Inaugural 5k Recap – Disneyland Paris Half Marathon 2016

As expected, morning came too quickly. It was a chilly 5am when I woke up, hit one snooze and threw on some clothes so that I could grab some coffee and breakfast foods for the boyfriend and myself (guys, espresso is an amazing thing!).

The Hotel New York (any many of the Disney Resorts in Paris) offers a complimentary breakfast which is quite tasty and for runners they were offering an extra early light spread (a collation). There was coffee, tea, juice, milk, cereal, bananas, and apples available too us. It was really nice. I grabbed some stuff and scurried back upstairs to finish getting ready.

We were out the door by 5:45ish and made our way to the start area.

One thing that is different here in Paris is that all bags get put through a scanner and everyone walks through a medal detector to enter the parks and Disney Village. It moves quickly and honestly makes me feel a lot safer and I wish the US parks would figure out how to make this work. The bag scanner seems a lot faster than half-ass-edly rummaging through someone’s bag and random search.

We got through security fine and then made our way to the start at the Disney Events Center. Once there you could hang out in the expo pavilion or head outside to a waiting area where they had a photo station set up.

We then headed out to the start area around 6, which was way too early. For some reason the “be in your corral by 6:30” stuck in my head as “it starts at 6:30” so we stood out there in the morning chill for an hour.

There were some bilingual runDisney host personalities that got us excited and some people to help us warm up a bit. The air was full of excitement!

Finally it was time to go. The race started on time and we crossed the start around 7:17 (according to my Garmin). We were in Corral C of the 3 corrals and they were staggering the start between corrals too. So in Corral A (pretty small) they had 2 or 3 starts and then Corral B had 5 or 6 starts and then it was our turn. It all moved smoothly and really kept everyone spread out along the course. I was a big fan of this type of start!

So finally it was our turn to have Remy send us on our way! Un, Deux, Trois, Allez!

We started off turning right towards the Disneyland Hotel/Disneyland Paris Park. We ran all over the park and there were SO MANY CHARACTERS! There were at least 6 or 7 throughout the 3.1 mile journey!

We stopped for a few and had fun all along the way. The cast members were fantastic and there was just an air of excitement and fun around everything. It was hands down one of my favorite runDisney runs.

We ran down Main St and hung a right into Tomorrowland, right in front of the castle there was a stage with 3 different villians taking pictures, Cruella De Vil, Captain Hook, and Jafar. We grabbed a pic with Jafar!

We then went through Fantasyland and we grabbed a pic with Mary, Bert and their penguin! We then ran through the castle and hung another right into Adventure Isle. By far one of the coolest themed lands!

The pirates cast members were a roundy bunch as we ran through Adventure Isle was great. This is by far one of my favorite themed lands at maybe any theme park. So beautifully detailed!

A quick loop into Frontierland and then it was enough fun for one park!

We went backstage a little bit before entering Walt Disney Studios and running around there. So many fun facades and things to see. It’s a really playful park!

We then finished up running around the parking garage and back to the start/finish area. The announcers had so much energy and it was so fun. When we finished, they had Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy all just beyond the finish line taking pictures. Awesome, except that it created a bit of a traffic jam. They race organizers quickly moved them further up the finisher shoot for photos which helped.

A medallion (I’m sad this will be my last one) and a pic with Goofy later we were done. We grabbed water and a chocolate milk (didn’t realize what it was exactly until later). We got a pic with the official backdrop and then kept on heading through. We grabbed the snack bag which had an apple, a bag of peanuts, and a cereal bar. I think you could grab a banana too but I’m not a huge fan so I skipped it.

We then headed back to the hotel to shower and grab some breakfast before a very full day of fun at Disneyland Paris! We stayed until park close at 10pm before heading back for the night. We did take a small break in the afternoon to recharge (jet lag is a drag sometimes).

Until tomorrow!