I was out of bed at 3:30 a.m., down in front of the hotel waiting for the shuttle at 4:15 a.m., at Disneyland at 4:35 a.m., in my corral waiting for the start of the race at 5:05 a.m., sniffling in the cold darkness. Yes, there were indeed people in trash bags, just like Greg said. There were also people in Tinkerbell and Peter Pan outfits, and those were just the men. A lot of women wore Minnie Mouse outfits, one in Pocahontas, another in Snow White, and lots and lots of them wore Mickey ear hats. When we were going down the Downtown Disney street being funneled from the corral to the start street, I looked up and saw that they had stopped the Disneyland Monorail directly above our path and a ton of Disney cast member characters in costume were hanging out of the Monorail cheering and waving at us. That and the pyrotechnics as we launched were pretty cool.

My goal: be done by 8:30 a.m., especially because it looked like it was going to be a clear and sunny day. At 4:30 a.m., the sky was dark but with visible moon and stars. Darn it!
What I did not expect: it took me 10 minutes to even get to the start line. Oh well, I guess I should change my aim to 2 hours and 30 minutes from the time I started, which would make it 8:40 a.m., which I acknowledge is optimistic considering I haven’t trained more than 3 or so miles before the race.

the liveresult emailed to me:
disney@alerts.activeresult.com to email-services
More options 8:34 am (6 hours ago)
CINDY [my last name], 02:22:47 @ Finish: Disneyland Half Marathon presented by Kaiser Permanente, Disney Destinations LLC

Woohoo!

Other stuff I did not expect:
* running through Disneyland and California Adventure took forever because people kept stopping in front of me to take pictures with the Disney characters that had come out to cheer us on (I hit 5K or a little over 3 miles in 45 minutes; 3 miles normally takes me less than 30)
* I felt so incredibly good through mile 8 that I thought I could run an entire marathon; I only stopped to a walk twice at that point, both times for 30 seconds to drink some water that was offered
* the first physical pain hit me at mile 10; the PowerAid I’d drunk the mile before was giving me pain on the right side of my waist, like it does when I eat too much and then play too hard, so I walked for about 30 more seconds
* after rounding the bases inside Angel Stadium, I ran out of the stadium to see Mr. W on the side of the track taking photos (photos to come as he shrinks them down enough to be uploaded)
* I ran near a banana almost the entire time (an Asian guy in black tights wearing a banana suit shaking maracas — I didn’t get it)
* the last 3 miles were so incredibly hard because the physical pain kicked in; my right 4th toe felt tingly and sloshy, like a huge blister enveloped the entire top half of the toe; the left foot’s 4th toe hurt, too, but not as badly; to compensate for the weight I’m trying to keep off the toe, the inside of my ankles started hurting. I was having trouble lifting my shoes entirely off the ground in the steps
* Since I started 10 mins late, and I started having some problems toward the end, I figured there was no way I would finish before 8:30; instead, I finished at 8:32a; the chip time (which takes into account the fact that I crossed the start line late) is 2:22
* Vicky, doing her run-2-minutes-walk-a-minute routine finished only 32 minutes behind me, and she was feeling good with no injuries (except a slightly swollen ankle)

The music I had on the MP3 player helped immensely. I know this because for a brief moment, the gap between 2 songs was unusually long and I was running in silence. Hearing my footsteps pound on the ground, I was immediately drained. But as soon as the music started back up, I was all good and could run uphill over the 5 Freeway without slowing down much. During the run, as I surprised myself with how well I was handling everything cardiovascularly, I thought about Greg (the commenter who suggested I wear a trash bag) and the time I ran with him in San Francisco from the clock tower through Embarcadero to some old battalion thing under the Bay Bridge during the Blue Angels Air Show. It wasn’t until after the 12-mile run that I found out the farthest he’d ever run up to that point was 3-4 miles. “Then why’d you run this with me? Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d asked him. “Because I told you I’d run with you, and I didn’t want you to be all, ‘Oh, we didn’t do 12 miles because Greg wimped out.’ ”

I was afraid to look into my shoe after the run because I didn’t want to remove the sock and see a toenail fall out, which I hear is a relatively common occurrence. But what it appears to be, is a blood blister around the toe and under that nail. Despite the fact that the toe is the color of a black grape, I was instructed not to drain the blood for fear of infection. Maybe when the blood clots, the nail will fall out anyway, I dunno. I ran into an old friend, who’s also a running trainer, at the end of the race. She lectured me, “Next time, Cindy, when you decide to do something like this…TRAIN!” Well, hindsight, 20/20, etc.