Tinker Bell Half Marathon 2014

Last year the Tinker Bell half marathon made me cry. I should have gotten a PR but I didn’t and  watching my PR slip away was heartbreaking. It was the first and only race that literally brought me to tears, but I am happy to report that this year that was not the case.

Since I had known my training had been lacking I wasn’t expecting much and decided that this year I wanted to PR in fun and I did just that!



I’m still not a fan of the 5 am start time, but once I’m up and going I’m glad to get it done early and still have all day to spend in the parks! Unlike the 10k the morning before there was no flat Summer laid out. Instead there was a balled up Summer laying on the sofa in the room, and when my alarm went off at 3:45 I grumbled a bit and begrudgingly rolled out of bed. After getting dressed and downing a protein shake I was ready to head down to the lobby to meet up with Kirsten again.

I have to say that the lobby was much busier that morning and the feel of the half marathon was very different than that of the 10k for sure! You definitely knew what the main event was, and we were hoping we were ready for it! We both have ran several half marathons before, but with the vision of the 10k sweepers still fresh in our minds we weren’t as confident as we normally would have been. In fact I posted this status update on Facebook and being blessed with awesome friends they had some wonderful answers for me!

 

After settling into corral C and taking the obligatory corral selfie I was feeling a little better about the mileage ahead of me, but only a little. The national anthem was sang with fireworks a blazing and shortly after that the wheelchair racer took off. For some reason this always chokes me up a bit, and usually brings a tear or two to my eye.

After the wheelchair racer was well on their way corral A was off, followed closely by corral B, and before I knew it was time for us to head out on our own 13.1 mile journey through the Disneyland Resort Parks and the streets of downtown Anaheim.


After making a loop around Disneyland resort we headed back stage, and then into California Adventure where the fountains for World of Color were on and absolutely beautiful!



From here we headed towards Cars Land, which is just amazing to run through when it is all lit up! I would also like to give runDisney huge props for the slight change of course from last year, and the added light to the paths that were really dark in the past! It was greatly appreciated!



This sign made me giggle a bit so I had to get a picture of it in case I needed to use it somewhere down the line. The other side said “Not Slow” but I couldn’t get the picture to come out with the spotlight shinning on the “sl”

After running around most of California Adventure we hit the 5k mark as we exited the park and headed across the way to the Disneyland park! It was in the area between parks that I noticed another great change runDisney added to control the flow of cross traffic, similar to what they do on the parade route, and that was greatly appreciated too, as there has been more then once that I almost plowed into a spectator trying to run across the course in front of me.

Once in Disneyland there were character picture ops aplenty, but after the run in with the sweepers the day before I opted to skip all of them but this one, that I mostly took for #3 since she loves puppies and kitties and is known to try and use “cute paws” on me.

 
After running through Disneyland, and hitting the last real restroom, under the Hungry Bear Restaurant, we were on our way through Downtown Disney and toward the amazing Red Hat ladies! I was completely surprised by them the first year, and I greatly anticipate seeing them every year, and they did not disappoint! They are hands down the most amazingly enthusiastic group of spectators I have ever seen!

  

After leaving the Red Hat Ladies and Downtown Disney behind it gets pretty quiet, and I knew there was nothing but the streets of Anaheim left to see. A little after mile 6 we stopped at the medical tent so I could get a band aid. When we were back stage at Disneyland I could feel that one of my toe nails were cutting the toe next to it so I wanted to prevent any further damage. I was a bit surprised to see as much blood as there was, but I put the band aid on and thankfully my shoe went back on with no issues and we were off again. These were some of my favorite signs from the neighborhood portion of the run.



There was also this sign in the business area of the course. Don’t worry my mom taught me well and I did not take the candy from the nice strangers on the street corner, but I did take a couple of the orange slices and they were quite heavenly!



Around mile 9 I stopped at another med tent, this time for some Tylenol. My hip had held up really well, but it was giving me some itchy sensations off and on so I wanted to be a bit proactive and take it before I absolutely needed it. It was at this stop that I lost Kirsten. She kept running and told me to catch up when I was done and I somehow passed her without seeing her. #SadTrombone

But I did find a couple of people from one of my Facebook running groups at the med tent and they invited me to run with them, so I did.  Just before mile 11 I happened to check my phone and noticed I had a missed call from DisBroad Patty, silly lady. I will text, Facebook, and tweet during a race, but I draw the line at answering the phone. ;)

There happened to be a text from her as well checking where I was. I was actually just behind her and the rest of the Tink DisBroads so she told me to stay at the mile 11 sign until I see them. As we approached the mile 11 sign I said good bye to my running partners and ran toward the sign when I heard a loud cheer yelling "Summer" and there they were! DisBroads April, Patty, Amy and Tania were already at the sign waiting for me!


