Tink Half Meet Up

I got in with a little help from my friend, Shenanigans. I had heard of the meet ups in the past but never really knew what a big deal they were and just what it took to even get in. After Shenanigans explained the ins and outs of it and directed me to Out Running the Monorail, I was all set and in blog stalker mode. I was so out of the loop I actually had to set up a Twitter account just for this, and call up my mom and ask her how to use it. Yeah, seriously I did.

It was a very long week but finally the day had come that the post was to be made. I sat by the computer and had my phone with me at all times. I was not going to be caught without my phone whenever the post went live. I was also texting and messaging Shenanigans since misery loves company, then the moment came. I got a text from her that simply said “send”, which was immediately followed by the runDisney tweet. I fumble with my phone, accidently opened up the wrong folder, had to back back out and go into the right folder and zoom my email went speeding off in cyber space. At first I felt very confident, I mean I had to get in, I sent my email within 30 seconds how could I not?

That confidence soon turned to doubt. Oh no! My email had the address in all lowercase letters and the blog post had caps and lowercase, surely that wouldn’t make a difference, right? I can’t send another email because duplicates will disqualify you, and it would be too late anyway.  I then convinced myself it was fine since it didn’t get bounce back to me. About this time Shenanigans posted on Facebook that she got in, I quickly checked my email too, success I was in!! We also had another friend, Canadian Mom Allison (CM A) who also got in so we were all very excited.

 

Fast forward to the morning of the meet up. We had to meet under Mickey’s Sorcerer hat in front of the Disneyland Hotel at 6 to start the run at 6:30. It felt like a very long time but soon enough we were gathered around and were ready to go. Now when I run I kind of get tunnel vision, even if it is a fun run, so I honestly can’t say everywhere we ran, but I do know we started down Downtown Disney and into Disneyland Park. After twisting and turning around the park a bit we stopped for our first surprise, group pics with Tink!! Shenanigans, Allison and I thought this was the perfect time to smooze with the celebs a bit. Here we are with Ali Vincent, the first female winner of The Biggest Loser!!!

 

And here I am with my childhood crush, Rudy, umm I mean Sean Astin. He was explaining to Shenanigans how to use my phone to take a pic. He was a super nice, totally normal, guy just hanging out and talking with us, which was totally cool.

 

Hey look who is in our Tink picture too. Why it’s Sean Astin, along with New Balance rep, Josh.
 

We were the last group to take our picture so then it was back to running we went, out of Disneyland and across to Disney’s California Adventure! Here we did more circling around the park, we were expecting to go through Cars Land, but no such luck. Before we knew it the running portion of the morning was over. We stopped at Carthay Circle for water and another surprise! We had some special guests come out to join us for our group picture. I am in the vicinity of Goofy’s head, in case you were wondering.
 

We then had the opportunity to take pics with the characters while we waited to move to the next surprise. Here are a couple of Allison and myself.
 

                          

And here are all three of us with Jeff Galloway. I have to give the man credit where credit is due, if it was not for his run/walk/run method I would never have even considered running a half marathon. Ever.

 

After this we headed over to Carsland for our next BIG surprise!! We are riding Radiator Springs Racer before the park opens!! I was thrilled by this since I had not had a chance to ride the ride before. Here we gooooo. Unfortunately we lost the race. Story of my life ; )
 

   

Next stop was the Napa Rose for breakfast, giveaways, a few guest speakers, and a cooking demo.  Up first was Josh from New Balance speaking about the special edition runDisney shoes and how the response to them was way bigger then they expected and how they were rush producing more so they would have some for Princess Half Marathon weekend. He also gave away 2 pair of the runDisney shoes and 2 other people had the option of getting any other New Balance shoe or waiting a month and getting a pair of the runDisney shoes mailed to them. Unfortunately none of the names he pulled were mine. Boo
 

The other speakers included Sean Astin, who spoke about his #run3rd campaign. Jeff Galloway spoke about his run/walk/run method and how it helps you to finish strong by taking walk breaks early. Ali Vincent spoke about her transformation into an active lifestyle and how, like Galloway’s running style, she did it one minute on and one minute off. She was awesome!! Very inspirational and you could really hear her passion in her voice as she spoke. Last up was Diet Diva Tara who spoke briefly about nutrition for runners and reminded us that we need carbs both before and after a run!
 

Next up we were treated to a cooking demo from the Executive Chef of the Napa Rose. We not only got to watch them prepare the Black Bean Chipotle Cakes, and sample it, but we also got a copy of the recipe emailed to us. I will be honest, it was delicious but I have not yet made it myself.
 

 

This pretty much concluded the meet up. On our way out we each got a one day park hopper and a Live Big wristband from Ali. Overall the meet up was fabulous! I had so much fun and having two of my running besties by my side was frosting on the cake! I am hoping to get the opportunity to do it again in the future.