Disneyland 1/2 marathon

On Sunday Sept 5th I ran the Disneyland 1/2 marathon. It was the second time I have run this race. We flew to California on the 1st. We wanted time to hang out in the parks before the race. We stayed at the Grand Californian. Wow, what a fabulous hotel. Spent lots of time in Disneyland & California Adventure.


On Saturday the 4th we attended a Team AllEars meetup at the the Paradise Pier hotel. Got to meet and talk with Deb Wills, the founder of AllEars.net and some other team AllEars teammates.

Race day we got up at 4:30AM got dressed & ate some breakfast. Once we were ready to go we walked from the hotel to the starting corrals. There were runners & walkers every where. I went to my corral & Pam went to her corral. The race started at 6am. By about 6:15 I was crossing the start line. First couple of miles I ran at an easy warm up pace as we ran through backstage California adventure. One we crossed over to Disneyland I was good and loose and picked up my speed some. My goal was to run miles 3 through 9 at 9:00 to 9:30 pace.

Miles 1 through 4 took you through both theme parks and then it was on to the streets of Anaheim. We ran through the industrial area of the city. At mile 8 we ran by the Honda center (where the Mighty Ducks play) and then on to the Sana Anna trail headed towards the big "A" where the Angels play. It was a blast getting to run in the ballpark. Once out of the ballpark, we got to mile 10. I wanted to run the last 4 miles sub 9:00. Near the finish we went ran back into the California adventure (backstage) headed for the finish line. We left DCA, ran around the Paradise Pier hotel turned up Disneyland drive and I could see the finish line. I crossed the line with a time of 2:02:39. This was a 12 minute PR for me. I was pretty jazzed & pumped up over how well the run went. I crossed the line got my medal & then found the Coast to Coast medal stop, picked that up and went back to the finish area to wait for Pam to complete her first 1/2 marathon.

It was real neat seeing her come aroound the corner after she finished knowing she had completed the race with time to spare. We walked to the medal stop & Pam got her medal.

We got in line to have our picture taken together with our medals and then headed for the food line. We found a spot where we could take our pictures with the 5th anniversary backdrop and snapped a couple of pictures with our bling.

This is the 2nd time I have gone to Disneyland for the Coast to Coast medal. Will I do it a 3rd time, absolutely. We had just as much fun this year as last and we are already looking forward to doing it again next year.

Thanks for reading.

Til next time, run strong & enjoy the moment