Written By Lisa
With registration for the 2016 Tinkerbell 1/2 Marathon weekend quickly approaching, here is a review of this year's race from Lisa!
I decided to register for the Pixie Dust Challenge (10k race Saturday and half marathon on Sunday) at Disneyland in California in May 2015, in addition to running the Glass Slipper Challenge at Walt Disney World in February. Why? The special pink Coast 2 Coast medal! I am a sucker for anything pink, and if you complete the Princess half marathon and the Tinkerbell half marathon, you receive a special coast to coast medal (the normal medal is blue). I also had a chance to get an inaugural medal since it was the first official Pixie Dust Challenge.
This race weekend took place over Mother's Day weekend. We arrived to the expo on Friday afternoon, pretty much all of the commemorative race items were sold out. I did expect it to be that way after my experience at the Princess Half expo, but I was still bummed. So, definitely get there a couple of days early if you are really wanting some souvenir race memorabilia.
Running races at Disneyland is a bit different than Disney World. First of all, as long as you stay close to or on Disney property, you can walk to the race corrals. That means no 3:00 am wake ups! We left our hotel around 5:00 for a 5:30 start and I had plenty of time to get to where I needed to be. It was also nice for a Midwestern girl like me to have my body think it was actually 7 am (due to the time zone difference).
The 10k(held on Saturday morning)course was awesome. We spent most of the race in the actual parks. I decided not to stop for character pictures this time around, but I had to take advantage of a cast member with no line on the back side of Sleeping Beauty’s castle!
You will also notice I didn’t run in costume. There were some great ones, but I decided this time I would stick with a tank top and running skirt. Since it was Tinkerbell themed, the amount of people running with wings on was probably greater than those of us who didn’t My favorite costume I saw was a guy dressed and painted up like Hades from Hercules. That is dedication right there!
This race course takes you through so many great areas for pictures, aside from pictures with characters.
The half marathon is run on Sunday morning. The course was nice, with the first half of the race in and around the parks, then through Downtown Disney. We ran quite a bit around Anaheim after leaving the parks, so the crowd support wasn’t as big as it was at the entrance gate and Downtown Disney. Spectators were not allowed inside either of the parks, so we only had cast members cheering us on. They had marching bands and dance teams and cheerleaders on the streets around the parks to help keep us motivated, too. There were barely any hills and I appreciated that a lot. Once again, I didn’t stop for pictures, but I did have to stop for a quick selfie with the Lost Boys!
In the end, I finished under the time I wanted to, so I was pleased. I really enjoyed my Disneyland experience and can’t wait to run another race there! Or maybe I just can’t wait to eat another Monte Cristo sandwich at Blue Bayou. Or see World of Color at California Adventure.
Either way, I highly recommend the Tinkerbell half marathon! Hope to see you all there in 2016!
