Sorry to contradict Jessie J. but it really *is* about the Bling here!! And this is my final runDisney related post on my fantastic weekend in California!!
Made some additions to my 2013 runDisney medal collection!!
Disneyland 10K Medal:
Disneyland Half Marathon Medal:
#DumboDoubleDare Medal:
The whole family!
We’re now at the Main Event!! Well, yeah…the Main Event!
The runDisney Inaugural Dumbo Double Dare
Bright and early Saturday morning, it was time to head out to the start of this fantastic event! There was no costume involved, just a Sparkle Athletic skirt and a white tank. Oh, and Mickey Mouse ears of course!
The hike into the corrals was kind of a mess due to the fact that the Family 5K had the same starting line and had only started 15 minutes earlier and those folks were still clearing the corrals! So…”be in the corral by 5:45” turned into “just get in your corral NOW”!!! Good thing that I stopped for a bite to eat on my way to the start!
I will confess here that even though my bib said…F…I jumped into a corral with a bunch of …Es. I have never jumped corrals before. Trust me, it didn’t make me faster 🙂
Eventually the Start ‘gun’ went off and the corrals started slowing heading to the starting line.
The course started out on the streets of Anaheim before heading into Disney’s California Adventure – entering through CarsLand (my favorite!!) then headed through Paradise Pier and into Grizzly Peaks (home of one of my favorite rides – Grizzly River Rapids) out through Condor Flats, Buena Vista Street through Hollywoodland and going back out into the real world for a bit.
We were now a bit more than halfway through. And it was HOT. Hot and humid. There had been a water stop around mile one, but nothing since – we had been told “the water fountains in the parks are available”…um…anyway! There was a water stop coming up though!!
Cutting back into the concourse between the parks we headed into the Magic Kingdom. Walt’s first park! As always it was very exciting to run up Main Street USA – huge crowds were waiting there too! A loop took us through Tomorrowland and back towards Mickey’s Toon Town. A detour backstage took us through Disneyland’s Custodial services area where there are always lots of people out to cheer us on – they hang signs welcoming us to their area!!
Back in through Toon Town towards Fantasyland and…THE CASTLE!! Now, I’ve run through the two Disney Castles a LOT this year..and not once have I managed to get a picture of it!! One Day…
Anyway, with less than a mile to go we head through Frontierland and then back out towards the Disneyland Hotel and the finish line! And, I don’t always keep exact track, but I think this might have been my best 10K time in a very long time!!
In spite of the heat I had a great run! I topped it off by heading DIRECTLY to Grizzly River Rapids for a few turns through to cool off!! Learned you don’t get as wet when there are fewer people in the boats! Met a little boy in line at Soarin’ too, who was getting ready to run the Kids’ races and he was very excited that he was going to get a medal “like [mine]”!!
Really, coming up next is the Disneyland Half Marathon Recap you’ve been waiting for!!
First up, The Travel 
So, I’ve mentioned before how much I love to travel! As soon as I got signed up for this weekend of events (at the #TinkerbellHalfMarathonWeekend) I started making travel plans!
Since I was going across the country I decided to splurge and use up almost all of my saved up miles on American Airlines to go First Class. At least my flight would be first class!
I made my hotel reservations through Hotels.com and ended up getting a great rate at the Comfort Inn and Suites – it was just as close as anywhere I’ve stayed at Disneyland lately and the Anaheim Resort Transportation stop was right outside so not so bad!
For the first time in a very long time, my flight was NOT at 6 am! So I was able to take Earnest Phred to his babysitter on my way to the airport and take my time getting parked and to the plane.
A big thanks to the super friendly counter ladies at American! Great start to what was going to be a very long day!!
I was early, of course. I really do prefer to be early! I grabbed a coffee on my way to the airport at Dunkin, of course so was happy to start trying to hydrate a little before my flight.
There was a really small delay but once everyone boarded things went pretty smooth!
It was quite an uneventful trip.
The beauty of first class is that they do still serve you a meal – egg quesadilla for me. My seatmate thought the cereal would be “healthier” but…whatever! She wasn’t going on vacation!! I watched a movie on my tablet (Grown Ups) and the 6 hours went by pretty fast!
My arrival at LAX and the trip to Anaheim were also uneventful. Which is not a bad thing when you’re traveling in LA! Met some other runners in the Super Shuttle van and the time went really quickly as we avoided traffic on the infamous LA Freeways!
Once I got to the hotel I unpacked (yes, I unpack and put everything away!) and headed out to the original Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure for some quick re-con and a trip to CarsLand – my new favoritest place in Anaheim!! I had every intention of staying for the fireworks but it had really been a super long day so I grabbed a dinner to go and headed back to the hotel to eat and sleep.
And to get ready for the Great Weekend Ahead!!
Up Next – the Expo or “How is it possible that Disney was this unprepared and disorganized?”
The truth today is that, as much as I LOVE going to Disneyland and running with all the great people who runDisney, and as sad as I am to leave the parks behind I am really happy to go home!
I fly all day today and get to pick up my dawg on the way from the airport!!
My buddy is the one on the right 🙂
And tomorrow it’s back to work for my last few weeks, and another runDisney race coming up really soon!
Courtesy of http://www.rundisney.com
It’s all good
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend and is ready to get back in the groove.
That’s right. It’s “What Up Wednesday?!”! No. Just…no 🙂
So….
What Up!!??
Okay…so what’s up here is that I have some really big goals that I want to accomplish before I head out for #DumboDoubleDate and I am making close to zero progress. ZEE. ROW. None!
I really am hoping that before I hop on that plane next Thursday that my kitchen will be spotless, my living room fresh and dust-free, my dining room clutterless, my bathroom sparkling…you get the picture. PLUS there’s that whole “training” thing, and my Bikram “thing” (which I REALLY do need these days!) and my super busy social life. Okay, so my social life isn’t usually busy, it just happens to be so the next few days!
Unfortunately, what happens is that the fitness stuff falls to the wayside and I slog through the housework-y things. Like tonight, for instance 🙂 The goal is to get that bathroom done (mainly cause I have company coming tomorrow!) and get the living room dusted!
And, chances are good that when I lock the door next Thursday things won’t be quite as sparkling as I am hoping! But it’ll be closer! And I’ll be on my way to Disneyland – so not much better than that!!
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