Disneyland’s 60th Celebration has officially started! I finished my taper week! It’s now race week for me! So much to talk about. It wasn’t my best week for workouts. However, I made the best of the workouts I got in. Taper weeks are not easy to figure out. I’m still trying to do just that. Let’s look back at how the week went.

I’m sad to say that I didn’t get my first run in until Thursday morning. For whatever reason, I was not able to get to sleep until around midnight on Monday evening. That doomed any chance I had at being up at 5:30am Tuesday morning with the energy to run. It was simply a case of my mind not wanting to shut off. This is where the early morning runs don’t work so well. While there are less excuses with the morning runs, not enough sleep is one of them.  Tuesday night, I got to sleep earlier. However, not early enough. So, Wednesday morning was one of those where I tried to get up and going, but it just didn’t happen. So, I made sure to structure my Wednesday  well enough to get to bed on time and it worked!

So, Thursday, I made it out for 4 miles before work. This was a run of pure determination. I was determined to get to bed on time Wednesday. I was determined to let nothing keep me from running on Thursday morning. I was not going to let any tiredness deter me from finishing all 4 miles. The first mile was a little slow. However, I was able to keep it under 11 minutes. As I neared the end of the first mile, I kept reminding myself that the second mile would be easier. That totally helped. The second mile was easier and I went faster. I had no trouble in the third mile. The fourth started feeling more difficult again. I finished in 42:57! This was my second fastest 4 miles before work. When I realized this, I was really happy.

Here’s the thing. I was watching some You Tube videos this week chasing an idea of what I wanted to post on last Wednesday (but didn’t) and I came across a video, I’m going to share this Wednesday as part of Words of Wisdom Wednesday. This video was done with Meb Keflezighi. In it, among other things, Meb says that he’d rather be 1 workout short and be fresh than 1 workout too many and be too fried for a race. Hearing that, put me at ease about the missed run. Another video I listened to was with Ryan Hall where he talked about how, in the taper, you should not totally hold back on the intensity of your runs. However, you should cut back the miles. You need to keep the intensity  going all the way to the finish line of the race. That was the approach I took to Thursday’s run. I had been contemplating cutting back the mid-week runs to 3 miles because of the taper. After watching these videos, I decided to keep the 4 mile runs going.

On Thursday evening, Disneyland had an invite only event which was broadcast on the Disney Parks Blog of the Paint the Night Parade and Disneyland Forever Fireworks. So, I was sure to be online to check it out. For the fireworks, I took full advantage of the fact that they had multiple camera angles. On the desktop, I had the Town Square camera. With the laptop, I was using the Main Street U.S.A. camera. This was the perfect way to watch the fireworks. It totally got me excited about visiting Disneyland on Saturday!

They had the press premiere of World of Color Celebrate on Wednesday. So, the new show as up on You Tube the next day. After watching the parade and fireworks, Brooke and I used the You Tube app on the blu-ray player to watch the new World of Color show. All I have to say about the new World of Color is OMG! Amazing show! Brooke and I are planning on seeing this show in person later in the summer.

Friday, I woke up to see several friends at either Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom for their 24 hours of Disney events.

I had to go to work. It’s not all bad though. I love waking by Legends Plaza on my way to the office each and every work day. From what I saw on the web, Disneyland was packed to capacity and DCA wasn’t far behind. I hope that who got to go to the parks had a blast!

I got up Saturday and had to run 6 miles before I got to head down to Disneyland. This ended up being the best 6 miles over this route I’ve ever run! As I started the morning, I was expecting the worst. I don’t know why, but I had a bad feeling before this run. Once I got going, however, everything was feeling pretty good. The first two miles went by as quickly as I’m used to running on this route. They are largely downhill or flat (with a few minor inclines). So, I cover the ground pretty quickly. I felt good and was running good. The third mile is the first of three that go largely uphill or flat. So, I started grinding it out in the third mile. I knew my time was slowing down. But, I just kept going. Run 30 seconds, walk a minute. I finished the third mile in around 32 minutes, which is fantastic. Nothing earth shattering, but really good. The fourth mile felt much more difficult. At one point, I was breathing a little too heavy for my liking. So, I made the decision to actually skip one run interval. That turned out to be a great decision and was exactly what I needed. I ended the fourth mile in 44 minutes, 23 seconds! It was my fastest 4 miles on this route to date. I was super excited about where I crossed the end of 4 miles.