With just over 2 miles left to go we decided to finish the race together, using the motto #NoDisBroadLeftBehind and in this case that DisBroad was me!! As we finished the race together, spirit fingers in the air, we were diverted to one side as there was a runner down receiving medical attention and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Yes, I'm that girl who cries over everything! His wife later posted in one of the Facebook groups I am a member calling him the "Lost Boy who tried to go to Neverland" and reported that he ended up having open heart surgery, but is expected to make a full recovery and their goal is to get him completely rehabilitated in time to run the Wine & Dine half in November!! Again this made me tear up a bit, but I was glad to hear was going home and doing well.

As we exited the finish line area and made our way toward the medals we came across runDisney’s Bob Hitchcock and he very graciously posed for a picture with us! He was so nice and his lighting crew even offered to light up our cell phone picture for us!! It was a very brief, but wonderful experience.



Now with an absolutely amazing race behind us what is in the DisBroads future? Rumor has it we will ALL be in Disney World next month for the Princess Half marathon!! #TureStory The word epic is being thrown around, and we hope you will be there to join us!

The Inaugural Tinker Bell 10k

After getting a glimpse of the medal for the Tinker Bell 10k I decided there was no way I was going to let my friends get the medal and not have one myself so I added the race to my line up a little late, and I’m sure glad I did!

If you saw the preview picture on Instagram of my Anna costume, I ended up making a few last minute changes so that there would be no mistaking who I was suppose to be, and with flat Summer laid out I was off to bed around 11 o’clock, for an early 4:45 wake up.



I can never say that I am so not a morning person enough!! I’m really not! I purposely stay at Paradise Pier every year so that I can roll out of bed, look out my window to check the corrals, fall into my costume and slither to the start line! This year was no exception, but thankfully I had a partner in crime who had the same game plan!

I met my friend Kirsten in the lobby at about 5:30 for a 6 am start time and we headed to the corrals together. For some reason, even though we were in the same corral for the half, Kirsten’s bib was for corral D so I decided I would drop back and join her. I’m a really social runner and having someone to talk to really makes all the difference to me.

If I’m being honest I wasn’t too thrilled with corral D. The company was great, don’t get me wrong, but we had no idea what the heck was going on ahead of us! We couldn’t hear the announcers, and didn’t even hear the start of the national anthem either! I was a bit disappointed with that. We also seemed to be held in the same place for a very long time! I am use to being in the earlier corrals and moving up after each corral left, but that didn’t seem to be the case this time.

Finally, after what felt like a really long time, it was our turn to go!! Again I was feeling like dropping back to corral D wasn’t that great of an idea because we were constantly stuck behind walkers. Now I have no issues with walkers, especially since I do run/walk intervals, but it added a new challenge as most of the paths were pretty narrow and quite difficult to pass on. I ended up going even slower then I had originally anticipated, but I reminded myself that I still had the half to run the next day so it was better to take it easy anyway!

After taking a pretty long tour of the backstage area we came into the park next to It’s a Small World in all it’s holiday glory!! Since we hadn’t taken any pics up to this point we decided this would be a great one to take, plus it didn’t require standing in a line!!



The 1 mile marker was set up right as we were exiting Toon Town to head back stage again and this bottle necked really bad! There was no running through it, and even walking posed a challenge.
After entering back into the parks near Splash Mountain, and running around the boarded up Thunder Mountain we were making our way into Fantasy Land when we spotted DisBroad Patty waiting outside the bathroom for DisBroad April, who is pregnant and was visiting all the restrooms along the way. We also spotted these fun peeps and decided to stop for a pic with them!



In all my trips to Disney I am fairly certain this was actually my very first picture with Jolly Holiday Mary, or Mary Poppins at all for that matter!! So I was very glad I stopped, and really the line wasn’t all that bad! After Kirsten and I took our pics with Mary and Bert we waited for DisBroads Amy, April, and Patty to do them same! Then we were off again and quickly lost them on the course. I told you it was pretty crowded!

After making a quick circle around Tomorrow Land and heading down Main Street USA we were on our way over to California Adventure! Once we hit Cars Land I looked at Kirsten and asked her if she wanted to take pics with Mater and Lightening McQueen, and of course her answer was YES!! The line didn’t look that long, but it ended up taking longer then I had expected, and that is when it happened! We were only a couple people from our turn and we saw the 16 min/mil pacer pass us!!



In all of the runDisney races I have done I have never even seen a pacer, more less been passed by one! We quickly got our photo and decided we needed to haul buns to get ahead of that little orange flag of death! Which was a bit of a chore since there was quite a crowd around her!

Thankfully we were able to get well in front of her before leaving the parks and never saw her again!
I really felt that the 10k was harder then it should have been for me and that started making me very nervous about doing the half marathon the next day! Kirsten and I both agreed to mostly walk the last 2 miles and we finished way slower then we had planned, but we finished none the less. Even though the race hadn’t gone as I had planned I was quite pleased to add this beauty to my collection!

