Tinker Bell Half Marathon : Recap

The Tinker Bell Half Marathon

Sunday, January 20th, 2013

I ran the Tinker Bell half in January as my 3rd race of the weekend. Check out my Neverland 5k and Tinker Bell 10k recaps!

I'd been looking forward to this race weekend for over a year- I was so excited about earning my wings! I ran the race with 2 friends- both who were running their first runDisney race, one who was running her first half ever.

The race started nice and early at 5am. Waking up at 3am for the 3rd day in a row was starting to take it's toll, but the excitement of the race got me out that door.

View from my start in Corral E.

Channeling Snow White with my Sparkle Athletic skirt, Team #runDisney shirt, and Sweaty Band (it's sparkly and red). You can even see a bit of my Raw Threads skirt underneath. I seriously think the race expos are the only time I shop for running clothes. ;)

Down Route 66! Love running towards the mountains instead of the other direction.

World of Color! So beautiful!

This was about the time that I got separated from my friends. I told them I was going to run ahead and stop for a photo of the World of Color lights. Our plan was to just stick to the right and I'd find them again. Apparently they also got distracted by the fountains, so I waited on Buena Vista Street for them. 

People did give me odd looks since I was just standing on the side.

Carthay Circle!

I found my friends and we headed off to Disneyland!

Main Street, Disneyland! You can see my friends in the background in the pink and green. :)

Castle photo

We saw Rapunzel and Cinderella, but we opted to just wait for Cinderella.

One of my favorites from the race. Even as the sun was coming up, the lights were still so pretty.

From there we headed backstage and then out into Downtown Disney. Even though it's outside the parks, I feel like Downtown Disney still has that special feeling to it.

We got to the end of Downtown Disney and were greeted by the Red Hat Ladies. These ladies really know how to motivate people! They really amped up the excitement.

The streets of Anaheim were pretty uneventful, but still had a lot to see. It reminded me a lot of running back at home through the residential areas.

Walk break to fuel.

Downtown Anaheim is pretty cute with all the palm trees!

Mile 9 Clif Shot stop. Loved that volunteers were yelling "this one has caffeine!" You can bet people were heading for those.

Around this point, mile 10, I was getting tired. My feet were feeling the 5k and 10k I had done the days before. Don't the clouds look cool?

There was a little Luna stop- lots of signs with fun inspirational quotes.

Soon we were back to Disneyland and heading to the finish! I love that the ladies in front of us finished hand in hand!

(My phones HDR setting made this picture come out super weird!)

Earned our wings!

I'd been looking forward to this race for over a year (I really wanted that coveted Tink medal) and the race did not disappoint! The course was great- I loved that we were practically half way done by the time we left the parks. As much as I love running through Angels Stadium for the Disneyland half, I prefer the Tink course overall.

Will I be running Tink next year? Probably not. I'm hoping to run the other Disney races (hopefully some of the WDW ones) and with the announcement of the Avengers race weekend, doing Tink again has dropped on the priority list. But if you've you've never run it, add it to your bucket list! :)