2006 Disneyland Half Marathon

The Happiest Race on Earth...

I awoke at 4:00 in the morning. I took a quick shower to wake myself up. I was running a little behind and feeling a little sluggish. I was going to meet Dru at the hotel's continental breakfast (which they were running early for racers) 4:30, but I didn't head out the door until 4:35 or so. My feet weren't as sore as the day before, but I felt a little tight in my muscles and draggy.

I couldn't eat. I didn't really want to eat anyway. I ate a few bites of an apple and we headed to the race site. We walked along with a lot of people on their way to the race. Once at the start area, there were people everywhere and there was a huge screen showing people walking about and a very loud announcer. I'm sure people in the nearby hotels that weren't running the race were not excited about this situation.

We found a port a potty line and got that out of the way, then made our way out to our corral. There were five corrals (A through E) and runners were placed in them based on their projected finish time (we entered when we registered). We were in corral D. It seemed like we waited in our corral for an eternity. It was probably 30-40 minutes. Then we heard the national anthem performed (by someone) and they began the wheelchair racers. Shortly after that, they started the runners at 6 AM.



About 10 minutes after the start, we arrived at the start line. And what a starting line it was! The monorail was there with balloons and about 5 or 6 costumed characters including Mickey and Mini Mouse. Over the start line flames were shooting up into the air in sequence. Seriously! They had pyrotechnics!

We crossed the start and attempted to begin running. What a mess. We were running around people. People were up on the sidewalk running by us. My first thought was that people weren't very honest with themselves when they registered. Then I realized when we passed a ton of people from the C wave and a ton from the E wave passed us, that the C, D, and E waves were probably all in the same bunch. The A and B waves were probably the same time. It was probably fairly arbitrary if they were in A vs. B or C vs. D vs. E. What they really needed was actually a D wave that was faster than E and a C faster than D and so forth. It was a mess and we spent the vast majority of the race trying to get around people. It really didn't ever thin out enough to where we could just run at a steady pace.

The water stops were a real problem. It seemed that they had the water stops at points where the road was narrow! They were really congested and people generally walked with their water cup so it was even more so. Dru and I were both carrying hydration so we didn't take water and the water stops became very cumbersome. There were also portions of the course that were narrow and became congested. The entry and exit to the stadium were like that. Parts of Disneyland park were also quite congested.



Even with the congestion, the first few miles were a lot of fun. We ran through Disney's California Adventure park first. At mile 1 Dru told me she needed to use the bathroom. The first set of port-a-potties were a mess. The next opportunity was some bathrooms within California Adventure. We ran into the bathrooms and waited in the fairly fast-moving line. I decided to go ahead and go as well, even though I was feeling okay at the time. After a few minutes we were back on the road running.

I took a lot of pictures in the park as we ran and we stopped for a moment for Dru to take a picture with Captain Jack Sparrow. I realized that with the crowds of people, picture taking and bathroom break that this was not going to be a speedy race.

After a few miles, we were out of the parks and onto the roads of Anaheim which was boring! There were some high school marching bands on the course, along with some traditional Mexian dancers as well as some Hawaiian Hula dancers. But it was still boring.

Because we couldn't ever really run at a steady pace, we couldn't get into a good groove. I was struggling with my form and making constant adjustments. Around mile 5 or 6 my body was not feeling good. My feet hurt, my hip felt tight and I had a pain in my right knee. As the race continued, my hip started hurting and feeling really bad and my feet were killing me. I knew I had done too much walking the day before and my feet were really unhappy.

Then Dru started complaining of pain in her hip. We were both falling apart quickly. Miles 8-10 were really hard. She started cursing and was very frustrated. I was trying my best to reassure her, but I wasn't in much better shape. Luckily, the course was completely flat so we didn't need to contend with much in the way of hills in our state.

When we reached mile 10, I told Dru we only had an easy 5k left. We do 5k races all the time. I told her we should pick it up to just try to get the race done faster. We tried but it was in vain. Our pace remained the same and we were still contending with masses of people. We finally made it to the Angel's stadium around mile 11 or so. It was nice to have something to break the monotony of the ugly Anaheim streets. Around mile 12 to 12.5 we entered California Adventure again.



Things were getting rough but up ahead we saw a big monster from Monsters, Inc. (the big blue and purple furry guy - Sully). Dru really wanted me to have a picture with a character so I passed her the camera and ran up ahead so she could snap a photo. That seemed to give us both a bit of a second wind though and the last mile went by really quickly. Finally we were coming around the corner and we saw mile 13. Roger and Dave were just a little while after the marker for mile 13 and we smiled and waved once we saw them. We picked up the pace a bit and gave every last bit we had.



After the race they gave out mylar blankets (I didn't take one), water, Power Ade and our HUGE finishers medals. We're talking serious BLING! I felt like Flava Flave (sp?) walking around with that thing on. I use the term "walking" fairly loosely. It was more of a hobbling. I felt like everything was broken and I could hardly move my legs. We got some bananas and muffins and sat down on the pavement. I tried in vain to stretch, but nothing seemed to move correctly. I got a text message from my mom congratulating me (the automatic text message that I finished must have worked).



We were finally reunited with Roger and Dave (thanks to the cell phones we carried through the entire race with us) and hobbled back to our hotel (at least a mile away). At the hotel I stretched some more, used my TP Massage balls to massage my poor muscles and then got into the tub for an ice bath. It couldn't have been colder and felt amazingly good. I just wanted everything in the lower half of my body numb.

I stiffly got out of the tub and fell into the bed. I rested for awhile before I showered and dressed to go to Disneyland for some fun. Before leaving, I checked the official times. We finished in 2:49:30 with a pace of 12:55/mi. Dru was a little bummed, but the way I figure it, we should be really pleased with ourselves. We made a 12:55/mi even with wearing ourselves out at the theme park the day before, a bathroom break, photos with characters, and a gazillion people we had to run around. That's really an accomplishment, I think. Without all the logistical issues (getting around people), bathroom break, and photo ops, we probably ran closer to a 12:15-12:30 min/mi pace.

Even though I felt completely broken down after the race, I was really recharged after the ice bath. We spent 10 hours at Disneyland (from around noon to 10 PM) and I felt quite tired at the end of the day, but not completely beat. I felt like I spent a day at Disneyland, but not necessarily with a 13 mile race at the beginning of the day.

We had a great time at Disneyland and I was a tiny bit sore the next morning. Dru and I were both sore in our quads which was a first for both of us. We couldn't quite figure that one out. I was expecting to be more sore. I'm really pleased with our accomplishment, even if it didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped.

If you are following along with the trip report this race is a part of, you can click here for Day 4.