Tinkerbell 10k & Kids Race Race Recap (Part 3)

When Kris and I decided to sign up for the Tink half to get the coast to coast, we figured we might as well do the challenge. I mean more bling is more bling. LOL I'm telling you we're not the smartest girls sometimes. This would be my second RunDisney challenge and Kris's first. I was a little hesitant about it all, since I caught a cold the week before and hadn't done any workouts for a week (to try to kick it out of my system). Thankfully, I was feeling better by the time we got to California.

And I would like to thank our internal East Coast clocks to making the early wakeups not as hard. The 10k started at 5:30am, so we got up at 4 to be out the door by 4:30. We were getting dressed, and adjusting our wings, when I heard it, the rain. UGH, I hate rainy races. We threw on ponchos over our costumes (wings and all), and headed out.

Thankfully, Disneyland is waaaay smaller, so we just had to cross the street to the Disneyland property and then walk back to the start line, which was by one of the on-property hotels. The rain wasn't too hard, and by the time we reached the corrals it seemed to have let up. We took off our ponchos, and stuffed them into the back of our skirts. We had wings and Mickey ears, and were ready.

Now, I'm totally used to the pre-race at Disney World, with DJs blasting music and characters waiting for photos, but there was none of that. Here it was just get to the corral and that's it. Thankfully, the walk from our hotel to the corral was less than the pre-race area to the corrals at Star Wars, so that was a plus. At WDW (Walt Disney World) the 10k corrals take forever to get going, but these were off within minutes of each other. We were in corral C and before we knew it we were off.

The first part was through some streets and around to get back to the parks, and before I knew it I heard my name behind me. I turned around to see my west coast friend (who I had never met in real life), Jenn! She handed me a Momentum band and ran off. It was so cool to see her during the race!

We were at mile 1 pretty fast, and then we were turning back towards the parks. We came in through the back of the parks, and before we knew it, we were in Disneyland. We ran through the park, which was tight, but we really just wanted to take it easy and take pics, and we did.

Then we came around to the back of the castle!

As you may have seen in my Princess Half recap, I slowly, slowly walked through that castle. Here I walked freely (and had to take video to document it).

And, we decided to stop for a castle pic. We had wings and Mickey ears on, it's like we had to.

Then we stopped by the Haunted Mansion to snap a pic there.

There were a few characters on the course, but they were all fairies, so we decided to skip them. Instead we totally posed for the cameras. It's so easy to see the PhotoPass guys now.

Soon, we were in California Adventure! This was our first time seeing this park, since we hadn't been in there yet.

We stopped for a shot with Walt & Mickey and were totally all about the pics here. We hit the backlot of the park, where strangely there were no characters. Totally missed opportunity Disneyland.

And then we rounded the corner and saw these mountains that looked amazing... Cars Land! I have to say that this place is taken right out of the movie. It's crazy how exactly the same it looks. The Imagineers "se la comieron" with this. At this point it was less about the running and all about the pics.

Then we were at Paradise Pier, also known as the area with the roller coaster and ferris wheel. This area is too cute.

We were headed towards Downtown Disney and the finish line wasn't too far away.

Part 1 of the Pixie Dust Challenge was done. It was a great race, especially since we got to see so much of the parks.

Plus, it was the first time I ran in wings and Mickey ears... both of which were awesome looking and didn't bother me at all. Glad I used them for the 10k and not the half though, 13.1 miles with wings might have gotten annoying.

I felt great at the end of this race, which was awesome since we had another race the next day.

After the race, we ran to the hotel, took off our completely useless bottom layer (It turned out to be a little too hot for a long sleeve top and tights), and re-donned our fabulous wings to go to V's Kids Races. She did awesome, and was super fast. Of course, it's cause she had wings ;).

We were done with the kids races and wanted to get back to the hotel, but the other kids dashes were still going on, so we were trapped. Another Disneyland runDisney fail. I know you're limited on space, but blocking the way out with the kids race courses wasn't the smartest thing. Lots of tired and cranky kids just wanting to move. We got through the crazy and went to the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney and got some beignets for breakfast, and coffee, of course. Then I waited to meet up with Jenn!

We sat and chatted for an hour that seemed like 15 minutes. It's amazing how meeting you can someone online and then you just click with them. It seemed like we had known each other forever. This girl is just so amazing. We needed way more time! But it was time to meet up with the family for a day of fun at California Adventure.