          

What are your thoughts on runDisney adding the 10k distance to most of their race weekends? Have you had the chance to run a runDisney 10k yet?

What’s Up Wednesday v1.7.14

With the launch of project ME What’s Up Wednesday is going to be a little different going forward. Now don’t worry it will still be filled with plenty of randomness, since it doesn’t get much more me then that. But I have also decided to add an inspirational quote that spoke to me during the week, and also report one act of kindness that I preformed, so here it goes. 

Inspirational Quote:

There is no surprise this one would speak to me this week since my theme has been working on removing negativity from my mind.

Overall I have done pretty well, but I’m not going to lie, this will be an ongoing process for me that I will really have to work on everyday day.

 

(Intentional) Act of Kindness:

My first act of kindness was to donate to the Taylor Brooks Foundation. I always want to donate to my friends fundraising efforts, but I never feel like I can donate enough to really make a difference, but I have decided every little bit really does count and when my small donation is added with other small donations they become not so small after all. That is why when DisBroad Julie told me about the foundation and how they deliver donuts to the children’s cancer floor once a week how could I not want to help? I certainly can spare some money for donuts for children fighting cancer!!

This is what Julie shared with me about the foundation, in her own words:

“My friend Melissa lost her teenage daughter Taylor to a very rare form of cancer. As Taylor recovered from her chemo and treatments she always remembered those on the cancer floor - patients, Parents, and caretakers with weekly treats. She also organized a holiday party for the patients. As Taylor fought for her life she always remembered others in the same battle. She lost her fight and in her memory her mom carries on her work. I am amazed how much this foundation does......there is VERY little overhead and its very grassroots. Any donation goes very far. I am so proud of Melissa my friend - a cancer survivor herself for carrying on Taylors kind deeds and legacy.” 

If you would like to learn more about the foundation you can do so here or you can make a donation here.   

Now for the randomness:)

I restarted T25 on Monday. I’m still not really feeling it, but that is because I have developed the habit for being lazy so I just need to keep with it until I come around again. Plus it is *only* 25 minutes.

Also a week from tomorrow I will be volunteering at the Tinker Bell expo so if you are visiting that day come by and say hi! I’m not sure where I will be yet, but if you follow me on twitter I’ll let you know when I find out!

And that is week 1 of 2014 in a nutshell. ;)

It’s the Tinker Bell Half Marathon 2013!!

Last year when the Tinker Bell half marathon was announced and the medal revealed my sister declared that we MUST run it. Being the Tinker Bell lover that I am I couldn’t argue with that so we ran it together and PRd, then I decided that since I did the inaugural race I might as well be “perfect”. For those of you who don’t know runDisney offers extra little perks at the anniversary races (5, 10, 15, etc..) if you have ran all of them, so why the heck not?

When I signed up for Tink this year I was excited. I knew the course and I liked it so you can imagine my disappointment when I heard the news that they changed it. I liked having Disneyland at the beginning and California Adventure toward the end of the race; it broke the parks up and gave me something to look forward to so I was pretty annoyed that they decided to do the parks back to back and then we were just let loose on the streets of Anaheim for the rest of the race. I quickly got over the annoyance once the vision of running through Carsland all lit up in the dark started to occupy my thoughts. Okay runDisney, I will forgive you this once.

Let’s fast forward to race morning, shall we? Shenanigans (Aka. Patty) and I were roomies for the weekend, which ended up being kind of funny since she is Ms. 5 am Texas time wake up while I was the newly relocated back to California, but very well adjusted, night owl. She set her alarm for 2:30 and I set mine for 3. I’m pretty sure neither of them actually went off since we woke up on our own. Just as I woke up I heard Patty heading out the door. She had a few prerace photo ops to do, while I am more of the roll out of the bed and head to the start line kind of gal.

We were staying at the Paradise Pier, which in my opinion is the best place to stay for this race, so I walked over to the window to see how the corrals were looking, at this time they were still pretty empty. I went ahead and got dressed and tried to eat something. Again I am NOT a morning person at all so this was quite a challenge. I ended up only eating a banana and an orange juice while I was waiting in corral B. I knew this would be an issue later in the race, but it was all I could manage to do.  While waiting around in the corral I met back up with Patty and before too long it was time to get the party started. Corral A took off, we moved forward and before I knew it we were off on our way too. There is something about the start of the race, when you leave the loud hustle and bustle of the announcers and music at the start line and are on your way with only the sound of shushing skirts and tutus around you that makes you think “I’m really doing this”. It was at this time that Patty wished me luck, I told her I would see her at the finish line and off I went. 

