Hi! This is Mindy from the lifestyle and travel blog This Fairy Tale Life. I am pleased to be guest posting on Babes in Disneyland today, giving you a little peek inside the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend.
In 2006, runDisney brought its popular Walt Disney World marathon races to Disneyland with the inaugural Disneyland Half Marathon. Now The Disneyland Resort is host to four runDisney events each year with the Disneyland Half Marathon, held over the Labor Day weekend, being the most popular.
I completed my first Disneyland Half Marathon in 2012 and the inaugural Dumbo Double Dare (both the 10k and Half Marathon) in 2013 before I was sidelined due to injury. Since then I’ve been completing the 10k races only, which is the perfect length for me!
This year’s Disneyland Half Marathon weekend marked my fifth year doing runDisney events, which is pretty impressive for someone who never considered herself to be a runner and who always was the last to finish the mile-long runs during high school gym classes. That’s the power of runDisney!
On Friday afternoon, I was honored to attend the Cigna Blogger Meet-Up at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. Cigna is the main sponsor of the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend and is dedicated to helping people live healthy lives. Like I said in the title, it’s not just about running. Healthy living includes not only physical activity but healthy eating habits and preventative care as well.
Our afternoon started off with a healthy lunch prepared by the chefs at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, including Iceberg Wedge and Caprese Salads, an assortment of sandwich fixings, healthy potato salad, and delicious bite-size desserts (it’s all about portion control)!
After lunch and socializing, we were assigned into teams for the “Know Your Health” game show. Attendees were given a series of games that corresponded with lessons about healthy living. Some of the challenges we played were …
Warm Up Coordination – It’s important to warm up and get moving every day, even if you’re not doing a strenuous exercise! A little bit of movement first thing in the morning wakes up your muscles and your brain so you’re sharper and less exhausted during the day. Our warm up challenge was a variation on a game you may recognize from college … we had to flip a red plastic cup onto a bottle of water, which also served a reminder to drink plenty of water throughout the day. I had never played Flip Cup before (honestly!) so I wasn’t very good at it, but the challenge got me focused and ready for the rest of the games to come.
Dance in Your Pants – Did you know dancing is not only super fun, but a great way to get your cardio workout done? And you don’t need any fancy equipment, except maybe your iPod or smart phone to play music. Attendees had to get up on stage and demonstrate a dance move while the rest of the attendees guessed what it was. From ballet to disco to, yes, even Vogue-ing, we learned some new moves for our daily family dance parties. (And if you don’t already do daily family dance parties, I highly recommend it!)
Snack Attack – We were shown extreme close-up photos of healthy foods and had to guess what they were. I’m proud to say as a team we guessed all of them correctly! Even the really tough ones like walnuts and broccoli.
Calorie Burner – Our Cigna hosts showed us a series of slides which showed two different physical activities and we had to guess which one burned the most calories. Let’s just say I learned A LOT during this challenge, like perhaps I should take up roller skating!
Check Up Challenge – Our final challenge reminded us to get our annual wellness check ups every year. We had to keep a balloon UP in the air using whatever body part was announced. This is much more difficult than it sounds, but getting your wellness check up is not!
After all the challenges were over, the Cigna representatives tallied up all the points and gave medals to the winning team … which sadly was not my team. But we left with some fun consolation prizes including a running belt, very important sunscreen, and a Disney gift card.
Of course, no Disney event would be complete without a visit from Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse!
Thank you to Cigna for putting on this really fun and educational event for bloggers! It was fun to make some new friends and receive some good reminders about every day health and wellness.
Watch this short video recap of the event by Cigna!
