We had to check in for the race by Saturday evening to be at the 6 am start the next morning. So we booked our hotel in Anaheim with intentions of driving up sometime Saturday afternoon. Intentions being the keyword of course. Because what kind of silly girls planning on running 13.1 miles would choose to go walking around Disneyland all day just the day before?
But what other opportunity would we have to be up there right in the presence of Disneyland completely kid free and NOT go in? So with complete agree-ance that it was probably a bad idea. . . we hit Disneyland Saturday morning!
Part way through the day we headed over to the Disneyland hotel to officially check in for tomorrow. We got our numbers, our (not) cute shirts, and all the information we needed for the big day!
We went back into the park for a few more hours, but by six o'clock our feet were starting to hurt and our legs were getting a bit tired and Molly and Shawna were starting to feel the effects of three hours of sleep the night before. On normal Disneyland adventures, you of course trudge through that. . . but being the responsible girls that we are, we decided to call it a night. So we left the park and began wandering the streets of Anaheim aimlessly looking for anywhere we could find to serve us our pre-race spaghetti dinner. We came across quite quickly a random little booth serving just what we needed, and boy was it tasty!
Back to the hotel we went to shower, eat our dessert, and goof around a bit before getting in our close to 8 hour zzzzz's. Bonnie also did some calculations beforehand and figured out what time we needed to hit each mile the next day in order to come in under our two hour goal. (Do we all remember what happened last race coming in just a minute over the goal?? That was NOT going to happen again!)
We woke up at 4:30 am to be at the 6am start. No spectators chose to attend this event with us, so with smiles on our faces and a camera strung to our wrist, we were off to document this event on our own!
No pre-race jitters here!
Originally, we didn't have intentions of kodaking much during the actual run. Afterall, we did have a goal time to keep! But rumors were flying that our favorite Disney characters would be there starting us off, and at the finish and we would definitely want pictures of that. But after the first mile, Bonnie checked her watch (and her arm) and announced that we were WAY far behind and she sprinted ahead trying to get us back on schedule. By mile two she said it was impossible to catch up, and it was then that I think she kind of mentally gave up on our goal and when it was ok to whip out the camera and stop for a few random shots.
The run began in Downtown Disney, took us through both California Adventures and Disneyland, then dropped us on the streets of Anaheim. Mile 9 took us down the tunnel and into Angel Stadium where we got to take a lap on the actual baseball field! Then it was back through California Adventures and once again to Downtown Disney.
It was probably the funnest of my runs I have done. There were tons of different local people and groups out on the streets cheering us on. We had Disney characters and the workers of Disney lining the path throughout both parks. We passed the spinning carousel and the twirling tea cups and the flying dumbos going round. The floats were out and people were singing and dancing as we passed by.
In the end, we missed the ultimate under two hour goal, but we did pass the finish line right at about 2 hours and 9 minutes (because of the staggered start the "official" clocks shown in our pics were not our actual times). But I for one was glad about this because if we were pushing right at the 2 hour time we intended to be at, there is no way Bonnie would have allowed us to stop for our now treasured photos. :)
After the race, we of course were starving, so we hit Islands on the drive home. Boy was it yummy! That was when Molly asked Bon how far we really were behind after just mile one. And her answer. . . twenty seconds! Next time Bonnie. . . we don't give up so easily!!
4 comments:
we ROCK!! haha
You guys do rock! I am so glad that you guys stopped to get all the treasured photos so that we could enjoy your splendid accomplishments! Way to go! Debi
fun!!! i would have stopped for photos too. unless there was a prize for finishing at a certain time - but the prize would have to be really good because i don't enjoy running fast! :)
jody
that looks like so much fun, i didn't know they had something like that. do they do that every year? how much did it cost to enter the race?
your classroom is SO cute! Wow! Good job!
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