Tales of the Flowers: 7th annual Disneyland Half Marathon

Remember what I said about getting up early? Yeah, after going to bed after midnight, we were up at 3:30am. Disney suggested getting to the parking garage before 4:30am. We left the house at 4am and rolled up to the garage right at 4:30. With a 5:45am start we had a little while to wait.

Luckily it was a warm morning, so it wasn't too bad waiting for the start.

Sean Astin gives us all encouragement before the race. We even saw him walking around the park later.

Nice to be in the B group and not all the way back in G & H. We're only behind these people.

And we're in front of all these.

At 5:50am we made our way up to the start line after the A group and we were on our way.

Some people might run this for time, but not us. We stop at every single photo op we can. Just outside California Adventure they had some Pixar Play Parade floats.

We made our way from backstage and they had the World of Color fountains going. And the sun was only just cracking the horizon so it was still dark enough to see the colors.

The Green Army Men were stationed all through the course.

And here's the inspiration for our hats. Radiator Springs!

We started off seeing DJ.

Then ran into Lightning McQueen and Mater.

Apparently Red likes my hat.

We made our way up to Buena Vista street.

Both Red Car Trolleys were out front.

I know what we're going to do today! Run 13.1 miles!

We crossed over to Disneyland and ran into Prince Navin, Tiana and Louis.

And just up Main Street found Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie.

Even more Green Army Men.

Thanks for posing Peter.

Captain Hook and Smee were right in front of the Peter Pan ride.

After running through the castle we found Princess Aurora and Prince Philip

Back in Tomorrowland Darth Vader and a stormtrooper were patrolling.

And just yards away were a few Jedi.

Running back towards "it's a small world" we ran into a bunch of princesses. First was Ariel.

And Snow White who even sounded like her from the movie.

Cinderella was next.

And then Disney's newest princess, Princess Merida from Brave.

Running through Mickey's Toontown we found yet another band of Green Army Men.

Here's a few characters you don't get to pose with every day. It's Daisy and Clarice.

This is the first time they've brought a horse out to pose with. Usually it's Clarabelle and Horace Horsecollar posing for photos back here.

And with that we were outside the parks. The first five miles we completed in 1:20, right at a 16:00 minute/mile pace. All that stopping for characters really slowed us down. We'll make it up on the back side though.
It's great having all these bands and cheerleaders along the route cheering us on.

This Mexican restaurant never disappoints.

And the Hawaiian hula dancers are a staple.

And a special treat this year was all the classic cars on what used to be a boring stretch of road. I don't say exactly how many, but it seems like for at least a solid mile there were classic cars parked all along the race route.