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Yesterday I mentioned the Neverland 5K I did with some friends from around the country.  But that's not all I did last weekend.  The finale was the Half Marathon I ran on Sunday morning - as in I was awake around 3:15 am to make sure we were at our starting corral by 4:30am and a start of 5:45am.

Crazy right?  I joined 11,100 other women and 900 men (in case you can't do the math, that's 12,000 runners) for the Inaugural Tinker Bell 1/2 Marathon at Disneyland.

With so many people running through Disneyland, the streets of Anaheim and California adventure, they put us into Corrals.  I was clearly in Corral D (my friend Angie who was running was in Corral E) and you're assigned a corral based on your estimated miles/minute.  No need to put slowpokes like me up front only to be run over by the Kenyans or something.

Once we had our start, I started snapping away periodically during the run... including this one from the starting gate.

 

We had a brief run through the streets near the Theme Park then started inside of Disneyland where we spotted some unusual pirates...

Like the 5K we ran through some of the back lots and they pulled out some of the floats for our photographic pleasure.

Then it was on to Main Street!  By now the sun was starting to peek through.... I believe this is around mile 2.5

I had to snap a pretty picture in front of the Castle!  I love how the sunrise is turning the sky a beautiful shade of pink!  Then it was time to run through the castle...

On the other side we had to watch out for some pirates...

Just on the other side of the castle we hit mile marker 3 - nearly 5K in, another 15K to go....

After running through Disneyland we hit the streets of Anaheim.  It was around mile 6 the sun started really getting warm (mind you I'm used to running in the dark in about 30-40-degree temps.. this was probably 60-degrees at this point) and I started doing the Run/Walk technique which took me to the finish line.

That 10 mile marker was a sight for sore eyes... it means there's only a 5K to go!  Shortly afterward we ended up in California Adventure!

And we had more friends to cheer us along the way...

 Do you know what 13 miles means?! There is only a tenth of a mile left!! 

 And I made it across the finish line!  Final time 2:51:23... about 11 minutes slower than my previous half marathon in October.   (I'm in the center of the picture above looking really relieved to be done).

There was a ton of food and beverages at the finishing line, and then before I could get out to find my friends they forced us to take one final picture...

 

So Angie and I successfully crossed the finish line for the inaugural Tinker Bell 1/2 Marathon, and our one-woman cheerleader  Krista watched from the freezing cold bleachers. 

We're all inspired to do it again next year!  All you need is faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust!