Half Marathon Recap – Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend

It’s half marathon day and it’s time to close out another Dumbo Double Dare!

To continue with the fun fact theme I had going into the race here are some stats for this year’s race!

Winners:

James Lander – 1:08:56
Momoko Tanaka – 1:21:30 (She beat Jennifer Berry who’s been winning a lot of the runDisney race by 1:51 – now that’s a race!)

Total Finishers:

15228 (5742 men and 9486 women, well done… ladies)
Oldest Finisher: Flor Irlandez who is 83 years young! You go girl! (She beat out two 80 year olds to win her age division!)

I LOVE the Disneyland Half Marathon, I don’t really know why but this race has energy. Between the runners, the Disney, the marching bands, the chearleaders, the cultural groups, and the cars along the course this is just a GREAT race! Every 1/4 to 1/2 mile you come across something else to cheer you on!

The night before the run I went to the Team Lemon dinner because I chose to run the Dumbo Double Dare in memory of my mom by supporting Team Lemon. This is an amazing organization that is helping to fund research to find cures for childhood cancer. Please check it out here: Mouse Runner’s Lemonade Stand

After dinner, we wandered through the Grand Californian and sat next to the hearth for a bit just relaxing. We then checked out Wonderland Gallery and then headed back to the room, even though it had been a relaxing day we were both pretty beat.

Once again 4am came bright and early. This time I was running in a more traditional running outfit and I was ready to test out some speed on the course!

#BibRavePro #CheckOutMyCalves

Ready to kick butt!

I left my hotel around 4:45 and it took me a bit longer to get over because there was a back up at bag check. Doh!

Bag check line – took about 5 minutes or so once they got the process sorted out!

I got to the start area right around 5 to meet up with fellow BibRavePro Erin who was also running the Dumbo Double Dare! She looked so cute as Smee!

After I dropped my bag and visited a porto-potty it was to the corral for me all the way up in A! The past Disneyland Ambassador came up and sang the National Anthem flawlessly and with the countdown from Rudy, we were off!

I decided to leave the phone at home so I apologize for the lack of pictures but I’ll take you on an imaginary journey!

We started off going south on Disneyland Dr before turning in to the backstage of DCS where they had floats and entertainment out, once in the parks they had great Hero/Villian photo ops thoughout! They had King Henry and Robin Hood, Mulan and Shan Yu, Lady Tremaine and Cinderella and others like that. It was pretty cool!

However, it was CROWDED. I started towards the middle of A and I didn’t feel like I could really run until we left the parks, this was evident when I went back and looked at my 5k splits. I’m not sure what the problem was but this was the first time I’ve had this much of an issue with crowding in A for a Disneyland race. I think part of it was that normally we run to Katella in the first mile and we get to spread out and do some easy pacing to get everyone “sorted out” before narrowing the paths in the parks, but this year we just went backstage immediately so we never got to “open up”.

As I was saying, once we exited the parks it was wide roads and lots of community support. There were so many marching bands and cheerleading groups and then the boy scouts and girl scouts in Angel Stadium are always amazing. But my favorite part is always… the CARS!

Every year they get what seems like 4 or 5 different car clubs to come out, park, and cheer on runners starting around mile 6. The cars range from Model T’s to the latest Camaroes and they go on for what I think is 2 miles (it feels like forever in the best way). They are some of the nicest people and I love saying good morning as I pass them in their camping chairs drinking their coffee. THIS IS MY FAVORITE!

So after the cars, you run on the Santa Ana trail and then enter the stadium where the girl scouts and boys scouts are. Once you exit the stadium, your just running back to Disneyland and you have about a 5k left. You enter through backstage DCA and then head back up to the Disneyland Hotel. This stretch is fun and it’s cool when people get competitive because it’s such a straight shot. This year I ran prety much the whole race behind this one woman, until at mile 12.5 she tripped and fell but then right before the finish line, she comes BLAZING past me. She was flying. At the finish I told her I enjoyed pacing against her and glad she recovered so well from the stumble!

Across the finish line to get those BEAUTIFUL medals. I love “picking my volunteer” at the finish, I lock in on one and I let them know they have MY medal. I feel like it makes it more fun and on races when you get to “pick out” multiple medals it makes it extra fun because you get to keep picking medals!