Rock'n'Roll Pacific Peaks Challenge 2013!!!

I will be running the Portland Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon on May 19th and the Seattle Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon on June 22nd, this will award me with a very special Pacific Peaks medal and in addtion for completing two Rock'n'Roll events in one calendar year, I will also get the Rock Encore medal.

I'm so excited, I finally booked my hotel to Portland, its just a bit too far to drive for a day to pick up my race packet and drive back, so we decided to stay overnight and just enjoy a nice night out while we were there. Its only a week away and I've really been lacking on my training, I've been good about working out my legs at the gym, but running has been challenging. I've been trying to get my leg muscles stronger to prevent tendonidis, I really hope to see a difference in my time, but I have not done any long runs since my last half marathon at the end of April, three weeks ago. We'll see I'll do a race recap once we get back home and let you know how it goes.

I ran the Seattle race last year as my very first half marathon and I had a great time, so I'm super excited to be doing it again, last year I didn't stay for the concert or anything. I'm planning on staying for the afterparty this year though, to get the full experience.

Check out their web sites for all the Rock'n'Roll events, they have so many of them and they always draw tons of crowds. I believe there were about 16,000 people running last year, if you think about it, I was originally put into corral 41!!!! That's how many people there were. In addition, the more races you do, the more medals you earn, they even have international races, if you are interested in travelling to some fun races http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/heavy-medals

One day I really want to do their Las Vegas one, its supposed to be at night running down the Strip. How amazing would that be, I bet there are a lot of people cheering on, since it is the city that never sleeps, plus if you don't get a great time, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right!!!

Let me know if you've ran any of them and which one you enjoyed the best.

Keili

Tinkerbell Half Marathon 2013!!!

I know that this post is super late, but better late than never, right?
If you are interested, you can check out my other blogs from the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend, so I'll start this one with the very early wake up call at 4:00am and I later realized this was too late, but more on that later.

I got ready, put my costume on and got my watch and fanny pack :) and off to the hotel lobby I went to wait for the shuttle. There were already a lot of people waiting, so I assumed that the bus was due any minute, but it took it forever to get there and time just kept going by. We thought that we were going to be late to the race, so some people started walking to the starting line. I really did not want to walk, so me and others still kept waiting. Finally the shuttle came, I was super happy, but then it ended up being the longest bus ride of my life. So this was the last shuttle of the morning and it was picking up from 4 different hotels and we were the first ones to be picked up. I guess the good thing is that we got seats on the bus, but it took probably another 20 minutes or so to actually get to Disneyland. We finally made it with 15 minutes to spare. I booked it to the staring line, and I mean I literally ran the whole way from the shuttle drop to corral "A" and I made it with 5 minutes to spare. I could not believe it. Needless to say I learned my lesson and did things a little different for the Princess Half. But wow, I could not believe I made it!

Finally off we went, the course itself was amazing at times, like when running through Sleeping Beauty's Castle and all through out Disneyland and California Adventure. Some of it was just okay, there was quite a bit of running through streets of Anaheim, some people were cheering us on in front of their houses, which was super nice and encouraging. I got a ton of pictures in the parks though, they were very nice at letting me use my own camera, they would actually have a cast member by the characters to just take pictures with your own camera and then a professional photographer. RunDisney thinks of everything, don't they?
I couldn't find anybody by the castle on Main street, so I just asked a guy with a baby stroller if he would take my picture and he totally did, so sweet! As I was coming around the castle to run through it I wanted to get a close up picture so I had my iPhone set on the front camera and was trying to take a picture of myself with the castle in the background and I saw another girl doing the same, so I just asked her if she wanted me to take picture of her and she could take a picture of me and she said "yes", that was awesome and super funny as we are both there trying to get decent pictures we could have just asked earlier :)

Unfortunately I didn't realize that the course ran right by our hotel, once I realized that I texted and called my husband to see if he could come down and cheer me on for a bit, but they were still sleeping and didn't get my message until it was too late. That was kind of a bummer, but nevertheless I kept going strong.

