When I write my recaps for the races I like to include the time I woke up so that I can refer back to it the next year when I am making my plans for race mornings. I do remember that I set my alarm for 4:00 for the 10K because I figured the latest that I would leave my room would be 4:45 or 4:50 and I could arrive to the staging area close to 5:00. The hotel that I stayed at is close to a mile away from the start line. So it’s about a 15 minute slow walk. The race starts at 5:30 and I am never in the first corral. So sure, it may be cutting it close; but I like to sleep as much as I can!
I met Susana Cruz and Jennifer and Bill Taylor in my corral. I was going to meet Dale Martin; but she was in Corral F and was with Jennifer Leisten so I knew she had someone with her. I wanted to get as many pictures as possible with Susana because we were dressed as Jasmine and Vacation Avenie for the 10K theme of Aladdin. We were also hoping that with all of our picture stops we would eventually hook back up with Dale and Jennifer.
We took off from our corral at 5:40 a.m. and ran most of the beginning section of the race. Like previous years, we started off on some of the city streets and then entered backstage into Cars Land. I was fortunate enough this year to get into this area when the sky was still darker and it looked amazing!!! We HAD to stop for pictures there for sure. Then Susana did her 22 push ups for the 22 push up challenge, where I knew what was coming next…she nominated me. So I did my 22 push ups on the main street of Cars Land while a cast member recorded a video of it for us!
Instead of doing intervals for this race we pretty much ran, took pictures, then ran again to the next picture stop and continued this for the entire 6.2 miles. But this course had a LOT of picture opportunities. If it wasn’t a character stop that you can pose with the characters, there were selfie-spots where you could take a selfie with the characters on an elevated platform or on a park vehicle. I was very impressed with how many characters we were able to get photographs with and the rare characters that you don’t typically see out in the parks.
After we ran down Main Street I had to FaceTime my kids because they were heading out for the day with my parents. So I was talking to them via FaceTime and showing them what Sleeping Beauty Castle looked like down Main Street. The funny thing was, they kept asking where the castle was! They are so used to Cinderella’s Castle that they didn’t recognize a smaller castle. As we were exiting the park Mickey Mouse was also waving to us from the Train Station so the kids got to see that as well.
When we were running through Downtown Disney for the last mile, we heard that the balloon ladies were just 90 seconds behind us. We laughed because we took as long as we could to enjoy every minute, character and mile of that race! When we finished we found Dale and Jennifer and they passed us and finished before us!
The Disneyland 10K is still one of my favorite runDisney races. Most of the course is run through the two parks and there are lots of opportunities to take pictures. It also ends early enough so that you have time to enjoy breakfast and the day afterwards. I had an excellent day after the 10K. More on that in my next blog post.