A look at Disneyland’s Half Marathon Weekend 2013

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This year’s Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend gave runners the opportunity to collect up to five finisher medals.


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5Kcorral The first event was a 5K on Saturday morning of the Labor Day weekend. Seen here are the first to enter the starting corral.


5Kannounce The day was themed to Alice in Wonderland, and the race organizers were dressed as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Note the “5K” on the page of the book.


ready The race started precisely at 5:30 a.m., into the darkness of the Rabbit Hole.


cars5k It was a new 5K course this year, entering Disney California Adventure Park. Seen here is a run through Cars Land.


carthay The course went through all areas of California Adventure and exited through the new Buena Vista Street front entrance.


mainSt5K The 5K course then crossed over into Disneyland. Seen here is a water stop in Town Square.


lowLight Some areas of the park were lighted with low level ground lighting, as seen here along the refurbishment wall of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.


downtownDisney The last stretch of the 5K went through Downtown Disney.


5kFinish And finally, into the Finish Line. Look closely at the sign. It says 5K and 10K.


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crowd There is no official count of how many participants ran the 5K, finished, and immediately went back to the starting line to run a 10K. However, it was quite a large number, and the time available to do this was very tight. Seen here are the last of the 10K runners entering the start corrals. It took me about 15 minutes to get back into the first corral again, arriving at 6:09 a.m. for a 6:15 a.m. start of the 10K!


10kStart1 What a difference in 45 minutes! Now you can see the monorail beam. Note also that the page has been turned in the book, it now says “10K”. The 10K race is new this year. It’s one of the reasons why the Half Marathon Weekend sold out in 26 hours.


start2 A look at the participants, ready to race and have fun.


10Kstart2 With a spray of confetti, we’re off to do the 10K race.


convCenter The first two miles or so circled around the Anaheim Convention Center, across the street from the Disneyland Resort.


totBack The course entered Disneyland Resort on a service road behind the Tower of Terror …

pier … Running through Paradise Pier.

colorFountains10k … Past the fountains of the World of Color show.

carthay10k … Running through Buena Vista Street again.


totFront However, this time the course continues past the Tower of Terror.


tunnel This time, to cross over to Disneyland, the course went through a service tunnel that connects backstage California Adventure to backstage Disneyland park.


tunnel2 In the service tunnel.


mainStWater From backstage, we entered Main Street USA again.

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spaceMtn Passing through Tomorrowland.


matterhorn Passing the Matterhorn.


costume The course went backstage again, with various departments displaying their work proudly. Here a parade float is decorated with costumes for the upcoming Halloween parties.


parade More parade floats.


horsies Horses and other animals normally seen on stage at the Big Thunder Ranch.


castle1 The course re-entered Fantasyland and ran through Sleeping Beauty Castle.

castle2


frontierland On to Frontierland …

downtownDisney10k … And through Downtown Disney.

finish10k … To The Finish Line again!


wristbands Wristbands helped keep track for those registered for certain race combinations. There are bonus medals for completing them. Here a green wristband has been added by a volunteer.


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halfStart Skip ahead 24 hours … it’s time for the main event, the half marathon.


seanAstin Actor Sean Astin (“Lord of the Rings”, “The Goonies”) ran the 10K-half marathon combination, called the Dumbo Double Dare.


alisonSweeny Alison Sweeney from “Days of Our Lives” and “The Biggest Loser” ran the half marathon.


joeyFatone Joey Fatone from N Sync also ran the half marathon.


halfCrowd Approximately 17,000 were entered in the half marathon.


worldOfColor The early distance of the half marathon covers much of the same route as the 5K and 10K. Here’s the fountains of the World of Color.


carsLandHalf Cars Land.


mainStHalf Main Steet USA.


carsHalf The majority of the half marathon is through the city of Anaheim. A highlight was several city blocks lined with 300 classic cars.


angels3 Another highlight is running through Angel Stadium. The stands are filled with cheering spectators, and you can see yourself running up on the stadium’s big scoreboard screen.


halfFinish The Finish Line, now themed to the half marathon.


pancake2 Mickey asked to pose with the five medals. Then he quickly disappeared. Left to right are the 5K medallion, the 10K medal, the half marathon medal, the new Dumbo Double Dare medal for completing the new 10K and the half marathon, and the Coast-to-Coast medal for completing a Disney half marathon in Orlando and in Anaheim in a single calendar year.

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3 Comments

    1. Nothing, but we often cover things outside of Orlando on our website and YouTube channel that we feel most of our readers would be interested in. We usually use the “Out of the Loop” header but didn’t in this case.