Tinker Bell weekend part 2 - Never Land 5k

The Never Land Family Fun Run 5k started at 10:30pm on Friday night, and they started letting runners into the park at 9:30pm. I arrived around 9:40pm which initially I thought was a little early, but turned out to be very good timing. I stopped for a photo on Main Street, and you can see all the runners behind me already making their way up toward the castle.

At the Disney fun run 5ks I've done in the past, they don't give you specific corrals but will ask runners to line up near signs indicating the approximate pace you expect to run. It doesn't work that well, but at least they made an effort. For the Never Land 5k it was just first come, first served. As people arrived, they herded us into place and there was no option for faster runners to move to the front and slower runners to move to the back. I felt really bad for the people who arrived later because there had been no advance notice given that this was how it would work at the start. I know it's an untimed fun run, but still it's not fun when the course is too crowded to even be able to run.

I ended up in about the second or third corral which was actually an optimal spot for taking photos and seeing the entertainment. In the photos below you can sort of see the stage at the front left of the castle where the MCs would speak. Among their spiel, they gave us some numbers about the weekend. From what I can remember, there were 3,000-4,000 people doing the 5k. For the half, there were about 900 men registered and 10,000 women. There were runners from 48 states. Not surprisingly, California was the state with the most runners and Canada was the country (aside from the US of course) with the most runners.

For the national anthem, instead of a singer they brought out a royal trumpeter. He's standing on the castle where the spotlights are shining.

Before the start of the race, Tinker Bell appeared to wish us all a good run. (Actually this might have been before the national anthem; I can't remember anymore.) I didn't get any photos, but you can go to Brightroom to see their video of Tinker Bell. It was definitely a highlight of the evening.

So finally the race started. As expected, the first couple minutes consisted of a slow shuffle and a lot of dodging and weaving until I was able to break away from the pack. But after that I had started early enough and was fast enough to not experience any course congestion the rest of the race. Right away we saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto out on the course cheering us on. There was quite a crowd surrounding them so this was the only time I didn't stop to get a photo with the characters.

From there the course went backstage and there were some parade floats out to add some interest as we ran through.

Then we went back into Disneyland park where there were a couple of photo ops as we headed toward Frontierland. I loved the Lost Boys. They were so enthusiastic when they saw I wanted to take a photo with them and scrambled to get in place for the photo just the way I'd expect the Lost Boys to act.

After this there was about a mile of non in-park running, but there were still things to look at and plenty of cast members out to watch and cheer us on. The race logo was shone on the side of a backstage building.

I think all of the mile markers were themed, but the only one I really noticed was mile 2.

Most of the last mile of the race was inside California Adventure. Here I am running past the Monsters, Inc. ride.

I don't think this was meant to be a photo op, but I saw a Cast Member there and didn't give him much choice. I just handed him my camera and ducked under the rope.

The pirates stayed very much in character all night. The one on the right was wearing a microphone and shouting piratey words of encouragement to the runners.

The race ended on the other side of Mickey's Fun Wheel. I wish all races had such a gorgeous view coming into the finish line.

There was one last photo op with Peter Pan and Wendy...

And then a short run to the finish. (Why am I always heel striking in photos?)

I wasn't wearing my Garmin so I tried to snap a photo of the finish line clock but I had my camera on the wrong setting or something. Instead the Brightroom photographer got a funny photo of me taking a photo.

I'm pretty sure that the clock read 27-something when I finished, which is a great time considering that it took a few minutes to start and I stopped for all the photos. It helped that I never had to wait in line for any of the character photos. I also think it didn't feel like that much of an effort because I was taking breaks rather than running continuously for the entire 5k. It was more like a series of sprints.

In case you couldn't tell by all the photos, I had a ton of fun during this race. I probably would have felt differently if I had arrived later and got stuck in the crowd, but based on my experience it completely met my expectations for a Disney race and definitely got me excited for the half marathon on Sunday morning. And how can anyone not be happy seeing all the colorful lights and Mickey's smiling face?

Of course I had to get a few last photos with my finisher's medallion.

And then it was finally time to rest up for a morning run and another day at the parks.

Tinker Bell weekend part 1 - The expo

Okay, here we go with the first part of my race/trip report for Tinker Bell weekend...

