Disneyland Halloween Half Marathon Weekend 2024
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It never gets old.
This past weekend we participated in the inaugural Disneyland Halloween Half Marathon weekend. Presented here, in no particular order, are my thoughts on the weekend as a whole.
The elephant in the room. Let's get it out of the way up front and talk about it: Temperatures. To say it was warm would be a total understatement. It was hot. Hella hot. If you've been around this community for any amount of time, Labor day weekend was usually the time when the Disneyland Half Marathon events took place. The heat would have a dramatic effect on the races and even how we navigated the parks with Asher the whole weekend. Walking to the start line from the hotel I could already feel the heat and humidity. As runners, we know that extreme heat can be dangerous when racing especially for those who may be out on the course longer than others. Extra precaution must be taken.
Expo. It was smaller than I remember. Same location in the Disneyland Hotel but it seemed like there were less vendors than in years past. You can definitely sense that a post pandemic recovery is still in effect. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of merchandise for this weekend even though we're not ones to buy the themed race merch. The official merchandise area displayed a lot of the same products just spread out on different racks. I guess i'll chalk it up to it being the inaugural event. Here's to hoping that future races bring a wider variety of official race merchandise to the table.
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Disneyland Halloween 10k. My first RunDisney race since 2019 where I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon with Jacob in Walt Disney World. I was already hot and sweaty before the race because of the weather but also I was a bit late getting out so i had to briskly walk to the security area and find my corral. My bad! I had to wait outside of the corral because it was already too full. Which turned out to be a blessing because I'd hate to be packed in too tightly for too long. I even saw someone get taken out of the corral in a wheelchair before the race started. Hope they feel better!! Once the race started, it felt like old times running the Disneyland Half Marathon. The miles inside the Parks and backstage felt familiar and I couldn't help but smile that i was running here again. I ran the race with a couple of long time running friends Michael and Julie and we had a blast taking pics and catching up. The theme of the 10k race was the Haunted Mansion and the most popular picture spot was with the Hitchhiking Ghosts. Unfortunately the queue was closed (likely due to getting the park ready for opening) so i settled for a selfie just outside of their spot. We finished the race sweating but smiling. Whew!
Disneyland Halloween Half. I can't speak to this race too much since Asher and I were asleep the entire time Paula was running the race. She did an excellent job of staying extremely quiet while getting ready as to not wake Asher and he stayed asleep until she was already walking back to the hotel room. What she did tell me was that towards the end of the race, she felt that she stopped sweating - which is NEVER a good sign. Luckily she was able to hydrate post race and did not suffer any major illnesses. I'm proud of her and will always be her biggest cheerleader along with the boys whether we're there on the race course or not.
The time we spent not racing was spent playing in the Parks. As stated earlier, it was extremely hot the entire weekend and we promised ourselves that we would not get carried away trying to cram all of the things into each day. Ok, i know, having Magic Keys is a very first world problem and we are very fortunate to have them. We took advantage of this and each day we rode 1 or 2 attractions in the morning, took a break back at the hotel and then rode 1 attraction in the evening. And you know what? Asher did sooooo fine with that. And i even rode Radiator Springs Racers with him, accommodating his request. So fun. This routine allowed him to be in bed around his usual bedtime which helped keep him regulated a bit. Traveling home, we discussed how smoothly this trip went with Asher and his behaviors.
The weekend was a success. I toed the start line after a loooooong hiatus and I let some butterflies out of the old stomach. Paula kicked ass as usual and Asher had a good time in one of his favorite places. He'll remember this one for sure.
