Humm! Well that was
interesting to say the least. I’m
probably going to be shunned from the world wide running community after this
one.
Got up at 4:30 showered, ate oatmeal made from my single
serving coffee maker in my hotel room and walked 5 minutes to the start of the
race. I meandered up as far as I could
but when I got to the B coral the security was very thorough and I found out
that men were not even allowed in Coral A and B, which was fine, so I hopped into
Coral C and went to the front. There
were about 20 other guys so it seemed this was the official start line of the
un-official mens race. It was very
organized, not surprising since Disney is the master of crowd control. Waited for about 30 minutes and the race
started, Coral A went, Coral B moved forward and every 5 minutes they let the
next coral go. So I was exactly 10
minutes behind the official start. The C
coral started of much like any other race, a bunch of people sprinting ahead
going way to fast, including me, even though it was on the only uphill of the
entire course. This went on for about
400 meters, then we hit a wall, not “the wall” a wall of 4000 Tinkerbells. For the next 4 miles it was pretty much what
I guessed it would be, a lot of swerving and maneuvering up and around bushes, sidewalks
and spectators. The pace went from 5:30
pace to 10:00 pace.
The first 5 miles were very entertaining though, we went
into Disneyland, made a full loop around the park and then across to California
adventure. All of the Characters were
out and it’s the first race I have ever done where people stopped and were
actually standing in line to get their picture taken. Kind of weird. I settled into a 7:30ish pace and was pretty
content with that since that’s what I told myself I would do yesterday. We left the parks and went out onto the
roads, which wasn’t nearly as fun but at least there was more room and I
wasn’t having to dodge people all over the place. Just ran and enjoyed myself, gave a lot of
high fives and just enjoyed that my leg wasn’t hurting and I was actually
getting a good workout in for the first time in 2 months.
Around mile 9 I passed a girl who told me I was the 3rd
place male. I’m not sure how she knew
that unless she was at the start of A coral and was only “duded” twice. I sped up a bit, I knew there was a Peter Pan
ahead of me from C coral, right after that some guy came out of no where and
passed me. That was the first time I got
a sense of ‘this is a race’ in me, I quickly jumped on his tail and followed
him for a while. He was clomping and
breathing quite a lot so at mile 10 I decided to turn this into a 5K race and I
took off. He held on pretty good we went
back into California adventure and had a lot of weaving to do but I could hear
him right behind me. We actually passed
3 guys so I’m not sure where that 3rd one came from. At mile 12 I got a side cramp but just told
myself to get through it. I pushed
pretty hard, down the home stretch a couple of my co-workers were watching so I
high fived them and took off. I lost
that guy at that point.
I’m pretty sure I was the first place male, but I don’t know that for sure since it was
so crazy at the start, there is a chance someone from one of the corals behind
was faster, and there is also a chance there was someone that snuck into Coral
A or B that didn’t have to weave in and out.
I know one of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings was in Coral A as a
guest celebrity and I don’t remember ever passing him. You’d think I’d notice a hobbit running. ****************** Update, The results are already officially posted. I actually ended up taking 16th overall, 7th in the men. That actually makes me feel better that I didn't win and screw something up. The actual overall winner of the race was a male that started in coral D with a chip time of 1:25:36. And the guy I thought I beat had a chip time 2 minutes faster than me so he started back in the middle of Coral C. Wacky, Wacky. Oh well, it was fun.
Now off to work. 
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