Never Tell Me The Odds!: From the Hospital Bed to Club 71

[Sleepless Knight]

Week ended January 18, 2025: 28.59 miles

Sunday January 12th: Planned Rest. I'd noticed in late December/early January that my soreness continued to linger longer than it should have. I began to notice that soreness increased following my walks on non running days. So I'm trying to make sure those planned rest days from running are actually rest days.

Monday January 13th: 4.33 miles in 1:09:51
Tuesday January 14th: 4.1 miles in 1:09:55
Wednesday January 15th: Planned rest
Thursday January 16th: 4.10 miles in 1:07:53
Friday January 17th: 5.58 miles in 1:31:00
Saturday January 18th: 10.48 miles in 2:39:55

Looking forward to the taper this week with the Disneyland Half Marathon coming next weekend.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

Week ended January 26, 2025: 19.08 miles

Sunday January 19th: planned rest
Monday January 20th: 3.04 miles in 50:19
Tuesday January 21st: 4.35 miles in 1:14:39
Wednesday January 22nd: planned rest
Thursday January 23rd: 4.36 miles in 1:14:34
Friday January 24th: 3.04 miles in 53:50
Saturday January 25th: 4.29 miles in 1:12:00
Sunday January 26th: planned rest.

Next stop Disneyland 2025 Half Marathon Weekend! As usual, my goal is simply to finish and get pictures when lines permit. I'm hopeful for some more themed photo ops for the 5K and 10K, but we'll see.

This month has been really hectic and non stop, so Disneyland and races will feel like a rest of sorts before I jump right back into the already heating up frying pan.

 

[LSUlakes]

How was the Disneyland races?

 

[Sleepless Knight]

How was the Disneyland races?

They were a lot of fun. Here's an attempt at quick overall recap of the Disneyland race experience. More details about my speciifics when I get more time.

5Ks at Disneyland are simply magical. They start up by Sleeping Beauty Castle and finish on Pixar Pier inside DCA> Minimal non park time and you get to see fun things such as parade floats and such backstage. Decent amount of characters, but they will cut the lines. Likewise, they will shorten the course if necessary to make sure they clear runners out of the parks before they open. As much as I love running through Epcot and World Showcase for a 5K, it's just difficult if not impossible to beat lining up on Main Street for the corrals and starting by the castle.

The 10K goes through both parks. More characters, but timed so that needs to be taken into account. Once again, it's a great course because you get to spend over half of the race in both parks.

Half Marathon is different because you are out on the streets of Anaheim. I do enjoy this more than the highway miles in both longer distances at WDW. The harder thing can be leaving the parks around mile 4 and then the streets. However, Disneyland races have great community support so that's always enjoyable.

Overall, Disneyland races offer quality park time. I've now run 9 races at Disneyland since they returned last year. In all 9 races, I have run through Galaxy's Edge and Carsland. While not every race has gone through ToonTown, that's a great experience as well. And if your time/pacing/corral, et all is right, running through Disneyland at sunrise is beautiful.

I recognize I'm biased since I grew up going to Disneyland. But while I love running through the Magic Kingdom in Florida, it's tough to beat running through Disneyland.

 

[LSUlakes]

They were a lot of fun. Here's an attempt at quick overall recap of the Disneyland race experience. More details about my speciifics when I get more time.

5Ks at Disneyland are simply magical. They start up by Sleeping Beauty Castle and finish on Pixar Pier inside DCA> Minimal non park time and you get to see fun things such as parade floats and such backstage. Decent amount of characters, but they will cut the lines. Likewise, they will shorten the course if necessary to make sure they clear runners out of the parks before they open. As much as I love running through Epcot and World Showcase for a 5K, it's just difficult if not impossible to beat lining up on Main Street for the corrals and starting by the castle.

The 10K goes through both parks. More characters, but timed so that needs to be taken into account. Once again, it's a great course because you get to spend over half of the race in both parks.

Half Marathon is different because you are out on the streets of Anaheim. I do enjoy this more than the highway miles in both longer distances at WDW. The harder thing can be leaving the parks around mile 4 and then the streets. However, Disneyland races have great community support so that's always enjoyable.

Overall, Disneyland races offer quality park time. I've now run 9 races at Disneyland since they returned last year. In all 9 races, I have run through Galaxy's Edge and Carsland. While not every race has gone through ToonTown, that's a great experience as well. And if your time/pacing/corral, et all is right, running through Disneyland at sunrise is beautiful.

I recognize I'm biased since I grew up going to Disneyland. But while I love running through the Magic Kingdom in Florida, it's tough to beat running through Disneyland.

I have not run Disneyland or even been to the parks there, but it does sounds better than WDW events. I was trying to explain a race at WDW to my friend and had to explain how different it is from our local races. When there's crowd support, its awesome, but it's only there for maybe 5% of the run. The rest is highway miles with random character stops and things to see, but no family's out supporting the runners on the course. It lacks the community aspect of most races at WDW. Random aid stations of orange wedges, or some guy handing out beer or shots. Not that you have to do them, but I always kinda lol at the idea of having a fireball shot at mile 9 of a marathon. And around here, theres someone cooking stuff on the course to pass the time and handing it out to runners or people watching with them. Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience,

 

[Sleepless Knight]

You're welcome.

This past race had "lighter" community support since it went a lot of neighborhoods, but there were still a lot of quieter community support, including people sitting on their driveways and cheering. Races that go through more commercial areas have local marching bands and cheerleaders out along the course. Sometimes, they have local car clubs in stadium or arena parking lots too.

There are a few Star Wars cosplayers asking Disney to bring back Star Wars races and they're always great. There's also a "pet my dog for energy" station(s), and various people handing out licorice and such. While not every half marathon at Disneyland runs through Angels Stadium, that is definitely a highlight. You enter in right field and run down foul territory on the first base side behind home plate and exit through left field. The PA announcer is calling out random names and home towns and you can see yourself running on the jumbotron.

The feel is different. I think WDW is a bit easier to get character photos during the race because the course spreads out and they can put them along some of those highway miles whereas Disneyland has to put all the characters in the parks. There are no characters for photos before and after the race since there's not the room for it, but they did have some photo ops set up. You can do finish line selfies since they always have characters at the finish line. Likewise, I think WDW is a bit more relaxed about the pace. For some back of the pack runners, Disney shortened the 5K course to clear the park sooner. I was in line for a character photo when they warned that it might happen. They even told runners who the next character stop was so they could decide which one they wanted more. While I understand people were disappointed, the race finishes in the park and the park opens at 9:00am. In other words, as with any runDisney race, slower runners may have to choose between character photo(s) or being swept and/or having the coursed shortened.

Perhaps it's because Disneyland was my first ever race, but I think runDisney does a great job trying to make for a memorable experience for the last 8 or 9 miles of the race once you leave the theme parks.

And honestly, I give Disneyland the edge for the 5K and 10K distances because they've always gone through both parks and the 5K always starts and finishes in the parks. That said, I do love running the Boardwalk around sunrise at WDW.