If you haven’t signed up for a runDisney event, what are you waiting for? These events are unlike any other running event you have ever participated in. I mean, what race can you run and have Mickey and Minnie cheering you on at the finish line?
These events are high energy from the first moment you attempt to register for your event, to the planning of costumes and make up, to the expo, to race morning, to even after the race. I must admit I was pretty jealous last year when I saw all the amazing pictures of runners running through Magic Kingdom and the castle. Not every runDisney event runs to Magic Kingdom, so if that’s your big draw to running at Disney keep that in mind. The only races that run through Magic Kingdom are WDW Marathon Weekend and Princess Weekend. I decided one day I’d like to run through Magic Kingdom and, well, that day came this year on January 11th.
A little runDisney information if you are new to the scene. The runDisney season has 4 races at Disney World: Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend, Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend, and runDisney Springtime Surprise weekend. There are also two races at Disneyland: Disneyland Halloween Half Marathon Weekend and Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. There are also fun challenge events you can participate in at each weekend- even one between Disney World and Disneyland where you can participate in a Coast to Coast Challenge which involves you running a 10 mile race or longer at Disney World AND at Disneyland in the same season. There is also a Virtual Series you can participate in. One of the best parts of these races are the insane medals! They are nice quality (like heavy metal) and much bigger than any other medal you will ever earn at a neighborhood 5K. If you participate in say the Dopey Challenge, you’ll end up with 6 different medals: 1 for the 5K, 10K, Half, and Marathon, 1 for the Goofy Challenge and 1 for the Dopey Challenge.
One note about the registration process: most of these races sell out quickly. As you can see from the graphic below, the registrations are always on a Tuesday morning at 10:00am EST. If you’ve been to Disney World lately, you are probably familiar with the Virtual Queue (VQ) system for big rides like Tiana’s Bayou Adventure or Guardians of the Galaxy. runDisney has a similar system. Theoretically right at 10:00am the VQ opens and you get placed into a queue. I have participated in several runDisney events: Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend, Springtime Surprise Weekend, the long lost Star Wars Rival Weekend, and just recently the WDW Marathon weekend. The queue can take hours and many times the races you are hoping to get will already be sold out before your turn in the queue. I think some of the most popular events are any of the Princess Weekend races, and the coveted Dopey Challenge. A few years ago, some kind of glitch happened with the WDW Marathon Weekend VQ kicking thousands of hopeful runners out of the queue. There were so many devastated runners, especially those that have run every single Dopey Challenge since it started in 2014. These folks are called Perfect Dopeys. For my registration for the WDW Half Marathon, I woke up on the day of registration, looked at one of my runDisney Facebook pages I’m a member of, and was reminded that it was registration day. I shot my husband, Alex, a quick text at 9 something in the morning and said, can I run the WDW Half Marathon in January? He said “go for it.” It was March when I registered, so it’s easy to commit to something so far in advance. I did have pretty big goals at the time of registration, I had my next marathon coming up on May 12th and was hoping this would be my Boston Qualifying marathon. If my goals came true, that would mean I would be running the Boston Marathon in April of 2025. I didn’t think running a marathon in January would be the best idea given my goals, so I elected for the half marathon. For some reason, this registration process was so easy for me. I signed on right at 10:00am, only waited a few minutes and got right in to the half marathon! I plan to make a runDisney registration video next time I register for an event!
The week of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend was a little touch and go for me. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know that I had the flu and ended up having to go to urgent care on Wednesday (3 days before the race). I got a breathing treatment, antibiotics and a steroid shot! I didn’t really know if I’d actually be running the race until Friday night. I was always going to consider the race more of a training run because my marathon training schedule was 14 miles for that day. With my warm up to the corral and the 13.3 (guess I didn’t run the tangents) I was able to get to 14 for the day.
