Tinkerbell Half Marathon 2014: Part 1 - Arrival

I have decided that I will do race trip reports for each race that I participate in, and to kick off 2014, I will start with my first race of the year...

 

Now, I need to preface this by saying that my last half marathon was in October (Gettysburg Blue Gray Half in Gettysburg, PA..really hilly, but would probably run it again to save face... hopefully I will remember to get a race report for that one.. ) and my last real training run was 6.5 miles the weekend after New Year's. Needless to say, I didn't train much for this but I kept up with my gym attendance so I suppose that counts, right?

I also have to remind the world that I had not originally planned on running this runDisney race. After Craig completed his 3rd Marine Corps Marathon, I decided that I need to run this race. I had read an email or seen it on the rD site that said that Tinkerbell Half had registrations available through travel providers and charity groups. There were 2 charities that I was highly fond of...one didn't have any registrations available and the other did. At that point, I decided to run for TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. This was such a great choice. It is a smaller organization that serves survivors worldwide and I loved the fact that the ladies that run the Run and Remember Teams are so helpful and personable. I will definitely be representing TAPS again... And if you need a charity group to support that supports are heroes and their family, this IS the charity!!

Well...after working all day, we headed to the airport on Thursday afternoon and made the 5 hour flight to California.

I am still not sure how I sat still the entire flight. Guess I was too tired and I didn't want to bother the 2 people sitting next to me. My husband on the other hand was a bit squirmy until I got Friday Night Lights playing on his computer. :) I do have to say that the flight was great...we had great flight attendants. The LAX stop was a short one for them and then they were heading to Las Vegas, so I would be in a good mood too if my last stop was Vegas. :) There was one small downside...there were 2 girls who just met on the flight and they literally talked for the ENTIRE flight. OMG! I didn't know strangers could talk so much! LOL! Thank goodness, I had my new Beats headphones that Craig gave me for Christmas. I watched Mary Poppins on my iPad and I was in Disney heaven!

Upon arriving to LAX...oh how I missed my Magical Express!! We had to go outside of baggage claim to find the Super Shuttle kisok and it honestly wasn't bad a ride at all! Everyone in our van was running the half that weekend, so there was a lot of chit-chatting about the upcoming races. Craig, of course, was hungry... I told you that you shouldn't have eaten your whole sandwich at the airport. (Side note...we found out later that weekend that the Subway across the street was open 24 hours... who know?!?!?!) We got to our room at the Desert Palms Hotel and Suites... which BTW is highly recommended. 10 minute walk to front gate, free WiFi and free hot breakfast every morning!!! So, it was technically 11:30 PM by the time we got into our room so we were pooped out. Falling asleep that evening was not a problem at all! Big day tomorrow....