Also known as my first race post-Kenzie and Brooklyn’s first ever 5k!
Let’s back up to July 2013. During my second morning of labor, I suddenly remembered to tell Jeff to register Brooky & I for the race. He registered from his phone right then and there. The last Disneyland race I ran (2012) I noticed a lot of little kids running the 5k. I knew Brooky could do it, I just had to make it fun.
We did lots of weekend runs and even stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel since we had an early start time. It worked out that we had connecting rooms!
With a pretty good view of California Adventure.
We all went to bed a little too late because we were excited. I was so looking forward to it, I forgot all of Brooklyn’s running stuff at the house. My wonderful husband drove all the way home, located her clothes in our crazy house and drove back. Love him!
The next morning we woke up bright and early, 4:15am, and started getting ready. I wanted to head down to the start line around 5:15am to try to get close to the front to pad our time.
We ended up walking down a little after 5:20am. One of the cool things is that we started the race on Main St…which means going into Disneyland during non operating hours.
Since we got there early, we had some time to kill in front of the castle. I pointed out all the people running in costumes to distract Brooky.
The nice part about the race starting at 5:45am was that since it was still dark, they started the race with TinkerBell flying around the castle and fireworks! Pretty special for Brooky’s 1st 5k!
The let people start in a loose corral system. Finally it was our turn to move up to the front.
The course had us running through Disneyland before finishing in California Adventure. One of the best parts was running through Fantasyland and seeing all the Small World lights.
We exited the park and ran through the back lots for a bit. Brooky didn’t want to stop and wait with any character for pictures, she was worried about getting swept poor thing!
We entered back into Disneyland through a tunnel.
Once we finished running through Disneyland, the course had us loop through the walkway between the two parks. I knew we had some visitors waiting for us and kept telling Brooky to keep an eye out. About mid-way we found Jeff, Kenzie, Shannon, Danny and Kalea.
We said good bye and then made our way toward’s California Adventure. I was pretty sure that would be the last we’d see of them until after the race.
The only “character” picture we took.
We were rounding this corner when Brooky started to wave. I thought she was just getting pumped so I waved too! Then a few feet later, I heard Danny yelling my name. Oops! Brooklyn was actually waving at Jeff – haha.
Soon after we rounded the corner, Brooklyn saw the finish line and took off running! Haha, I was left in the dust.
We got our medals, snacks and looked to find Jeff and Danny. I was SO PROUD of her! She did awesome with no complaints.
This was my first race postpartum and it was so sweet to have Mackenzie waiting for me at the finish line.
Kalea did awesome too! She always gets dragged along to these run events to watch her sister. She woke up super early to wait around and was hungry! We went out to breakfast after, just for her!
I asked Brooky if she was going to run another 5k with me, to which she answered that she’d rather do kid races for awhile. Ha!
