Several years ago, after I had run a few 5Ks, I decided to increase my mileage a bit and train for a 10K. Not long after, a good friend of Toby’s told us he was going to run a half marathon to help raise money for cystic fibrosis research and the children’s hospital that Toby’s best friend’s son goes to for CF treatment, and we decided to join the half marathon and also raise some money.

I didn’t have enough time to really train for it, but I didn’t care because it was for a good cause. And the time cutoff was such that I knew I’d be able to finish even if I had to walk half of it. I ended up finishing in 2:40, and said afterward that if I did another half marathon, I’d actually train for it.

So I had every intention of training for the inaugural Star Wars half marathon when we signed up last year. I was super excited to do a Disney race, and I planned out the whole training cycle in my calendar.

Then, things kept happening. I was running 2.5 or 3 miles a few times a week, but I kept skipping my long runs. Around Thanksgiving, I started running more… but still hadn’t done any actually long runs. Then, right after Christmas, I slipped, fell down some of the stairs at my parents’ house, and bruised my tailbone.

Ugh.

Running on a treadmill was horribly painful, so I had to do some of my “training runs” on an elliptical machine. My longest outdoor / non-elliptical training run was 6.5 miles the Sunday before the race, and even though I felt good, I was worried about being able to finish in a reasonable amount of time.

We drove up to Anaheim on Saturday to pick up our numbers and T-shirts, and spent a little time at the expo, which was awesome. There were tons of vendors with regular running stuff (like shoes, leggings and compression socks), plus some official runDisney stuff and photo opportunities.

We had decided months ago to dress as Princess Leia and Han Solo, but we couldn’t find a good Han Solo outfit that would work for running. I ended up getting a white running jacket with a high neck and two blonde hair doughnuts ahead of time, then picked up a sparkly white running skirt at the expo (I already had galaxy-print running tights). Toby got a Storm Trooper shirt and white compression socks at the expo, which looked pretty awesome with regular black running shorts.

The race was super early Sunday morning, so we ate dinner with the senior citizens and went to bed around 8 p.m. In the morning, we stretched and foam rolled and ate Pop Tarts, then took a free shuttle to Disneyland at 4:15 a.m. and walked to our corral (which we shared with Joey Fatone, apparently!). There was Star Wars music playing in the park and in Downtown Disney, and huge TV screens at the start with Star Wars-themed messages — think “May the Force be with you” — scrolling. There were also fireworks during the national anthem!

We got to run through some of the backlot areas and the parks themselves, which is one of the big reasons I wanted to do a Disney race to begin with. There were Star Wars characters to take photos with (although the lines for most of them were pretty long, so we only waited for some Storm Troopers), and water/Powerade stations just about every mile.

The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous when we were in California Adventure — everyone was stopping to take photos in Cars Land.

By mile 5 we were out of the park and onto the streets of Anaheim, but there were tons of people with signs, high school bands and cheerleaders, and people dressed up as Star Wars characters cheering us on.

I felt pretty good until about mile 10… when I had to use the Force to keep going. But Toby stayed with me the whole time, and I managed to run most of every mile and finish strong.

There were a few minor things about the route I would improve if possible — mainly that the running path narrowed and turned a lot at the end (through a parking lot, no less), so we had to dodge a lot of people and weave in and out when we were the most tired.

But overall it was an extremely well-organized race and a great experience — and my energy definitely came back when Goofy, Mickey and Chip and Dale were jamming at the finish line!

The medals are epic, as expected, and actually mimic the bravery medals given to Han Solo and Luke at the end of “A New Hope.” So that’s awesome. By the way, Toby wore that Chewbacca backpack for the whole race. He used it to hold his wallet and energy chews. And I did galaxy nails to go along with my running outfit.

My hair actually stayed in place pretty well, but even with Body Glide, I got a serious blister on one of my toes. We got massages after and took ice baths (eek!) to cut down on the soreness, but I was still walking like a 90-year-old man afterward. Of course, we sucked it up and went to Disneyland to celebrate (and eat churros)!

So, our first runDisney experience was pretty fantastic… and now I know I need to actually train for our next one — in May!

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