As race day slowly approached, one by one the other runners had to bail out (for very valid reasons) on the experience. After all was said and done, it came down to just my sister Jenni and I running this race. We knew it was going to be just the 2 of us, a few weeks before the race, and at that point, I decided to not make this race a big deal, and just hang back with my sister so we could enjoy this race together.
After months of waiting, FINALLY the race weekend had come!
On Saturday, Jenni, Desmon (Jenni's husband), and I headed up to Disneyland...
After checking into our hotel (not in Disneyland), we rode the shuttle over to the race Expo...
Now, I had high expectations for EVERYTHING about this event. Afterall, this was a "DISNEY" event! Aaaand, this race was exceptionally expensive! Not to mention, the cost of a hotel stay, gas up to Disneyland, eating out (you can only pack so many meals), etc. I wanted this race to be AWESOME!
We finally arrived at The Disneyland Hotel for the Race Expo...
And Tinkerbell pointed us in the right direction...
We picked up our racing bibs...
And then we headed to the rest of the expo! :0) This was the first race expo Jenni and I had been to without our children. We were so excited to be able to walk down each and every isle, and to browse the merchandise at each and every booth. And again, this was a DISNEY expo, so we thought this was going to be EPIC!
We quickly met up with my cousin Carrie at the Expo (who was not a part of our original running group, but had decided to run the race with friends of her own)...
And then Jenni, Desmon, and I were off to go browse the expo!!!!
But we soon realized that this was going to be a let down. :0( There were very few vendors. We didn't get a goodie bag with fun free samples. The vendors that were there, hardly any of them were handing out samples. There was only one background photo-op thingy, and while it was VERY cool, again there was just the one, and so there was a REDICULOUS line to stand in to pose in the fairy garden. Booooo!
However, on a positive note, I did get my next racing charm for my charm bracelet...
And, we DID get to see Cinderella's glass (running) slipper...
But seriously, that was about it. 30 minutes later, we were done at the Expo. :0(
We had told our cousin that we weren't going to join her friends and family for lunch becuase we wanted to not be rushed at the expo, but a quick stay at the expo, meant we had plenty of time to meet everyone for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe! :0)
Jenni with her God Mother, our Aunt Carol...
And Desmon, with his CoronaRita...
After lunch, Jenni was jokingly making fun of my cousin Carrie's husband's hair, and referring to him as "Salt and Pepper"...my cousin quickly responded, "Who are YOU to be calling HIM 'Salt and Pepper'!?" We asked her what SHE was talking about, and she pointed to Jenni's hair and said, "HELLO! You have a gray hair!" We were STUNNED to see that yes in fact, Jenni DID have a gray hair!
Everyone could not stop laughing!!!...Except Jenni...she couldn't stop crying! HAHAHA! I love it that my baby sister beat me to the first gray hair. This girl beats me to a lot of cool things!...she skipped a grade in elementary school, which meant that we graduated together (thank the Lord my first name starts with an "E", and her name starts with a "J", so I was able to walk the line first, lol)...but she got married first...she bought a house first...she travels extensively, etc. So FINALLY, here was a moment that she beat me to something that neither of us had any desire of achieving, LOL!
(Disclaimer: In my every day life, I sincerely don't care that she "beat" me to those things. I am happy in my life, and she is happy in her life...THAT is what matters. She is my BEST friend...and always has been...it is AWESOME to sit next to your best friend, who happens to be your sister, during the boring graduation ceremony, chuckling to yourselves about all of your inside jokes!)
Jenni claimed she was emotionally exhausted when we went back to our hotel after lunch...
But she wasn't fooling anyone!...
Desmon and I got her booty moving again, and then we spent the rest of the evening chilling in the jacuzzi, going out for dinner, and then falling asleep laughing to comedy central on TV.
The race started at 5:45am, and the shuttles to the race started running at 3am. We had decided to leave our room at 4:15am, which meant we had to wake up for me to do Jenni's hair at 3:30am.
I surprisingly slept as well as I could for being in a hotel...and Jenni slept as well as she could with thinking about running a race in the morning that she hadn't trained for AT ALL! :-0
We got up on time, we got ready, and we were out the door, right on schedule. :0)
We arrived at the race, and started posing for pictures like all of the other fairies...
We were then told to get into our racing corals. That's a love hate/experience. You are packed in together with a bunch of other people, and you are waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And the suspense is building, building, and building. But it is super neat to see this mass of people all gathered together in one place...
Jenni and I had two main concerns/prayers for the morning...
