Disneyland Expo and 5K Recap

Now this is more like it……

Expo

So this time, I sort of knew what to do and what to expect. RunDisney made several changes from the Tinkerbell series in May. My favorite was the change from queuing people in a underground car lot to the actual Disneyland hotel.

The same rule still applies here: If you want merch, then get here early. I think I got there about an hour early and was fairly close to the front. I spent time in line with a lady who was doing her first Disney race. I was just going for a magnet and she had no clue what she wanted, so we enjoyed our frugalness while the other runners in line got enough points on their credit cards to pay for the trip back home.

They had several cool new shirts and they were even selling some banners from the last race there. We will buy your literal garbage runDisney!

The expo itself was quite fun. They had lots of great booths and partners set up. I got to get a picture with the half marathon pace car…..and then I never saw it again.

I also got to spend some time with Jeff and Barb. They were great as usual. I also picked up one of his pace keepers for Sharon. (My future Disney Darling Runner!)

I’ve come to really love the Galloways!

I got suckered into picking up a pair of the runDisney shoes. (So much for being frugal) and then was interviewed by Cigna on my way back to the parks. I had as much fun getting to know some of the runDisney folks as I did doing the interview.

After that is was off to the parks!

I mean have some manners dude.

5K Recap

Let me tell you a story about the power of a running team. Half of my posts are basically love letters to them and just when I think I’ve realized all the great things about them, more incredible things happen.

This story stars Luke. Isn’t he just spiffy?

Yes, he’s carrying a giant head of Lou Mongello. No, we are not weird. Ok, yes we are kinda weird.

So Luke and I ran together at the Star Wars half marathon. I knew him, but we really hadn’t gotten a chance to spend a bunch of time together. Even during the race he was supporting a new runner and I was running with the ladies learning about things such as bra waffles. (who knew??)

Here’s about our only picture together back then. It just so happens it also looks like we are running to our imminent deaths.

Luke shows up for all three races out there with me and we just hit it off. Several people thought that we had known each other for a long time. It was without a doubt, the most fun I’ve had during a race.

This may have been my favorite start to a Disney 5K yet. It was Country bear themed, so all the characters on the course were bears and they even had a banjo player do the national anthem. He killed it in a way only a true rocker could.

We got out at a decent pace and ended up basically running the majority of the course by ourselves. We had a great time talking to the cast members and picking up characters.

Here is a secret of the 5Ks. If you want some photos worthy of wall hangers, then get in A group and sprint the first mile. What you do afterwards doesn’t matter. You’ll get a ton of photographers just shooting you and not a sea of people.

This is about a 3/4 mile in and you can see it’s thinning out.

We stopped for a few more bears along the way.

It was then off to a solo run through the castle!

We made our way down main street and wouldn’t you know it, the banjo player was there. He was just hanging out plucking away as if to say, “Yeah, I slayed that anthem and now I’m just going to chill here and blow people’s minds with some back country tunes.”

There were a couple of more bear sightings and then it was off to the finish. We ended up facebook live-ing? (Is that how the hip kids say it?) the ending of the race in all our nerd glory.

It may not look it, but Im sure that guy in the background was thoroughly impressed.

After the race, I found my photopass guy! He’s probably the funnest, most awesome photo person in the history of photopass people. (He’s the one that took the flex shot that Frank dissed me on at Tinkerbell)

He of course had us do some fun poses. Including our best Usain Bolt impression. I mean we did almost win the race by accident….. He’ll be our go to for the rest of the series and you’ll finally get a chance to meet him on the next recap.

Next up: 10K and Half recaps!