Alex and I decided to leave the kids at home for this short weekend away. These runDisney events start super early in the morning, and we knew, from past experience, that the early wake ups are not ideal for little ones. Luckily we have a trusted babysitter who the kiddos love to spend time with. We got the kids from school, dropped them off at home, and drove down to Orlando to the runDisney expo to pick up my bib number and shirt at the ESPN Wide World of Sports. The expo is a high energy event with DJs and MCs. They also have super fun themed cups and snacks for purchase. There are several buildings for you to explore. The biggest is the actual expo building which has hundreds of different running related booths. There are companies with massage guns letting you try out their products, there are people administering KT tape if desired, and of course there are characters and PhotoPass opportunities if you want to stop for some pictures. Last year at the Springtime Surprise Alex got his first pair of Shokz and first pair of Oofos sandals. He ran the 10K with me in April 2024. Now he’s signed up for the Gate River Run 15K which is exactly one month from now. He still doesn’t consider himself a runner, but it definitely seems like he’s starting to be one! Maybe I can convince him to run the Wine and Dine Half Marathon with me this year? Or maybe I surprise him with registration? Ha! We didn’t have a surplus of time to explore the expo this year because we had a dining reservation at 5:30pm at Citricos inside The Grand Floridian. We scurried on over to The Grand Floridian which is under construction, so we had to park in the auxiliary lot. We had a fantastic meal there and walked around that beautiful hotel before heading over to our moderately priced hotel ha. The bread baskets at Citricos are delicious and we ordered 3 of them!
For this weekend we decided to stay at Coronado Springs. We’d never stayed here before and got a pretty decent deal on our hotel room with our annual passholder discount. We were in the Casitas Building 5. We made a room tour video if you are interested in seeing what our accommodations were like. As you can see, the room is rather small and wouldn’t have been ample for us plus 3 kids if we wanted to get any sleep!
I set my alarm for 2:45am, and fell asleep around 9:30pm. I had planned on eating a bagel for my pre-race meal, so I decided to bring a toaster from home. That worked out perfectly. I had the cream cheese in the mini fridge, toasted my bagel, made hotel coffee and was feeling pretty fine even though I had woken up at 2:45am. These running events start early in the morning. For the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend, the 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon started at 5:00am, and the Marathon started at 4:30am. There are runDisney buses that pick up the runners at all the on property resorts including The Swan and The Dolphin resorts. One downside to staying in the Casitas part of Coronado Springs was that the buses only picked us up from the main lobby, not the small bus stops in front of our building. It all worked out though, I was able to jog over to the lobby with my hot coffee WITHOUT spilling it, and walk directly onto the bus as soon as I got to the stop. It was right around 3:30am. In past Disney events I’ve participated in I’ve had to stand around for 30 minutes or so before a bus came. That can be a little nerve wracking especially since I’ve seen horror stories where a bus never arrived. For me, this was the perfect morning, at least up until this point.
I got to Epcot, which is where all of the races start, around 3:40am. I jogged to the starting corral and got to my corral by 4:00am or so. This would have been perfect. The temperature was great, even though I was layered in warm clothes I bought from Walmart to leave behind once the race began. Earlier in the week the weather was looking like it was going to be freezing, and for this Florida girl I would have been miserable. Like major marathon events, runDisney donates all discarded clothes to the homeless. I actually was too hot in my layers, but that didn’t last because right at 4:00am it started pouring rain.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disconsolate. I was regretting getting to the start line so early. There was literally nowhere to hide from the rain. At one point, I just plopped down on the street and took in the scenery. That was a long hour until 5:00am. I met some really nice people in the corral. We all were huddled up together trying to keep our shoes dry. Not really the ideal pre-race running conditions you hope for. I usually like to stay active. They played “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “The Bare Necessities” about 20 times each, which given the overall atmosphere did not agree with my overall wet rat/sour demeanor. The runDisney MCs tried to keep everyone entertained by telling jokes, showing interviews from spectators at Magic Kingdom, telling uplifting stories about people attempting to complete their first Dopey, and showing sneak peek video clips from new Disney+ shows that were coming out. I couldn’t see them or the screen because I was hunkered down on the ground. I met a really nice man from Philadelphia who was completing the Dopey Challenge as a perfect Dopey. I think he said this was his 14th or 15th Dopey! I never caught his name, but he was really nice and helped me discard my sweats and kept me company during that boring hour waiting for the race.
