Over the long Labor Day Weekend great friend and site contributor Renée was back out for her annual running of the Disneyland Half Marathon. She's one of a select group of Legacy Runners, that is runners who have done the Disneyland Half Marathon every year. That's an incredible achievement. Congrats Renée!!! Enjoy her awesome report below. (click on any of the pictures below to see a larger version) First stop for all runners is the Disneyland Hotel for the Health and Fitness Expo The expo tends to be busy first thing in the morning, but later on isn't too bad. Legacy runners stop at a booth to pick up extra swag and get their name on a banner. At the @runDisney booth, you can view all the medals you can earn and proudly wear in the parks after Doing some pre-marathon carb loading with Disneyland 60th treats. 5am at #disneylandhalf with a few thousand of my sweaty runner friends. Here we go! Good luck to all! The first part of the #DisneylandHalf course goes through the parks, including some backstage areas. World of Color and Cars Land are all lit up as the runners go through DCA Running up Main Street and through Sleeping Beauty castle is a highlight of the course You'll find some rare characters out, but lines tend to get quite long! The streets of Anaheim aren't too exciting but there is still some good local entertainment There are a ton of awesome cars that line the street and a crowd to cheer runners on Another highlight is running through Angel Stadium! It's not every day you get a view like this! Churro costume yesterday rocked, but I gotta give a shout out to this guy for the best shirt today. I always appreciate the signs that spectators make to cheer on runners and make us laugh! Renée ran the inaugural Rebel Challenge/Star Wars Half Marathon back in January and was nice enough to send us the following pictures and a review. As a reminder, if you'd like to run the Avengers Half Marathon or any of the races that weekend, registration opens TODAY. So that means, register TODAY!!! =) First, a few shots from the Expo, which is pretty much a typical RunDisney Expo but with some cool Star Wars signage. We;ll start off with the 10k. One of the best things about the race was the creative Star Wars themed costumes that people came up with. There was a lack of characters along both the 10k and half courses, and when there were any, the lines were quite long. I didn't stop for anyone during the 10k. They did have several Jedi cheering us on in some areas. After the 10k Moving on to the next morning and the Half Marathon. Character lines were a little shorter since I was in an earlier corral for the half, so I stopped at a few. Luke and Leia were appearing where Chewbacca was the previous day. The lines for Chewbacca and Darth Vader were still too long for me to justify waiting. Besides the disney parks, the best part of the course was a stretch of road where Star Wars fans appeared in some awesome costumes. Finish line and of course the medals. Thanks again to Renée for sending us these amazing pictures. It's nice to see Disney switching up the courses a bit and hopefully they'll have more characters out for the next race. Maybe even some from the new Star Wars movie!! As a reminder, if you'd like to run any of the RunDisney races or other Theme Park Races, be sure to check out our article "Please Run Through the Theme Park at All Times". It's a great resource for upcoming races and all of our race reviews are added there as well. We are always adding new races to the article. Being a runner and a lover of Disney, it's only natural that running a Disney race is top on my list. I've now run 5 different races at Disneyland and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I hadn't really planned on running the Avengers Half because the price tag $195 was a bit much for a half marathon considering full marathons are generally less than that. As luck would have it, a friend was offering her bib the day before the race, so I got to run the race for a greatly reduced price. So I could just review the race in relation to the price I paid, but that wouldn't be fair as most people paid 4 times what I paid. So even though I didn't pay much, the review below is based upon the full retail price of the race, $195. I also won't be reviewing the expo as I didn't have a chance to go, this is strictly for the race. We also need to apologize for the blurriness of some of the pictures, as I was running, well, trying to. =) At the starting line. Compared to other Disney races I had run, it seemed they were enforcing the corrals much more than in previous years. While this is usually a good thing, it meant that I would be starting in the very back. I was probably among the last 500 people to start the race. The first group of runners began about 40 minutes before I would, so staying loose was a problem. Finally at about 6:15am my race began The race began down Disneyland Drive and then quickly