Travel down to Anaheim on Friday morning went pretty well except for some confusion about my connecting gate in Seattle. I was flying into Santa Ana and that's what was printed on my boarding pass, but for some reason on the flight monitors they list it as Orange County. I sat at the wrong gate for awhile (based on the gate shown in a flight status email I got from the airline) but managed to figure it out in time to make it over to the right area of the airport just as they were boarding my flight. Once I landed in Santa Ana, I rushed out to the ground transportation area and was immediately able to get onto a SuperShuttle to the hotel. I was the last one in the van and the first one to be dropped off. Sweet!

I stayed at the Best Western Plus Anaheim Inn where I found a great rate of $89/night. At the time when I booked, it was the cheapest of the hotels that I'd consider to be within reasonable walking distance of Disneyland. There was a microwave and refrigerator in the room, the shower had good water pressure and plenty of hot water, and the bed was decent. Overall I didn't have any issues with the hotel and I'd stay there again.

After dropping off my luggage and freshening up a bit, I walked over to the Disneyland Hotel where the expo and packet pickup was held.

But before the expo, I made a quick stop at one of the Disneyland Hotel restaurants for lunch - Tangaroa Terrace.

I enjoyed my crispy tofu salad except for the citrus vinaigrette dressing which was too tangy for me. I was glad I ordered it on the side.

I had been planning to get a sweet potato cake from Tangaroa Terrace that I saw on the Disney Parks Blog... I love anything sweet potato! But unfortunately they're not being made anymore. Surprisingly, I didn't end up eating very many sweets during the trip. Disneyland doesn't have as many appealing snacks and desserts as compared to Walt Disney World.

For Disneyland races the packet pickup is in a separate area from the main expo room. This confused me when I was there a couple years ago for the Disneyland Half, but this time I knew what to expect. The packet pickup was sort of underground in a basement room. There was basically no wait as I picked up my race bibs for the 5k and half marathon, and my pre-purchased commemorative pin and park ticket. There were plenty of friendly volunteers (a common theme the entire weekend), and I got one of them to take a photo for me with this pretty backdrop.

Then I headed back up to the exhibit hall to get my race shirts and goody bags and check out the expo. I like the colors/graphics used for the 5k and I'm really happy that they did a long sleeve technical shirt for the half marathon. I may actually be able to get some use out of it! (Photos taken later in my hotel room.)

There were skirts and sparkles and wings everywhere at the expo. I guess it's to be expected at a Tinker Bell-themed event, but I'm just not really into all that girly running stuff. I wasn't very impressed with the official race merchandise either. Most of it looked very cartoony.

I picked up some free samples of Luna bars and Craisins, and some coupons for Dannon yogurt. There wasn't anything I needed or was interested in buying, but I did spend some money... on an entry to the Expedition Everest Challenge. RunDisney was offering $5 off if you registered at the expo. Not much of a discount, but I'll take it. Only a few months until my next Disney fix!

In the hallway outside the expo there was another photo opportunity. (I changed into my half marathon shirt for the photo and walk back to the hotel.)

After the expo I finally met up with my boyfriend's mom who was my travel buddy for the weekend. (In respect to her privacy, I'm not going to include her name or photo on the blog.) We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at California Adventure making use of the twilight theme park ticket that was included with the 5k registration. At first glance $99 is a lot for a 5k, but considering that I got a day's worth of entertainment from it - expo, theme park, and race - I think it was worth it.

We watched the Aladdin musical, which is a must do if you ever visit Disneyland. The Genie was awesome and I loved the music, but I think I was too tired to fully enjoy the show because there were parts where it seemed to drag. I also rode the new Little Mermaid attraction for the first time and it was neat but basically just a standard dark ride. Again, the music was the best part. (Fun fact: The Little Mermaid and Aladdin are the two movies that I remember the most from my childhood and I used to have the lyrics to Part of Your World and A Whole New World memorized.)

For dinner I had soup in a bread bowl from Pacific Wharf Cafe. It was tasty, but I would've liked more soup and less bread. At least it was filling.

My original plan had been to stay at California Adventure until park closing, but it was pretty windy and chilly outside and I didn't have a jacket with me. So we decided to just head back to the hotel to get ready for the 5k.