I did not see Mickey and Minnie around anywhere, I'm not sure if I just missed them or they weren't there altogether, oh well, I got some awesome pictures anyway. I had to take a picture of Lightning McQueen and Mater for my son Chase and he is super into Star Wars right now, so when I saw Darth Vader and the Storm trooper, that was another must picture for me. I think I stopped for all but one character picture and it was Princess Aurora and her Prince. I was super proud of my time for this race, considering that I stopped for about 9 or so characters for pictures and few for the castle and I actually stopped and asked an Anaheim police officer for a kids sticker (my son collects them) and it took them forever to find them. I finished with 2:28 I believe, you can check my "Race" page with all the details.

The finish was awesome, they had a marching band playing about a half a mile before the finish line, which got me super pumped up. The last of it was going around a parking lot, finishing with Donald, Mickey, Minnie and Goofy at the finish line. It was an amazing feeling to finish this race since this was why I started my running journey. Truly if I would have never found out about the runDisney races and if my husband would not have agreed to spend his vacation time on my runs, I would have never ever started running. I consider myself very lucky and fortunate to have had this opportunity and hope that my runDisney journey continues with many more runDisney races.

After the race they had runDisney foil blankets and the food boxes and lots of water, Gatorade and ice for you sore legs and knees.

I headed straight to the hotel since we were meeting one of our friends who is a Disney Cast member to let us into the park for FREE! I took a quick shower and got ready, put my much deserved medal on and off to California Adventure we went :)

XOXO
Keili

Neverland Family 5K and runDisney Kids Races 2013

I'm back with the runDisney Neverland Family 5K and Kids Races that took place in Disneyland and were part of the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend races.

These were my first ever runDisney races and since I was planning on getting my Coast to Coast medal, I figured that I might as well take part of all the weekend races, since we were going to be there anyway. Check out my other blog posts about the Expo and my videos on YouTube!

Both of these races took place on Saturday, January 19th, 2013. The Neverland Family 5K was at 5:45AM, I had set my alarm for 4:30AM, but I had all of my stuff ready from the night before, so I put my costume on and I was ready to go. I used the same costume that I had planned on wearing for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon. Unfortunately I had only bought one blanket with me and I wanted to save that for the Half Marathon, so I ended up using the Tinkerbell half marathon tech shirt that came with registration. It worked out perfect since it was a long sleeve shirt and it was a bit chilly in the morning.

I made my way down to the hotel lobby by 4:45AM, I was the first one there, but there were more people who came as we waited for the shuttle bus. It was nice that they had free rides all through the weekend. The shuttles were running every 20 minutes, so once it came it was a short ride over to Disneyland. I should have given myself a little bit more time, I didn't know how long I would have to wait for the bus, I think I must have just missed it, so I did end up waiting for 20 minutes or so.
The starting line was right by the castle, which was beautiful. It was all lit up purple and later on they had swirly designs playfully scanning across the castle. They didn't really have corrals assigned in this race, although they were calling out corrals A, B and C, we didn't have anything on our bibs. I made my way up to the front though, I though i was going to run it in about a half an hour. There were a lot of kids and families running, and since it was a Family 5K they did not time it. As I waited there they had a stage set up in front of the castle and had a pirate themed hosts keeping us entertained. Once we were almost ready to start they walked us a bit father up to the side of the castle where I could see the actual starting line. Sean Astin was in the front row, running this race as well and then the fireworks started and I was off.

The course was very easy, they had characters on the side of the road, just like I had heard about. They did not however have professional photographers by the characters, so you had to bring your own camera if you wanted to take pictures. They did have them on the course, so I got some cute pictures from the race in addition to my own. At the very end just before the finish line they had Mickey and Minnie waiting for you, I got my picture and to the finish I went.

 

It was still dark when I finished, I got my medal and my food box. They did have a cute Peter Pan reusable bag that you could put your stuff in, which was super helpful. I walked back to the bus stop where the shuttle had dropped us off and there was nobody there. I happened to come across a bus driver who said that the shuttle did not start going back until 7:20 and I was done with my race by 6:15sh. I most certainly did not want to wait there for an hour. I was disappointed in that they did not plan that better, they should have had some sort of transportation going back to the hotels. Oh well, I was a little frazzled by that and didn't really know how to get back, so I put the hotels name on my phone, but it took me in the wrong direction. I walked so far out of my way before I realized that this was not right, so I turned back around and just walked back to Downtown Disney were I knew how to get back to my hotel. It took me probably an hour to finally get back. My husband and son were still sleeping, so I took a quick shower and by that time they were up and off to Disneyland we went.
The Happiest Place on Earth - TRUE STATEMENT!