The end of August I flew down to California to spend some time with my Mom and sisters. Heather got us tickets to a concert and Heather, Ashleigh and I signed up to run a Disney 10k.
Friday night after everyone got off work we headed down to Anaheim to get our race packets. We got our bibs, corral letters and shirts. We then walked around the convention center and looked at all the fun running stuff for sale.
We got a hotel room close to Disney land because our running call time was 5 am and we didn't want to have to get up any earlier then we needed to. Unfortunately for me it didn't matter since I couldn't sleep that night anyway. I have a hard time sleeping in general but being in an unknown place and excited/anxious for the race I know I did not get more then an hours sleep if I even got that much. It was pretty ridiculous and frustrating but it's my life. We rolled out of bed at about 4 to get ready, Heather got us the Monsters Inc Oozma Kappa tanks (the 10K theme was Monster Inc so we chose to be Oozma Kappa members), I made the skirts and Ashleigh made the hairbows. We looked really cute!
Mom was with us but she was only spectating so she took pictures for us as we were leaving and then waited a little bit longer to leave to go watch us run by.
We got to our starting corral a little bit before 5 and proceeded to wait for about an hour for our start time. The call time was 5 am and that is when the first group of runners started but because we were in a different group we didn't get started until closer to 5:45ish I think. We were able to see the first runners come in and that was fun. As we were waiting we sweated, it was 80 degrees at five in the morning and I could not believe the heat. Luckily as we were running there was a good breeze blowing and so it wasn't too bad.
We were running 6.4 miles and every time we passed a mile marker we would cheer that we were OK. We saw Mom before she saw us and so we stopped for a second so she could take some pictures. After that we didn't see her until the end.
We were running 6.4 miles and every time we passed a mile marker we would cheer that we were OK. We saw Mom before she saw us and so we stopped for a second so she could take some pictures. After that we didn't see her until the end.
These next pictures are of us cheering that we are OK!
And here are pictures Mom took of us at the finish line.
When we finished we got our medals and then they gave us bananas and a box that had cookies, chips, cheese sauce, applesauce and dried fruit in it. I ate my banana but saved the rest of it for later in the day.
RunDisney has photographers throughout the course and these pictures are the professional ones taken by them.
We held hands while we ran down Main street past the store that Dad used to do his Artist Drawings at. That was really emotional for me. I am glad that I had the opportunity to run this race with my sisters and that it could be more then just a race. I love that it was another way to remember my Dad and to think of how proud of us he would have been. We ran through California Adventure and Disneyland and all throughout the course Disney employees were lined up cheering us on. I know my Dad would have been out there standing in his special spot ready to cheer us on has we ran by and he would have cheered hard!
I also got emotional as we held hands to run past the finish line. I don't get to participate in a lot of the races my sisters run together because of where I live. I was really happy that I had the opportunity to run this one and it made me emotional to have done it.
I had so much fun running this 10K, we did not really train for it but I am so proud of how well we did , we really did awesome! I would definitely do it again if the opportunity presents itself!