Found him

Overall I had a great time at Disneyland and the race was even more fun than I anticipated. But it was also a tiring weekend of sore feet and not enough sleep. And somewhere along the way I caught a cold. Luckily I'm not feeling super horrible, just a little tired and cranky, and my brain is a bit fuzzy which makes it hard to concentrate on work and I haven't been in the mood to start a race report yet. I'll get around to it soon though, because I have a lot of photos to share. I'm probably going to break the trip up into several posts which will hopefully make it easier to write.

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that I'm still going strong with my 30 day challenge despite not feeling my best. I ran everyday while at Disneyland and I did 3.1 miles on the treadmill yesterday and 2.4 miles outside today. Only 12 more days to go!

On the way to see Mickey

This is my first time using the Blogger app to post from my iPhone... I have a 2+ hour layover in Seattle so writing is a good way to pass the time.

The last few days I was really busy with work trying to get caught up before starting my vacation. I was still sending emails after midnight on Wednesday. Okay, I guess technically that's Thursday but I think you know what I mean.

I was still able to fit in my daily workouts, although on Wednesday it was just a quick two miles at 9:30pm and then back to work. 12 days of the 30 day challenge complete! There have definitely been days when I didn't feel like leaving the house so the challenge has been good for making me stay active.

Even though I'm not flying out to Anaheim until today, I took yesterday off from work so I could get some stuff done. I've found this to be a good strategy for me when getting ready to travel. It was a beautifully sunny day yesterday so of course I had to go out for a run. It was nice to head out with no specific plan in mind since I didn't have to stick to my normal nighttime running routes. I did about 7.8 miles at 9:06 pace. I took a couple photos that I'm attaching to this post but I have no idea where they're going to appear when it's published.

I woke up at 5:35 this morning for my 7am flight. That's the nice thing about flying out of small, local airports... No need to arrive two hours in advance to get through security. The 5k tonight is at 10:30 so it's going to be a long day but so worth it! I'm just doing the 5k as a fun run and planning to take a lot of photos along the way. Disneyland, here I come!

I'm going to Disneyland!

This time next week I'll be at Disneyland!

Disneyland 1/2 Marathon expo in 2009

I'm so ready for a vacation (although I'm already dreading how much work I'm going to come back to). And as much as I've enjoyed seeing how pretty everything looks covered in snow, I'm ready to escape to someplace warmer. But there's one thing I didn't realize until this week when I started looking at the weather forecast... it actually gets pretty cold in Anaheim at night.

I'm going to be running two races while I'm down there. The Never Land 5k is on Friday night and starts at 10:30pm. The Tinker Bell Half Marathon is on Sunday morning and starts at 5:45am. At first I had been thinking... running in California? No problem, I'll just pack my usual race tanks and shorts. But now that I know it'll be around 50 degrees during both races, I'm definitely rethinking my clothing options. I'm leaning towards long sleeves and capris, although I'll probably bring a short sleeve tech shirt too, just in case it's warmer than expected.

Aside from thinking about what to pack, I've also been planning my schedule for the trip. I don't get super crazy and try to tour the parks commando-style with everything planned down to the minute. But when I'm at Disney (either coast) I like to at least have a rough plan mapped out. The good thing about Disneyland is that I don't have to figure out which park(s) I'll be at for each day of the trip. And I haven't had to make any dining reservations since right now I'm not planning on any table service dining... Although that might change if I decide I just can't resist a monte cristo. Or this 24-layer chocolate cake from Steakhouse 55... it even has a nutella and cream layer!

Side tangent: do you think Disney actually stocks their kitchen with jars of Nutella or are they just using nutella to refer to a chocolate hazelnut flavor? Whenever I hear the word Nutella, I picture the distinctive plastic jar with the white label that I always had on hand in college. But now I'm starting to wonder if nutella has become a generic descriptor like kleenex, xerox, and zipper.

Anyway, here's what my general schedule looks like.

Friday

• Disneyland Hotel for lunch at Tangaroa Terrace and the expo
• Afternoon/evening at Disney's California Adventure park
• 5k

Saturday

• Short two mile morning run
• Full day at the parks, ending with the World of Color show
• Try to be in bed by 10pm

Sunday

• 4am wake up call
• Half marathon
• Full day at the parks, ending with the fireworks

Monday

• Short two mile morning run
• Breakfast and browsing at Downtown Disney

I'm so excited for this trip! I have a lot to do in the next week so hopefully the time will pass quickly and before I know it I'll be back in Disneyland!

Disneyland 5k fun run in 2009