by a 13.1 mile on Sun. 

I had already registered for the Dumbo Double Dare at the Walt Disney World Expo, but I also wanted to be there early to check the Coast to Coast Challenge Merchandise and to make sure I had the chance to exchange my race shirt in case it was needed.  

What is the Coast To Coast Challenge?  You run a half / full marathon in Walt Disney World and a half in Disneyland on the same calendar year and you receive an extra medal. 

In my case, I ran 3 races in the East Coast ( WDW Family Fun Run 5k on Jan 11 + WDW Half Marathon on Jan 12 + WDW Full Marathon on Jan 13) and 1 race in the west coast, the Tinker Bell Half Marathon.

We arrived at the Expo around 9:00am. We picked up our race packets including shirt, bib, a bag and Disney's Official Race Guide.  To my surprise, the shirt fit me perfectly. This was the first time. To an even bigger surprise, my daughter was featured in Disney's Official Race Guide, a picture from last year's kid race. Yahoo!

At the expo, I met more friends from the running group Embrace The Crazy

After the expo, we dropped our bags and headed out for lunch at the Cheese Cake Factory, one of our favorite carb-loading restaurant.

Sunday, Jan 20th - Race Day

This year I stayed at one of the Best Western Hotels in Katella. It's not my favorite place in the world but it has its pluses. One of them is that it's just a few minutes walk from the starting line or should I say the staging area. I still left my room at 3:30ish. I met a group of runners, the Mad hatters, at the Disneyland Hotel Hat at 4:00. Fifteen minutes later, I met my friends from the Embrace The Crazy group.

We were asked to head to our corrals at 4:30am.  Mine was A for awesome, per Rudy's words. Rudy is the race announcer. I see him in almost all the races. 

The race started at 5:00am. I crossed the starting line a few seconds after the gun went off. The first two miles were over a couple of overpasses before entering the parks. First we ran through California Adventure. I saw the characters from Monsters Inc. but I didn't stop for pictures. I wanted to run. We soon passed Cars Land which looked beautiful at this time of the day with the neon lights. There were short lines in front of Lightning McQueen and Mater but  I decided again not to take pictures, since I had some good shots with both of them at the Art of Animation (Cars) Resort the weekend before. 

From California Adventure, we went to Downtown Disney and Disneyland. I love love love running through Main Street. I think I mention this in every single Disney race recap. There is something very special about this and the lit up castle in the background. I never get tired of it. This time around, I noticed how small Sleeping Beauty's castle looks in comparison to Cinderella's castle in Walt Disney World. Still, the experience of running through the castle is surreal. 

At mile 6, we left the park, My legs were still tired from the Goofy Challenge but I was happy that my piriformis was not acting up. No sciatica pain today.  The next miles were through the city of Anaheim.  At mile 8, they gave us GU. At mile 10, I smiled knowing that I'd soon receive my Coast to Coast Challenge medal. The last 2 miles were fast ones. Not enough for a PR but that was not the goal this time around. I just wanted to take it easy and enjoy the race. My finishing time was 2:13, one of my slowest at Disneyland. I was still very happy to finish all these challenges. Can you tell by this picture?

2013 Tinker Bell Half Marathon- Race shirt and medals

55. 5 miles,  4 races in 7 days, 6 beautiful medals.

I think I need a medal rack.