Avengers Half Marathon: Race Recap

In honor of early registration for the now re-named Super Heroes Half Marathon, here's my race recap from the inaugural run in 2014. (Apparently I never hit publish!)

The Good, The Bad, and The Windy as Heck: the Avengers Half Marathon

I woke up at 4am the morning of the race feeling very... blah. All I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. I had an intense case of the sniffles, a little souvenir from the rainy Wine & Dine. Plus I was running solo, so I knew the motivation for the next 13.1 miles would have to come from me, and me alone. The theme of the race wasn't too exciting for me and the course didn't look that appealing either. Basically, I wasn't amped to run this race.

I threw on my Lilo costume, attached my running buddy, Stitch, and headed to the start.

Ready to run. Stitch doesn't seem too pleased to be up at this hour.

The corral start was different this year. Although there were corrals A-H, corrals A & B went together. C & D did as well. I'm not sure about E-H, as I started in D.

Christmas Carsland!

After the first mile I started to not feel well. I'm not sure if it was the lack of a proper breakfast or the banana I ate too close to the start of the race, but I got really nauseous. Thankfully nothing happened, but it was at this point that I knew I would be taking things slow.

All the mile markers looked the same.

Can't resist the Christmas Decor!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were on the Carousel

Only the first 3 miles were in the parks, so I jumped in line for Mickey & Minnie.

An important note about the characters: 

Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Captain America were out, but the lines were SOOOO long!!! Even starting in corral D, the lines were at least 50 people long already. I was already taking my time and I wasn't about to risk getting swept.

Once we left the parks, the winds started. This is what most of the mile markers looked like. It was so windy they were falling over- I saw the 10 mile marker attack a poor woman trying to take a selfie with it.

Christ Cathedral. Can you see all those wind swept cups?

Graphics painted along the Santa Ana River Trail

Love the folks that came out to cheer us on! Lots of great costumes!

Through Angels Stadium

Check out these guys! I'm not sure if they're retired military or reenactors, but they were awesome.

Spotted this van just outside Angels Stadium. Definitely not close to the race end.

The winds were so strong and blowing things over, like the tents in the finishers area, so they had folks wait outside of the reunion area. 

An idea of how windy is was- a fountain in Downtown Disney

Finished!

Final time: 2:54.

He asked if I survived the wind. My response: just barely. 

This was the first half that I had run solo- and it wasn't that bad! I much prefer to run with friends (always have more fun with friends), but running solo is no longer holding me back from signing up for races.

Did you run the Avengers half? Do you run solo or with friends?