1. PLEASE let Jenni get to the finish in reasonably good health (more of a concern of mine, than of hers).
2. PLEASE let the actual race experience be better than the expo experience...let it live up to the DISNEY name.
Things started off really good...before the corals were let go to start the race, per usual, we sang the national anthem, and we were all oooooh-ing, and aaaaaah-ing when Disney fireworks were going off at 5:30am at multiple (appropriate) times during the national athem. My faith in the race was building. :0)
Finally our coral was approaching the start...we could see the starting line...
And then our time had come!...Minnie Mouse, and Daisy Duck sent us on our way!...
From that point on, several magical things would happen on our journey through 13.1 miles.
The first magical moment was within the first 10 seconds. It may not seem like a big deal, especially becuase I don't have a picture to show you, but when you first start a race, everyone is still packed in together before you can hit your different paces, and spread out. But while we were all still close with one another, it was SO COOL to see thousands of "fairies" (runners dressed in costume) all together in one place with their wings bouncing in the wind...SO SO SOOOOO COOL! I hope I don't forget that moment! (Who am I kidding!? I have the WORST memory! I can barely remember the details of last week!)
By far, the best miles of the race were those that were run through actual Disneyland. We got to see all of the behind the scenes stuff, where they keep the extra trains, the extra boats, the extra cars, etc. And of course, it was equally cool, to run in the normal parts of Disneyland. They had SO many carachters placed throughout the park! The only downside to that is, is that unless you chose to stop running, and then stand in the designated lines to pose with the characters, they did not want you stopping to take a picture off to the side of the characters.
The lines were FOREVER LONG!
We never stopped to pose with a character.
HOWEVER, my sister is a rebel, and she did get a couple of shots of the characters...
All of the characters were such fun to see, and brought so much life to the run! But my next magical moment was when we were surprised to see the Lost Boys (from Peter Pan) not standing off to the side to be posed with, but seeing them having such fun actually riding on the carousel in Disneyland. It was really unexpected, and SUPER COOL!
And we were SO excited when we saw Sleeping Beauty's Castle!!!
Running through the castle was a magical moment indeed!
But soon after running past Tom Sawyer land...
...it was time to leave the park. :0(
Jenni was holding up GREAT! Jeff Galloway (the "Bill Gates" of Running), had spoken at the Expo the day before, and he is the HUGE promoter of interval running. SO many people (at least in our coral) were doing interval running (run for 30 seconds, walk for 30 seconds, run for 30 seconds, etc.), and so we had decided to take that approach for this race as well. Jeff Galloway was actually running this race as well, and at one point, we even got to run with him...very cool...but not necesarilly a "magical moment." ;0)
After leaving Disneyland, we ran past HUNDREDS of strategically placed cheer leaders, Hawaiin dancers...
...we ran through tunnels...
...and we ran past about a hundred "Red Hats" ladies...
During a race, your emotions are on the very edge. A race takes so much of you physically that you are just overcome with emotion. When the cheer leaders were in full cheer mode (and not just standing around talking about their nails or their short skirts) I would actually get choked up. And when you see a motivational sign that a spectator is holding, you get choked up. And so when your grandma is at home recovering from an extensive surgery, and you see this gigantic mass of Red Hats ladies (to which your grandma is a member of), you.get.choked.up. As lame as it sounds, those silly ladies in their red hats, were definitely an unexpected magical moment for me!
Desmon was the only person that had come up for/with Jenni and I. But unfortunately, we never got to see him on the course until the finish. Luckily, my cousin Carrie had brought her posse, and so it was always a welcomed sight to see my Aunt Carol, my Uncle Mark, Carrie's husband, Carrie's friend's parents (yes, you are THAT DESPERATE for a familiar face in the crowd!) throughout the entire course! We were so grateful for their faces!
But never in my races, has MY family been there to cheer me on, on the course.
Until now! :0)
Much to my UNBELIEVE-MAGICAL-MOMENT-SURPRISE (!!!!!!), right after mile marker #10, I spotted my stepmom's smiling face in the crowd, and she was looking right at me! My eyes traveled right next to her, to which I saw my mom, and at that point I lost all emotional control, becuase I knew that if my mom was there, my kids HAD to be there! When I saw their faces I was overcome with JOY! I couldn't believe it! The kids were really worried about me crying/sobbing/bawling, but I just kept telling them that these were happy tears. All of this happened so fast, and again, I was totally caught off gaurd by them even being there. All I kept hearing was Wyatt saying, "I want to run with you, I want to run with you..." I had to do a mental check in my brain to remember what mile we were at, so I could see if he could go the distance...and when I realized that we just had a 5K to go (3 miles), I thought, "This is EXACTLY the distance that he has be training for!" And then, when I checked to make sure that he wasn't wearing his cowboy boots (typical), I saw that he had his sneakers on, and so I said, "Lets GO!"
