Another Disneyland Half Marathon (2014 Edition)

This was my third attempt at the Tinkerbell Half Marathon at Disneyland. I was feeling much better about this one because of the cooler weather and the 32 miles I was able to put in over Christmas break. 

I love running. 
I take that back...I love running when I have REALLY loud music playing. (I don't know how anyone can run without music. Boring.) A really good run for me is when I forget I am running and I catch myself miles into a run just thinking about things going on in my life and people in my life. Those are the best. 
All righty...on to the recap....
We left on a Saturday morning, in our usual style. This run we had the kids with us. We went back and forth on if we should leave them behind, but ended up taking them along. In the past I never really knew if the kids would even enjoy themselves and frankly, there are so many people watching the race, I was afraid of losing Wiggy-Witherbottoms in the sea of spectators and runners. So, we asked the kids if they wanted to come along and they all said YES.

We got to the Disneyland Hotel to pick up my race bib and then we headed over to Knott's Berry Farm. It's so nice having the season passes. We thought maybe we would ride a few rides before dinner.

 Ran into Cassandra Lynn after I picked up my bib.

"Cheeeeeeeeese!"

Of course nothing ever goes as planned. We park the car at Knott's and as usual, the boys are screwing around as they get out of the car. The trunk of the car is open and as Tubbs is reaching in to grab something, Bubba shuts the trunk on Tubbs' head. 
Yes...needless to say, Tubbs had a bit of a headache after that. We walked up to the entrance of Knott's before Tubbs sat down crying because his head hurt. That's when we turned around and headed back to the car. That's when I was asking myself whose idea it was to bring the Hogue Tag team along.
From there, we found the hotel and checked in. We lounged for a little bit before walking across the parking lot to eat at Outback. We had a gift card from Christmas, so it was a perfect opportunity to use it.
I somehow manage to fall asleep around 9:45...knowing I will be waking up at 3:45 am. It was not a smart choice to stay up so late, but I did have three little bugs in the hotel room.  
The race started at 5:00am, so I got to the shuttle at 4:15am. It was an early morning! 

 

Luke was sending me texts, pictures and videos of the kids during the race. It was nice to have them come along. They met me at Mile 11 and it was so much fun to see their little faces. I gave everyone quick kisses and sped off. :)

 I was pretty happy with my time. All I wanted to do was set a PR and I did that by two minutes this race. Every time I do one of these,  I am hoping for a PR, so I am happy with this year. (At the Disneyland race in September, I just wanted to survive that race....it was so humid. Compared to that race, my time was 6 minutes quicker this time around.) 
Disneyland does this cool thing, where you can sign up for alerts. You can get them in a text and/or e-mail. These were my split times and my average pace. It also states what the estimated finish time will be. I did use the bathroom once, around mile 4 or 5, so average pace increased.

The kids and I after leaving the race and pulling up to the hotel. My legs were killing me!

These are pictures taken by the official race photographer.