Star Wars Race Weekend: Expo and 5K Recap

Here is my recap for the Inaugural Star Wars Half  Marathon weekend. It was long, so I broke it up into the three races I completed with some of the Disneyland fun we had while in California.

When the new Star Wars Half Marathon weekend including the Rebel Challenge was announced last year, I immediately knew I wanted to do it.  Mac and Heather were also on board for the half and Rachel wanted to do the 5K. I decided to do them all so I could get the Rebel Challenge medal as well. Since I was registering everyone for the race that morning and I knew it would sell out quickly, I was very overwhelmed and rushed when I was online. That resulted in me accidentally only registering for the half and since the challenge sold out so quickly, I wasn’t able to call and get it fixed before it was gone. I had resigned myself to just doing the half and then my online running club, Team Expedition Runner, was able to secure extra challenge bibs. I contacted Run Disney and found out I could transfer to the challenge since I found a legitimate bib still available. I was very excited.

However, that was several months ago and before this last move. I did not keep up my training during all of the craziness and I was very worried. Star Wars Half was the reason I pushed myself at Biggest Loser. I wanted to see if I could still do it without all of the training it really deserved. I was more confident after that race and only really worried about the added difficulty of multiple races but I knew if I took it easy, I could make it through. The only big concern was the rumors that RD was going to start enforcing the pace requirement for the challenges. If you did not finish below the requirement for either race, they could/would deny you the challenge medal. Because of this, my goal was to hit the requirement exactly for the 10K and then get under it as much as I could for the half.

Rachel, Heather and I arrived in Anaheim on Wednesday. Heather and I helped set up the Sparkle Skirts booth at the expo and then we hung out around our hotel, the Anabella, and Downtown Disney that evening. We flew in on Wednesday so that we would be there before the expo opened Thursday morning.

 Above is going down into the packet pick-up area and below is coming out and back up to the expo.

RD expos are kind of insane when it comes to official merchandise. The line starts early and gets very long. People will spend hours in line only to find out things are sold out. When we attended Avengers, Heather couldn’t sleep and headed down just to see if anyone was in line a little before 7am(expo opened at 10am). She called when she found a line forming so that we could join her. We knew that the Star Wars fans are die hard and would be out there bright and early to get in line. She was getting in line for the race Dooney and Rachel and I were going to go to the official merchandise line. We arrived at 7am to find approximately 100 people already there.

You knew things were going to be very different when they had the line staged in a huge ball room with a screen playing the Star Wars movies and everyone received a colored wrist band when you entered. The band saved your place in the line and noted your group. If you left the ballroom for any reason other than going to the restroom, they would cut your band and you would lose your place. By the time they moved us downstairs just after 9am, there were about 400 people in the ballroom. We were able to get into the merchandise area quickly and found everything we wanted. We had to wait a while for Heather to get her purse and make it through the crazy line but then we reunited just after going down to get our bibs and shirts for the races. We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the park, going to dinner at Blue Bayou as part of the Fantasmic package and watching the show that night.

Friday morning the alarm went off to get Rachel and I up for the 5K. They did this weekend’s races a little differently and started and finished all three in the same place. It made getting to our corral very easy because all we had to do was walk out of our hotel, cross the street and enter the corral. They had C3PO and R2D2 at the start line with the announcers. I managed to get a shot of them as we started the race.

We entered through the back stage area and made our way around both parks before heading through Downtown Disney to the finish. They had several characters like Chewbacca, Darth Vader and lots of storm troopers and jedis along the course. 

It was a chilly but fun morning. We took our time, enjoyed the surroundings and finished with smiles on our faces. We met up with Heather in the Grand Californian lobby and then headed over to Disneyland Hotel to have breakfast at Steakhouse 55. They have awesome and very reasonably priced breakfast choices. After changing clothes, we hit the parks again. Mac was flying in on Friday and I had a few meet ups to head to so I left Rachel and Heather in California Adventure around 3:30. My first meet-up was with Team Expedition Runner. It is made of runners from all over the country that love running and Disney so it was nice to see people in person. The second was a sparkle skirts fan group that I am a part of. It was nice meeting people even though I was out of my comfort zone. The best thing that came from it was meeting Tiffany in person finally. She and I have talked online for at least a year now and are members of several of the same groups. I found out she was also doing the 10K alone and we decided to meet up Saturday morning so we would each have a little company on the course. Not long after the meet-ups were over, Mac arrived and we hit the expo to get his bib and shirt and then turned in for the night.