Monday, January 27, 2014

Tinkerbell 10k Race Re-Cap

After all of the excitement of the Neverland 5k, I didn't think that the weekend could get much better, but it did!!

My sister and I spent the day after running the 5k at Disneyland! We were lucky enough to walk right onto many of our favorite rides! We called it an early day, went back to the hotel to change for our dinner at Napa Rose.

Before our reservation though, we hit the Expo again, this time to be taped by KT Tape professionals. I use KT Tape for just about all of my races and long runs over 5 miles. I think I do a good job taping myself, but I wanted to be taped by a professional, just once!

The line for being taped was INSANE!! Seriously, we waited over an hour. After just about giving up, it was finally our turn and I had pretty "Tinkerbell" green tape applied. I was happy to see that I apply my tape pretty much the same way as the professional taper did. The only difference was that she used the KT Tape adhesive spray, which made it really hold tight! (I need to get some of that!)

After finally being taped, we headed over to the Californian Grand Hotel (beautiful!!) and our most anticipated dinner at Napa Rose!!

We had the best time! The wait staff was wonderful, and the food was out of this world!! I started with the Signature Pizzetta, which was to DIE FOR! It was also huge and I got to take over 1/2 of it with me (a great post-marathong treat!!)  My sister enjoyed a whole basket of their gluten-free vegan bread along with the Apple Salad! She hadn't had bread in over 5 years and REALLY enjoyed it!!

For our main course, I ordered the Truffle Stuffed Chicken, and my sister allowed the chef to "surprise" her with a vegan feast! We were both speechless! The food was just amazing!! We ended the evening with house made ice cream for me and sorbet for my sister!

We pretty much rolled back to our hotel, and fell into a food-induced coma!! We were beyond stuffed!

Another easy early morning wake up! (Gotta love the 2-hour time difference! So much easier than WDW races!). And we were off to the 10k!

The starting line was just across the street from our hotel, so we really didn't have to rush to get there. We stopped for a dance or two at the racers "village" and then made our way up to corral A!!

Just like at the 5k, we were practically in the front of the corral! It was so much fun looking back at the 10, 000 runners and being so close to the starting line stage!

I was really excited to run this race! I love the 10k distance, and I was excited to see what my legs could do on race day 2!!

It wasn't a long wait, and we were off. As planned my sister waved good-bye and she was gone.

The first mile of the 10k was the exact same as the 1st mile for the 1/2. There was a "hill" on which I heard a lot to grumbling, and many people stopped to walk! Then we took a right into the back-stage of Disneyland!

There were many more people running around me during this race, than during the 5k, and that gave me some comfort (running the 5k practically alone was kind of unnerving!). As I made my way through Disneyland, I made sure to stop for lots of pictures. This was going to be a slower run for me, and I wanted to just have fun with it.

It was again a great course!! I love running through the parks, and the Tinkerbell 10k did not disappoint!! There were so many Disney employees lining the course cheering on the runners, along with many non-employee spectators!




There seemed to be a lot more photo opportunities during this race than during the 5k (duh, it was a longer course!), and I did some "character sprints", quickly getting from photo-op to photo-op. It all went by much too quickly, and too soon we were out on the streets of Anaheim for our last 2 miles.

I have to say (and it won't be my last time!) that the city of Anaheim does a great job supporting these races!! There were so many people out cheering us on, the crowd support was outstanding!!

At this point the sun was just coming up, it was still cool out (55 degrees) but the sun was warm, and I started to sweat!!

The course loops around the streets of Anaheim for a few miles and then takes runners to the finish line in the Simba Parking Lot (the same finish as for the 1/2 marathon). I was so excited to cross that finish line and get my 10k medal!! I was smiling from ear to ear!!

It was another great run for me!! Really gave be a boost of confidence! Even though it was not a 10k PR (don't know if I'll ever have another one of those!), it was about the same pace as my last 10k but this time I stopped for tons of pictures!! Win-win as far as I am concerned!!

I completely am in LOVE with this race and this course! It was so much fun!! Tinkerbell 1/2 marathon weekend was just blowing me away!! I couldn't wait for the 1/2 Marathon the next day!!

I know there are many people out there who say that the 10k had some problems, that "too many" people got swept off the course, etc. I cannot say one bad thing about this race!! It was simply perfect!!
The course was exciting, full of character stops, and support! I didn't think it was overly crowded, but definitely felt like it was more of a Disney Race than my lonesome 5k!! The medal is gorgeous!!

















As far as my running is concerned, I was very happy with how I did considering all of the pictures I stopped for, and for how long the lines were for the photos (longest wait was 15 minutes!!!).  I only walked once (just enough time to turn my music on for the last few miles!), which is really good for me!!


I was worried about running multiple races back-to-back because I really didn't train very well for back-to-back runs in December (I did really great in November though!). But my legs felt awesome! No soreness, no issues!!

After the race we walked across the street to our hotel (so nice to be so close!), showered, and headed out to the parks! We spent most of the day exploring Disney's California Adventures, and just taking it easy.

After dinner, and the realization that no restaurant would ever be as good as Napa Rose, we called it time for bed. I think we were both sleeping before 7pm!! It was a good thing, though, we had a 1/2 Marathon to run the next day!!

2 comments:

Meg Pudzianowski said...

I would KILL for that picture at the Haunted Mansion, I love that you had such fantastic races :)

Professor SnuggleSlut said...

I was lucky enough to get a Haunted Mansion photo too, but I cannot believe they didn't have marathonfoto at that one! My picture is ok, but dark and kind of fuzzy. We were in B and stopped for tons of photos, so by the time we got to the HM, the line was huge, but worth it!