Disneyland Half Marathon 2011

With sweat on my brow and achievement in my heart I can proudly say that I ran the Disneyland Half Marathon 2011. To top it off, thanks to Flick, more about him later, after my pre-race dinner I saw Ryan Gosling going into California Adventure and onto Soaring!

This race marked the beginning of my 13.1 Going on Crazy challenge, run 13 half marathons in 13 months, kind of crazy I know! As many of you may or may not know I am a Disney Geek. I love everything about Disney, I even took my first steps in Walt Disney World, so it is no wonder that I love RunDisney. Disney has yet again figured out how to make running 13.1 miles magical. Though I had a few hiccups prior to and during my race...

• Pre-Race dinner at Storytellers was an quite experience. I started out like every meal that I have had there, I ordered the kids salmon, perfect portion and it is delicious! I ate most of my dinner and went to eat the last piece of broccoli on my plate and saw a green bug still moving and nestled into that last piece. YUCK!!! My family and I fondly named the bug Flick and will probably laugh about it for years to comes. Though I plan on returning to that restaurant as they handled the situation with the utmost respect and compensation, what a disgusting last meal prior to the race.
• The next biggest OMG situation was my $400 Garmin 610, which promptly froze at the just as I was crossing the start line and I had a run gadgetless. This was very annoying as I am meticulous and love to analyze each and every run. Unfortunately I will not be able to do so with this race.
• Major GI issues during the last few miles which slowed me down, but did not stop me from crossing that finish line.

Regardless of the bumps that I may have experienced I had a great weekend with my friends and family. This was truly a wonderful weekend and I can honestly say that I think my family and I went on all most every ride in both parks during the course of our three day weekend. As I reflect on Labor Day 2011 I think of how lucky I am to have my family not only get up with me on race day at 5 am, but to know that while I was running 13.1 miles they were there to cheer me on and see me cross the finish line. Perhaps the little bumps prove even more that when life knocks you down you need to get right back up and keep on running.