Disneyland Weekend Recap: The Expo

I'm so sorry that my recaps are so sporatic! Between work and home life I've been swamped lately. Definitely running into the "there's so much to do and not enough hours to do it" syndrome. So thank you for hanging in with me on these, considering my recaps are almost a month after the races.

Ugh...that makes it sound worse.

So now onto the next big event and the official beginning of the runDisney race weekend: the expo!!! So let me preface this recap by saying I've had only one other experience with a runDisney expo and it was during the Princess Half Marathon this year, which from what I heard from the runDisney faithfuls, one of their worst. You can read my recap of that here. So when I went to Disneyland race weekend I was hopeful that I would encounter a better planned and laid out expo than what I had experienced earlier this year.

Friday morning I met up with Jen of Travel Girl on the Run, Kim of Kim Runs Disney and Beyond and Jen of Hello Fitness...We Meet Again. We decided to grab an early breakfast and get into the expo line early before it opens at 10am, so we figured meeting around 8ish would be good to scope out the line and grab something to eat. Well good thing we had done that because by 8am, there were two lines forming, one for bibs and one for the runDisney merch area of the expo. Both lines had at least 50-100 people each in them.  So we hopped into the merch line, as we knew from experience that the merch area is the one that fills up and items thin out the quickest. So if we really wanted something, we had to get there REALLY early.

Disneyland Weekend Recap: The Warm-up

So I'm finally getting around to my recaps of the Disneyland Race weekend in Anaheim, there is so much to cover that is race related and not race related, you're going to see it ALL! Here we go!

So we (hubby and I) headed for Disneyland a bit earlier to get some time in the parks before the craziness of the race weekend started. We flew out early Thursday morning to Anaheim, literally to Fort Wayne airport. I love that place, it's nice and small, easy to navigate and just a short 15 minute drive to and from Disneyland from there. Easy peasy!

 Us on the plane and with our carry-on only luggage!

Race Recap: Princess Half Marathon

Many months ago I started a long journey with a goal in mind and an ultimate destination of this race.  Right here and right now is the culmination of all the hard work, time spent and sacrifices that I made to train.  It all comes down to this point, these series of moments, this final delivery of the prize I've been fighting so hard for.  This is it.  It's go time.

The 2:30am wake up call is an ungodly way to wake up, but the race started in three hours and there was so much still to do.  The room was already buzzing with everyone up and about getting dressed and ready to catch the first buses.  I've seen pictures and heard hellish stories about the lines to get on the buses to get to the race and if you didn't have a car to drive yourself there, the bus was your only form of transport.  The buses started transporting at 3am, so it was important to get on the first couple of buses to ensure you made it to the start on time!

I've got my take on Cinderella running outfit on and I'm ready to head to the buses!

"The Jam" Thursday - What is blowing up my iPod

Oh Thursday, you saucy wench, we meet again.

I'm SO glad that today is my Friday (LOVE three day weekends!) because I would not be able to bear one more day of work.  This week has been quite trying and I'm looking forward to my run tonight and my long run on Saturday to shake off this stress!  Woo hoo!!

Since I'm on a Princess Half Marathon recap kick this week, I wanted to share that same love with my "jam" post today!

Today's "jam" is an oldie but definitely a goodie!  Anyone who was in Corral C (C stands for Courage!) for the Princess Half Marathon will know this song, as this was our send off song.  We sang along and almost overpowered the soundtrack at the start line.  Totally brilliant.

Today's "jam" is:

Race Recap: Royal Family 5K

I woke up to a quiet room on Saturday morning to get ready to run the Royal Family 5K.  None of my roomies were running it, nor were they waking early to come and see/cheer anyone on.

3:30am was far too early for this one to be awake, but I was and I was getting ready for my first runDisney race EVER!

 

I decided not to dress like a Princess for this race, but rather let my inner Winnie the Pooh come out!

I arrived via bus to the parking lots outside of Epcot where the drop off point was and made the walk toward the bag check area.  There were tons of signs and volunteers to help us sleepy eyed runners get to where we needed to be.

 

Got my picture taken before heading towards the corrals!  This is the first time I'd ever been to a runDisney event and was pretty happy with how smoothly the transitions were between locations.

PHM Weekend Begins! Day 1

My journey to Orlando started in the evening hours on Wednesday night.  I was taking the red eye to Orlando from Seattle, leaving at 9:45pm and arriving at 8:35am.  When you travel cross country there is always time lost and I hate losing an entire day to flying, so I gambled on losing a night of sleep instead.  Good idea or bad idea?

My pre-flight ritual is the same.  I stop off at the airport bar for a little drink and my first dose of Airborne for the flight.