The race itself was a blur for me. I was soaking wet, which was a little unpleasant, and since I have a propensity to lose toe nails when I run in the rain, I was concerned I might have some issues after this race. The first few miles flew by for me. I had kind of planned to go out around 7:40pace just to see if I could do it, then I planned on maybe picking up the pace if I felt like it. I wasn’t too far off of my plan, and considering where I was at the beginning of the week I’m pretty pleased. I never actually felt tired, and Alex joked that my steroid shot gave me super powers. I also decided, once I restarted my running journey, to start making new PRs. I call them post-baby PRs, and this definitively qualifies as a post-baby PR.
When I finished running, I tried to take a selfie to send to Alex and put on Strava. A nice volunteer offered to take my picture. I look like a swamp rat, but I had a blast!
Of course, the PhotoPass photographers made me look like a princess even through the rain! You can’t really tell but I put tinsel in my hair, and glitter on my face and arms! I literally never wear just a sports bra to run, and I was a little self-conscious about doing it in front of thousands of strangers! The outfit is from Crowned Athletics if you’re interested.
I didn’t stop for any characters, water, or fuel because I was too cold and wet and didn’t want to be out on the course any longer than necessary. The only character I was tempted to stop for was Marie from The Aristocats (that’s my daughter’s favorite) but she was walking away to take a break when I ran past her. If I was running with a friend, I would have stopped to take pictures with characters, but since I was by myself I didn’t feel like stopping. I’m seriously considering running the Dopey Challenge next year, and want to have someone to run with at least for the 5K, 10K, and half, so I have a couple months to recruit people!
I’m also happy to report that I did not lose any toenails. I did get a bruise on my toe, but all nails are secure and alive! I’d count that a win!
The fun didn’t stop after the race. I finished my race, got my runDisney space blanket (I think they only give these at WDW Marathon Weekend and Princess Weekend) grabbed my runDisney snack box, some Powerade and a banana, stretched a little in the parking lot and took a picture at one of the PhotoPass stands.
Then I walked straight to my bus and got right on. There were only like 5 people on the bus which I was expecting it would need to be filled up to leave. The bus left within two minutes of me getting on! The bus dropped me off at the bus stop by my room and I was back in my room by 7:00am. I took a shower and tried to take a nap. Alex was still asleep at this point. I think we slept until around 9:00am. Then we went and walked around the resort to find some breakfast. We ate at the El Mercado de Coronado. We each picked up something quick and also shared some overnight oats.
After breakfast, it was time to hit the road and head to The Orlando Beer Spa. My sister-in-law, Sarah, and brother-in-law, Marion, were meeting us there and staying the night at Coronado Springs for a fun night away! We had reserved a 90 minute spa treatment which essentially is sitting in a hot tub filled with beer ingredients that the website says provides your body vitamins and antioxidants, sitting in a infrared sauna and then relaxing on a bed of hay at the end. Oh, and you have unlimited self-serve beer and wine during your time. If you like beer and have never done this experience, I highly recommend you giving It a try. It might not be the best post-race recovery since it makes you sweat and dehydrates you, but definitely give it a try on a fun day you have in Orlando. You can check out our experience at the Beer Spa here:
After our beer spa treatments, we spent the rest of the day and night enjoying our resort. We checked out the Three Bridges Bar and Grill, did some excellent push up contests, and went to dinner at Toledo, but I didn’t really get any pictures of that! It was too cold to enjoy to pool and hot tub for me.
The next morning, Alex and I went on a little jog together on the running trail around the resort. It really is a beautiful resort to get a short run in!
We came back home in the afternoon to our babies on Sunday!
It was such a fun experience and I can’t wait until my next runDisney event!
Cheers!
-Kelly
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