I had a goal in mind. I was hoping for a 2:30, but knew early on that wasn’t going to happen so I did what all runners do and set up a plan B goal, simply PR. The first couple of miles went by pretty fast and it seemed like we were entering California Adventure very quickly. They had the fountains from World of Color going and they were quite beautiful. There were lots of people taking pictures in front of it. I thought about it for half a second, but I didn’t have time for that I had a PR to go for! Lucky for me my friend Sarah is willing to let me borrow her picture to share with you.

Most of California Adventure was pretty dark, I did not like this at all. On top of that there were puddles and lots of wet spots that you could not really see in the dark so I slowed down quite a bit through here. That part of the race seemed to flash by and before I knew it we were already heading out of California Adventure and across the way to Disneyland. This was also the 5K mark. I had set myself up for runner tracking so I could get real time texts to keep track of how I was doing. Well unfortunately my 5k text was incorrect, but luckily for me the same thing happened last year at Princess so it didn’t phase me as much this time. I sent Patty a text to let her know that the tracking was giving “clock time” for the 5k again, so she would have a heads up when she got there.

We then headed into Disneyland! It was nice to see some spectators on Main Street this year since last year it was not allowed, but it was still nothing like heading onto Main Street at the Princess Half Marathon were the street is lined with spectators. I honestly don’t remember the exact route we took but I do remember that It’s a Small World looked fabulous all lit up for the holidays still. We then went back stage and came back out on the side of it through Toon Town. We ran around the park a bit more and were heading out behind Splash Mountain. It was at this time that I asked the CM if the bathrooms under the Hungry Bear Restaurant were opened, when she confirmed it to be true I darted off course to use the restroom. I didn’t actually have to go yet but I try to use “real” restrooms whenever possible and since I knew the rest of the race was out on the streets this was my last chance. I quickly rejoined the race and on we headed to Downtown Disney!
My mom had sent me a text early in the race and told me that she was in front of the La Brea Bakery, but when I got there I could not find her. At the end of Downtown Disney, in front of the Disneyland Hotel, was my all time favorite spectators, The Red Hat Ladies!! They were in the same place last year and I had heard they were going to be there again so I was really looking forward to them and they did not disappoint!! Their energy is AMAZING!! But sadly after leaving them we also left Disney property so it got very quiet and lonely very quickly. It was round this time I got a text from my mom asking me where I was and I replied 10k mark! She told me I was doing good and at this same time I got my next runner tracking text and I was looking good. They gave me an estimated finish of 2:34 and that would do just fine. The next section of the race was pretty uneventful and I started getting a bit bored.

I am somewhat of a social runner so without someone to chat with I start to get restless and antsy. I thought this might be a good time to start posting on Facebook and to text my sister back in Texas. Yeah, I really did. My 15k text came in and I was still looking good, estimated finish of 2:35 so I slowed a bit but as long as it was under 2:36 I was good. Up next was the mile 10 marker. I sent out a Facebook post saying I only had a 5k left and I was feeling pretty good at this point. Then I saw that mile 11 marker. I looked at my watch and it said I was at 2:10, I sent my sister a text telling her that and she replied back with some encouraging words. I was feeling okay with it. It was slower then the 2:06 we did in our training run, but still allowed me adequate time to sneak by with a PR and then I hit “the wall”. I’m not sure what happen but I lost a lot of time between mile 11 and mile 12, and when I saw the mile 12 marker was up a “hill” we had already ran up earlier in the race some very non-Disney thoughts crossed my mind. I tried my hardest to run up the hill but only made it halfway and started walking. This was the dreaded sign, don’t let it fool you, it’s not as innocent as it looks . . . trust me.

I told myself I would make up time by running the whole last mile straight, but that didn’t really work out very well for me. It seemed like it took forever but I finally saw the mile 13 sign and I knew I had blown my PR. At the mile 13 sign you make 90-ish degree turn and it is a straight shot to the finish line. I took off as fast as I could at this point and came across the finish line with a time of 2:38. I couldn’t decide if I should celebrate or not. I didn’t get the PR, but I was done and that was something to celebrate, right?



I got my medal, made sure to grab a mylar  blanket, in case I needed it at Princess, and my refreshments and headed over to take my finisher’s picture. I was about 3 or 4 people back when the photographers declared they were not taking any more pictures for the next 30 minutes and they would not let us take our own using the background either. So not only did I not get my PR I was also NOT going to get a finisher picture. This added insult to injury for me. I headed out of the “safe zone” and was heading back to my hotel when I called my mom and started bawling. I have never cried at a race before, and this was my 4th half marathon, but I was just so disappointed. I felt like I had it right there in my grasp and just watched it slip away. Truth be told it was my second fastest time, but I wasn’t trying to hear that at the time. I finally found my mom and headed back to the room, still crying. I took a warm shower and tried to put things back  into perspective. I got out feeling a little better and was now ready to head down to the PCH Grill for breakfast. Breakfast with the characters makes everything better you know?  

   

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.