Disneyland Neverland 5K Fun Run

I spent the weekend at Disneyland.  Actually, considering I hadn't been there since June, it was great to be back.  (I wasn't counting Downtown Disney when I said that because, well, it just doesn't count.)

The reason I went down was for the Neverland 5K Family Fun Run, which kicked off their new Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend.  But part of the entry fee was a Twilight ticket.  And it had to be used that weekend.

I was doing the race with my new friend Chris and a high school friend of his.  But I got down there in time to have lunch with Shirley and Doug, fans of Sue Ann Jaffarian's that I had met when I did the 5K at Disneyland 3 and a half years ago.  They were in town for the race as well, although they planned to walk it.

From there, we met up with a friend of Chris' and the three of us hit the park.  We had some changes to the line up over the next few hours, but we closed the park down.  Wasn't too hard since it closed at 8.

The race started in front of the castle at 10:30PM.  We were among the first group to go, although it was still hard to really run for a while since there were so many of us.  I had my camera with me, but once we did get running, I didn't want to stop for pictures.

The wound us through the back stage areas pretty extensively, which would have been cool to look at more, but I was really focused on running at that point.  (I seem to remember saying the same thing last time I raced there.)  But I was glad I was focused on racing.  Chris really pushed me pace wise, and he said we were doing an under 9 minute pace at one point.  That's very cool for me.  We weren't officially timed, but we finished in just over half an hour, so my under 30 minute 5K still eludes me.  For now.

Since Shirley has an annual pass, she didn't need her twilight ticket, so I went back the next day and hit California Adventure.  I was supposed to be meet up with someone, but due to technological failure (his phone battery died), I never heard from him.  But that was okay because I had a great time setting my own agenda and hitting the parts of the park I wanted to hit when I wanted to hit them.  I did Little Mermaid twice back to back for example.  Thanks to the single rider lines and Fast Pass, I was able to hit just about everything I wanted to do, although I still would have enjoyed more time in the animation pavilion.  The park closed at 9, but I stayed until almost 10 because their second showing of World of Color was after the rest of the park closed.  Then I wandered through the World of Disney store before heading home, so I still managed to get home close to midnight.  It was a long couple of days, and I was beat by the time I got back.  I went to bed pretty soon after I got home and managed to stay in bed long enough to miss church Sunday.  But it was a great weekend.