turned onto the old Tram Road behind DCA's Paradise Pier and backstage behind CarsLand. The biggest thrill of running a Disney race is the time spent running inside the parks and backstage. To say that the Avengers had the least amount of "on property" running of any Disney race I've done would be an understatement. Below is a map of the backstage/onstage route we took for the first part of the race. 1.74 miles backstage or onstage. No running through Hollywood in DCA, no Tomorrowland at Disneyland. If you include just the "on stage" route, this amounts to only 1.2 miles, so less than 1/10th of the total race. We entered DCA at the gate between CarsLand and BugsLand. Running down Route 66 Obligatory bad running selfie After leaving CarsLand we made our way down towards Mermaid and right towards Grizzly River Run. The path inside DCA ended at Soarin'. That was all of DCA we'd be running through for this race. After a quick trip through the Esplanade, we found ourselves backstage at Disneyland. A look at the Indiana Jones show building. S.H.I.E.L.D. We entered Disneyland at the gate next to Splash Mountain We proceeded to run through New Orleans Square and Frontierland on our way to Big Thunder Trail Of course we had to run through the castle but there was no chance for individual castle pictures due to the congestion. One of the things Disney is known for during it's races is great photo ops with the characters. I didn't notice it until I was putting together this update, but this race had a severe lack of character moments compared to the Disneyland and Tinkerbell Half Marathons. And just like that, our run through Disneyland is over One of the great things about running a Disney race is the awesome Disney CM's, and even better when you run into a Disney CM that you know. Hi Allison!!!! At least one of us is awake in this picture (hint, it's not me). Allison and her CM friends made an awesome Avengers direction sign in the Esplanade. It's the little touches. Heading to the "Exit" of Disneyland and onto the tram road that the toy story buses use. And finally out to "Beautiful" Anaheim ... a mere 2.5 miles into the race. I guess Target could be a part of the theme? Hulk Smash Target? After running on Harbor Blvd, Chapman Blvd, through the parking lot of the Crystal Cathedral and Garden Grove Blvd, we found ourselves on the Santa Ana River trail. For the next 2 miles we would run on a narrow trail, in a race with 20,000 runners. Since it was a very windy day, the mile markers were unfortunately a casualty. Not even the Avengers could have saved them on this day. More of the beautiful trail. Ooooh, look at all those awesome flags. Shouldn't it be "Los Angeles Angel Stadium of Anaheim"? =) (we all hate the name) Getting ready to run through "The Big A" Is it weird that I've now run through Angel Stadium 4 times and haven't seen a baseball game here since the 80's? I think so too. Need to fix that one of these days. HAIL!!! Back on the streets, headed back towards the resort Nothing like a big ad on a truck to say "here's where your $195 was spent". As we approached the resort I'd hoped that we'd get a little more running inside of the parks, but nope, just under the tunnel that goes under the Harbor entrance and backstage at DCA. The race ended with a loop around the Paradise Pier Hotel and directly in front of the Disneyland hotel. This here was one of the most awesome things ever as there is always a back up for pictures, even if you don't want to take one. The winds were so strong that they had to get everybody out from around the stage and the family reunion area. Obviously people were upset, but really, there is nothing Disney could have done about the wind. It's not like the bubble that surrounds Disneyland extends to the hotel parking lots. ;) People were still wanting to use the Port-o-Potties ... in the high winds. I don't know if you've ever been in one of these that tipped over, but I'm guessing it's not a very pleasant experience. =) After the race I'd normally show off my medal in the parks (because I earned it) but this was as close as I'd get. =) I finished the race in about 2:44, which isn't my best time and isn't my worst time. You don't run a Disney race to set a Personal Record, and considering we had spent 12 hours at Disneyland the day before and I was running on 2 hours of sleep (and no breakfast) I was perfectly happy with that time. Overall, I'd have to easily say that the course for the Avengers Half was the worst for any Disney race I've run. it didn't have enough inside/backstage at the parks compared to previous races and the amount of time spent on narrow trails was ridiculous for a race with 20,000 people. Is this race worth $195? Honestly, if I'd payed that much I would have been greatly disappointed. It will be interesting to see what course the upcoming Star Wars Half Marathon takes in January. |
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