After the initial shock had wore off, and we had gone quite a distance (too far to bring him back to my mom), I began to panic a bit. I was remembering that "no strollers, and no kids" were allowed to participate in this race. I was wondering if at some point both of us would be pulled off the course. I was getting bummed for Wyatt becuase he SO wanted to cross the finish line. AND, I was getting bummed for myself...selfishly, I had already put in over 10 miles in this race, and WANTED the medal!!! I was going to be CRUSHED if we both got pulled from the race becuase I made a (potentally stupid) knee-jerk decision!
We ran for about a mile, and during that time all of the spectators were cheering on Wyatt...and the other racers thought it was SO cool to see a kid on the course. It was really neat!
But as we were approaching the final 2 miles, back inside Disney...specifially, California Adventure now...there was a security gaurd right outside the park that had caught our eye, and he was obviously caught off guard...he eventually shouted, "Hey, he isn't supposed to be on the course."
I was so nervous. As we were running to him/the entrance to the park, my sister yelled back to him, "Oh, don't worry about him, he has been training for this!"
I could tell the guard was unsure as to what to do, but the important part is, is that while we continued to run past him, he didn't stop us. :0)
There was security all throughout the rest of the route through California Adventure, and even though they would all make eye-contact with us, and then whisper to one another, not a single one said anything to us. I was GRATEFUL! Wyatt got to see the Monsters Inc. characters, Woody & Buzz, and a few other characters. I was so happy for him...for both of us! I couldn't stop smiling!
I'm not sure if it was becuase of the interval run/walk pace we were doing for Jenni, or if it was just becuase of the excitement of it all, but Wyatt didn't seemed to be phased by the distance of the run AT ALL! He just kept smiling, and yap-yap-yapping the whole time.
We made it to mile 12...
And then to mile 13 (I have no idea who that lady is...I'm assuming my sister was just taking a picture of the mile 13 sign, lol)...
We just had .1 miles to go! :0) In a short time, we were able to see the finish line!
And finally, we crossed the finish line together, and it was over!!!!
He was on cloud 9! His only disappointment was that he didn't get a medal like the rest of us, LOL!
Here are a few more post-race photos...
In summary, this was my VERY FAVORITE race experience ever!!! Becuase...
1. God is amazing! When Wyatt had begun running with me, I had NO idea when we would run a race (or a portion of a race) together...but God knew. He knew when Wyatt would be doing that...and He knew the distance Wyatt needed to train for. I'm just in complete awe of my Lord.
2. Crossing the finish line with Wyatt was AWESOME!
3. Running 10 miles with my sister was AWESOME! We have never done this together before. She is a much slower runner than I am (NOT a critism, just a fact) and so we haven't been able to keep pace with one another. I am SO GLAD that I chose to be with her on this race! It was so much fun to have a friend for 10 miles! And I am so gald to have been there to encourage her when she was getting tired.
4. The stress of not having to run my fastest race was AWESOME! This is not a backhanded compliment. It truly was nice to take the race nice and easy. I never got tired, and I had SO much strength at the end of this race! If I did this interval style of running again, I would SO be interested in doing another full marathon! My 2 prior races (a half and then a full marathon) were my first races ever, and so there was SO MUCH DRAMA in my head about those races. I was consumed with training, I was consumed with research/reading, and I was consumed with thinking. Thinking about actually doing it, and then thinking about how well I would do when I did it. This experience was so different. I had put ZERO expectations on myself, I had already ran a race of this distance in recent time, AND becuase I did train for this race (but nowhere near as crazy as I had/have in the past) I had nothing but confidence in myself for this race. Confidence in racing is foreign...but it felt GREAT!!!
After the race, Jenni and I were able to shower at the hotel, and then head out to lunch with our family before heading back down to San Diego.
My beautiful Bea at lunch...
My delicious brunch...
At the end of the day, this experience cost me $250 (race fee + travel expenses)...
1. Am I sorry I did it? Absolutely NOT! There was a time when I was regretting the money that was spent, but after the experience I did have, I would NOT erase the memories for the money!
2. Will I do this particular race again? Absolutely NOT! It's way too expensive! ;0)
And can you believe it???...they NEVER had Tinkerbell at the race!!! Not at the expo, not at the start, not on the course, and not at the finish! That's craziness I tell you, craziness!
But seriously, Good Times! :0)
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