I started thinking about where I’d be at the end of 5. In the 5th mile, I was pushing hard. I felt a little tired, but I just found a way to keep going. What kept me going was the knowledge that it was my last hard mile of the day. I crossed the end of mile 5 at 55 minutes, 43 seconds! I can’t remember the last time I ran 5 miles that fast! As I got towards the end of the mile, I started thinking about whether or not to switch my intervals to a 1 minute run, 1 minute walk. I decided to keep the 30 second run, 1 minute walk intervals to start the mile. My plan was to switch at 5.5 miles. So, that’s what I did. I was feeling good and that I could do a half mile running a minute, walking a minute. As I’d see the time, it was all good. There was a possibility that I could finish in under 1 hour 6 minutes. So, at the end, I ran a minute, walked 30 seconds and ran 40 seconds to finish in 1 hour, 6 minutes, 10 seconds! My fastest 6 miles on this route! As happy as I was with this result, I was sort of kicking myself for not switching to the 1 minute run, 1 minute walk intervals sooner. 10 seconds from a sub 11 minute per mile average over 6 miles. Ugh. If only. Oh well, that’s the way it goes.

After the run, it was time to head off to Disneyland’s 60th Celebration!

We started off at Disney California Adventure. Brooke loves Cucamonga Cuccina in the Pacific Warf area. So, we wanted to go there for lunch. On the way, we checked out the Radiator Springs Racers. The wait time for single rider wasn’t too bad. So, we decided to do lunch first and then check back with the racers later. Unfortunately, the racers were down when when we checked. The line for Toy Story Midway Mania was over 2 hours! So, we didn’t stay too long in DCA.

That was all good because the party was all about Disneyland.

I was super excited to get to see the Hatbox Ghost in the Haunted Mansion! This guy is seriously cool!

There was plenty of promotion of the Disney movie, Tomorrowland including this exhibit!

It was a glorious day to be at the Disneyland Resort. The crowds were crazy. However, I knew they would be. So, we had a small list of must-do rides, the Paint the Night Parade and Disneyland Forever Fireworks on the agenda. I’m happy to report that we hit everything we wanted to do!

I attempted to video the Paint the Night Parade. Unfortunately, in the last 5 minutes, my phone hit its capacity. So, the video stopped. Since the phone didn’t tell me it was at capacity, I tried to get the video to start up again. I thought I had succeeded only to find out before the fireworks that the last video did not save. It’s okay. The Paint the Night Parade is AMAZING! It’s the next generation of the Main Street Electrical Parade. I loved the music track and everything about the parade. I hope this parade lasts a really long time at Disneyland.

The Disneyland Forever Fireworks is the best fireworks show ever! At least that’s my opinion. It’s okay of others don’t share my enthusiasm. I love the immersiveness of this show. They project things on the facades of the buildings all the way down Main Street U.S.A.!

They also project things on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Oh, and there are great fireworks too! In my opinion, Disneyland Forever is a game changer for Disney theme park fireworks shows. Disneyland Forever is a show you will need to experience in at least two different locations (if not three) to get the full effect. We stood on Main Street U.S.A. this time around. The next time, I’ll probably  get to a place closer to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. I love, love, love this show!

The evening ended with shopping. Unfortunately for me, all the shirts I liked were not available in my size. That’s okay, I will be back later this summer. So, I’ve got plenty of chances to get some Disneyland 60th Celebration merch. I probably could have asked a cast member to check on sizes. However, the stores were so crowded that I was ready to leave when we did.

Getting home at around 1am on Sunday left me pretty tired. So, Sunday became a day of rest. I watched a church service online, watched some movies and worked on some projects that I’ve needed to get to for a while. So, it was a relaxed, but productive day.

It’s race week this week y’all! The Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon and 5K will be happening this coming weekend! With the way I’ve been running lately, I think a new 5K and Half Marathon PR is possible. I’ll talk a little more tomorrow about my goals for the races this weekend. It’s going to be an epic weekend in San Diego! Can’t wait!

I hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day today and a magical week! If you went to one of the 24 hour days at Disney, how was it? Were the crowds as crazy as reported? I’d love to hear about your experiences!