2015 Avengers Half Recap

It is Monday so we are linking up with another Magical Mickey with John at run.geek.rundisney and Katie from Adventures by Katie. Finally time to get my Avengers Half recap-my final race of the year! 

After running the Inaugural Captain America 10k the day before, we were up around 345/4. I got about 7.5 hours of sleep and felt great! We got dressed and headed out the door around 430. We went through the same security, did bag check, and headed to pee and headed to the corrals. 

We stayed to the back of the corral and we all really enjoyed it. We did slow intervals and basically had the road open to ourselves which was awesome since we head backstage quickly. 

This course was slightly modified from last year so much like the DL half course, we started and then headed backstage within 3 minutes and into California adventure. We stopped for Black Widow right after exiting Carsland. There is really something to running through Carsland when it's dark it is all lit up. As we waited in line, we saw the front of corral B come through. 

We continued towards the front of DCA down buena vista street and stopped for a picture with Hawkeye not too far passed the first mile marker. He appreciated our costumes! We were dressed as hawkeye, kate who is Hawkeyes' work wife (which is appropriate as Devin and I are running husband/wife) and Hawkeyes dog Lucky. ​

We headed through the esplanade and into Disneyland! We had our first water stop and continued down Main Street for an adorable pic in front of the castle. This is one of the only courses that does not run through the castle which is a bummer. 
We headed into Frontierland and stopped for a pic with captain before heading through the big thunder trail (RIP-it's our last time running there!) and over through fantasyland to stop for our final photo stop for Thor in fantasyland next to teacups

At the time we didn't know that it was our last character stop but the idea that a half marathon has only 4 photo stops, the exact same as the day before is just silly. In line, I saw Greg from WhyIRunDisney! I headed back and chatted with him for a bit. We then met Thor who told us that Hawkeye talks about Lucky all the time and the crazy adventures he gets into. Like I have said-the character interactions were TOP NOTCH! 

We headed by Matterhorn through tomorrowland and backstage. We then headed back to Main Street and we stopped for a tree pic, got some biofreeze and stopped for a potty break on main st and headed out of the park.

We passed the mile 2 marker around this time and it was at 50:00. LOL we had a 30 min mile with the 3 photo stops and potty break. Our goal was to see how close to 3 hours we could get. 

This is where things got interesting as that is A LOT of out of the parktime. Once we headed out of the park down Harbor everything opened up which was nice. We stuck to our intervals and felt good. We turned off harbor and all I could remember was how windy the course was last year. We headed to the Santa Ana trail and that's where things got crazy.
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There was this weird roundabout to get on the trail and then it was SO narrow for about two miles with up and down hills. I saw people fall hard because they were trying to get around. Now we know from stopping for all of the pics, we ended up with people that run a slower pace than us but that wasn't the issue. The issue was it was only 2-3 people across which is way too narrow. 

In the middle of the crazy few miles, were the cosplayers who were awesome as always! They always lift spirits! 
We finally cleared up by the stadium where we got our Clif shot and headed into the stadium. The field was filled with bands and it was great. We headed out of the stadium and back towards the DL resort. 

Outside of the stadium we're really military people cheering US on which is just incredible. On the other side was the world war reenacters both military and medical. There was even a swing dancing floor set up which was incredible to see. 

After we left the stadium was where we were in new territory. We were going over the overpass and headed into a new area and through the cast member and toy story lot. I wonder if they are tested out new parts to make up for all of the backstage running we won't be able to do starting in January. 

One other thing that sucked was they didn't have biofreeze and my knee was randomly acting up(I mean, let's be real: 1 5k, 1 10k, 1 6.7ish,almost a half and a full marathon, plus 10 theme park days for approximately 52.1 racing miles + countless others. Is it a surprise my knee was a bit weird? NO haha). I found a medical guy on a bike that helped!

With this new route, we took a Porto stop in the Pongo parking lot (next to toy story lot off of Harbor) and headed back to the resort. We went down Harbor Blvd and headed through the bus depot (people were very confused heading into the park to see all of these people running) and backstage of DCA. Brian was starting to struggle a bit so we kept our intervals with some extra encouragement. We headed backstage and towards the Simba parking lot-almost done! Through the pathway and DONE! Finished in 3:10:17 (14:31 min/mile). 

We wrapped up quickly and headed back to the hotel. For once we didn't make reservations and instead headed to DCA for stir fry which was nice. We then took some pics including my epic rundisney medal pic before, rode Hyperspace Mountain and headed home. ​

Overall, I had a fabulous race weekend-the weather was nice, I had a great time with my friends and the character interactions were awesome. More character stops are needed on the course though-even though the theme is Avengers, it is okay to have other people out and other characters do have superhero outfits that would technically fit.  I am not sure how long this race will stay around, but for now, I will enjoy the Infinity Gauntlet. 

What was everyone else's thought on the Infinity Gauntlet challenge? Anyone have an interest in running an Avengers themed race?