Last weekend was the Tinker Bell Half Marathon Weekend at Disneyland in California. The weekend consists of 3 runs – a 5k on Friday, 10k on Saturday, and half-marathon on Sunday. Last year I ran the 10k. This year I returned and participated in the 10k again, but this time my mother joined me.
We had a lot of fun!
I flew down to California on Friday and we drove out to Disneyland where we picked up our race packets from the Health and Fitness Expo at the Disneyland Hotel. We then lounged around our hotel since we had to be up early Saturday morning in order to be lined up in our corral by the race’s start at 5:30am.
Although you couldn’t tell it was 5:30am by the energy of all the participants waiting for the race to start! It was raining a bit when we left the hotel but the rain had stopped by the time the race began. My mom and I decided to wear bright green tutus, so we fit right in with all the other costume-wearing runners. We had wings, but since it was raining in the morning we weren’t sure how they would hold up so we nixed them. We’ll save those for next year!
Our 10k took us through the streets surrounding Disneyland and then though Disneyland and California Adventure and their back lots. With over 4000 runners, the route got a bit crowded at times which made it a little hard to run, but that worked well in our favor since we ended up walking almost the entire way.
It was strange to see Main Street empty and no lines for any of the rides, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise. We got to run through Mickey’s Toontown and Sleeping Beauty Castle and around the Matterhorn and through Tomorrowland. We ran next to Cars Land and California Screamin’ and finished with a jaunt through Downtown Disney.
We ended the run under pace and well ahead of the final participants. It’s always nice to tell friends that you did not get picked up for going too slow!
Until next year Tinker Bell!!
Leave a Reply