Disneyland Half Meetup Recap

September 9, 2013

Rundisney Disneyland Half Meetup 2013

 

The Disneyland Half Meetup was as magical as you’d expect – with special guests Joey Fatone, Sean Astin and Ali Vincent and a trip through the parks before opening to get everyone warmed up for the Dumbo Double Dare during the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend!

If you haven’t heard of the runDisney meetups, they’re a super fun opportunity to run through the parks on the Friday of race weekend.  There are always fun surprises, a chance to run through the parks before they open and there are tons of fun runDisney fans, runDisney staffers and the aforementioned special guest celebs.  If you’d like to get in, you have to pay attention to the Disney Parks blog to snag a spot- they typically post something about 2 weeks beforehand and you have to email the team utterly fast during an undisclosed window, so be aware!

 

rundisney disneyland half marathon meetup 2013

At 6am on Friday, we all met at the Disneyland Hotel and started chatting.  Suddenly, the White Rabbit appeared and we were off running!  The Disneyland Half Marathon just added a new Alice In Wonderland 5k & 10k for the Dumbo Double Dare, so we followed the White Rabbit to Wonderland to celebrate!  It was so exciting, you didn’t even know it was 6am on a Friday!

disneyland half marathon meetup

First, after running through Downtown Disney, we headed over to Fantasy Land in the parks to meet Alice and take a spin on the teacups.  It was balmy outside- perhaps I brought the humidity with me from Chicago?  I apologized to Alice for my sweatyness and she graciously posed- apparently I wasn’t the only one feeling the steam of this teaparty, it was warm but fabulous!

disneyland half meetup rundisney

rundisney disneyhalfmeetup

run disney disneyland half marathon meetup

After going for a spin on the teacups, we jaunted over to Disney’s California adventure for the second leg of the Disneyland Half Meetup!  We ran through my favorite place of all time- Cars Land!  We weren’t sure where we were going to stop, but took a left hand turn past Tower of Terror and headed over to…

rundisney half marathon disneyland half meetup

The Mad T Party!

rundisney meetup

After we sat down for breakfast and wiped the sweat off our brow from a muggy 2 miles (seriously SoCal, how did you get so steamy? Where’s the ‘dry heat?’) we sat down for breakfast at the Mad T Party in the Hollywood Studios section of California Adventure.  We enjoyed some delish pasteries, coffee, yogurt and fruit and heard from our runDisney favorites- our staffers who put on such great events and the fabulous Tara Gidus and Jeff Galloway.

If you don’t read their content, you should! Tara has great nutritional advice for not just runDisney events but any nutritional advice you’ll need for racing in general.  She cracks me up, apparently someone called her a “buzzkill” on the runDisney blog when she posted that you can’t eat anything you want just because you run. (GASP! Read her post on that here.)  I run for beer and cupcakes but totally agree with her!

run disney disneyland half meetup

We also got  to hear from Sean Astin, Joey Fatone and Ali Vincent- all three of which came to fitness later in life and aren’t your typical “runners” but are so committed and totally encapsulate the runDisney spirit of fun, inclusivity and transformational fitness.

RunDisney also showed off the bling for the rest of 2013 and said that while they’re planning new races (YAY!!!) they won’t be on the horizon just yet- so stay tuned!

rundisney medals 2013

Bling…bling..and more bling… gotta love runDisney!

Huge thanks to everyone at runDisney for making this awesome Disneyland Half Meetup happen- it was totally magical!  If you were at the meetup, please stay in touch, it was fabulous to meet more of my fellow runDisney addicts!

disneyland half meetup 2013 disneyland

8 comments so far.

8 responses to “Disneyland Half Meetup Recap”

  1. Rebecca Jo says:

    That would be like a dream to do one of these Disney meet ups!! So jealous right now…

  2. desi says:

    So jealous, I would love to run with Joey! I totally creeped on his half time and that is my goal for my second half as it will be flatter than my first in Cleveland.

  3. I was sorry to hear that the Hot Chocolate race was being canceled in LA. I’m thinking about doing a Disney race next year. Certainly looks like it was a fun time!

  4. Elizabeth says:

    Any idea if there will be a meetup for Wine & Dine?

  5. Looks like a fun activity to do. I’d love to try that one day.

  6. Jenee says:

    <3

    Goal– try to run this before the big 3-0!

  7. Christy says:

    Thanks for the recap! I did Tink last year and the weather was great, Princess was humid so I was wondering how the DL half would be. I don’t like to run when it’s warm/humid, but also being from Chicago I don’t always have a choice 🙂

  8. I’m so glad I found your blog – this sounds like an amazing experience and I would love to do this!

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