The great thing about racing in Disneyland Paris is that the starts aren’t quite as stupidly early as in the states; today we were up at 5.15am.

Pre-race breakfast was provided at the hotel, but I only had a banana and bowl of dry Frosties with some juice because the options were basically fruit and cereal! We headed to the race area and got into our corral, C, about 45 minutes before the race was due to start, but due to a hold up on the course the whole start of the race was delayed, meaning it was about 7.45 before we’d actually crossed the start line, by which time we were quite cold and I was already hungry again, oops..

The race took a different route through the parks to the 5K the previous day which was nice as it meant we didn’t know what to expect, and they also had completely different characters around – I think the only repeat I saw was Spiderman. I stopped for photos with Chip and Dale who were hanging in the Studios park, and also Robin Hood in Disneyland, but it was nice to see the other characters around – Alice, Captain America, Darth Vader – and Cinderella and Prince Charming were in Fantasyland with one of the floats from Disney Magic on Parade. We left the parks at about 5/6K and did quite a bit of backstage before hitting the roads of the surrounding towns. It was over 16K before we were back in the official Disney area, where we finished the race running through hotels Santa Fe and Cheyenne, and then around the lake, through Disney Village and a final loop of backstage to the finish line! Despite taking things really easy due to my foot injury from earlier in the week, we still finished in a really respectable time of about 3 hours, and were met at the finish line by Mickey and Minnie which was perfect, even if Mickey was taken away from me just as I went in for a photo!

Once we’d got our race medal and Castle to Chateau medal, and grabbed our food bags, it was time to find Mum and Hannah and slowly make our way back to the hotel to grab a proper breakfast; the Disney hotels had extended breakfast hours for runners. Super quick rest and shower before we packed up the room, dropped the bags off in the car and as we made our way back towards the park the heavens opened and the rain began to pour! Because of this, we opted to get the bus to the parks, and ran straight through to Walt Disney Studios Park for the 12.50pm performance of Mickey and the Magician. I’d really been looking forward to seeing this, and it was a welcome sit down and break from the rain. I enjoyed the show, but personally felt a bit let down by a slightly less than perfect Elsa who hit a few bum notes, but was really impressed with the Lion King scene.

With very little time left before needing to leave, and empty tummies, we left Studios and Dad and Hannah went to get us a table at the Rainforest Cafe, while I shot back into the Disneyland Park with Mum to get some albeit rainy photos of my medals by the castle, and pick up a few gifts for family before we joined back up for lunch. Still on a bit of a carb fest, I had Rasta Pasta which was AMAZING, and they were doing 15% discount for runners which was a nice surprise! Few last bits bought from the Village, then back to the car to make the drive back to the Eurotunnel!

See you next time, Disneyland Paris!