To the finish line….. and beyond!

Waaaaay back in 2016 at the London Marathon Expo I came across a little unassuming stall that had a display of the most amazing running bling I’d ever seen…. DISNEY MEDALS!!!! Yep you read that correctly. You can run around Disney World and they give you Disney bling!

I remember posting on my instagram that one day, I would own one of these bad boys….. #bucketlist

Several years later the Straughton family holiday to Florida was being discussed including what time of year to go. We were all agreed that we wanted to go at the end of October for Halloween. As it turned out, there is this little thing called the Run Disney Wine & Dine Festival that takes place at the beginning of November – you know I was entering!

Thanks to Covid, our trip to Florida was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021 so it took a little longer than expected for this to all pan out.

Now the first thing I will say is OMG, if you think IronMan triathletes take their races seriously they ain’t got NOTHING on Disney runners!!! I learned very quickly from the Facebook groups that they are the absolute definition of fanatics…. and I experienced it first hand several months later!

First off is the task of actually getting an entry – this is no mean feat as the individual races (5k, 10k and half marathon) sell out almost instantly. So after sitting in a virtual queue for over an hour waiting for registration to open, I managed to bag a spot in the half marathon!

Secondly comes the matter of start waves. Disney running is all about the costumes and maximising time in the parks, soaking up the atmosphere and meeting Disney characters! I was never running for a fast time but knew I would get frustrated by crowds of walkers, so the only way to make sure I didn’t get caught up was to get a wave A starting bib – queue operation sub 2hr half marathon as a POT is required to secure a spot in the prime start wave.

Entry confirmed, sub 2hr POT submitted (thanks to Coach!) Disney themed running kit ordered, all systems go!

Race Registration

This is like an event in itself. Run Disney takes over the ESPN World of Sports complex for 3 days, and I do mean takes over. I don’t think I had previously appreciated just how big this event was – there were THOUSANDS of people!

Bib collection is in one building. Slight glitch that they hadn’t verified my POT and had allocated me to the last wave, but this was quickly resolved by runner relations and a sticker placed on my bib with the new allocation in wave A, yay!

Runner top collection is in a second building – quite why Run Disney thought long sleeve running tops for an event in Florida was a good idea is beyond me but I’m not complaining, I live in the cold wet Lake District so long sleeves are welcome!

Now the stress…. “the merch”. Seemingly, Run Disney merch is like gold dust and every year people hoover it up within hours of the 3 day expo opening to re-sell it on eBay for double the retail.

I joined a virtual queue for entry to the merch building at 7am, despite it not opening until 10am. Initially I was allocated group 44 with an expected entry slot of 10:45am. So having collected my bib and runners top I hung around near the entrance to the merch building (while trying to hide from the 30 degree sun!)

TWO HOURS LATER my group was finally called. From what I can gather, people in the earlier groups were hoarding as much merch as they could and camping out in the building waiting for their mates who were in later groups. This meant the building was at max capacity and so we were on a “1 in 1 out” system.

I did mention that Disney runners are totally crazy didn’t I?

When I eventually got inside…. Wow. You know those scenes of people fighting over the last tv in a Black Friday sale? Most stalls were empty and the hall looked like a hoard of locusts and flown through! I did manage to find a tank top and sweater, so worth it in the end but I feel for anyone attending on day 2 & 3. Run Disney could do so much more to make this a fairer and more pleasant experience – restricting entry to the merch building to runners only and limiting the number of items they can buy would be a good start.

The Run - the fun part!

This was the earliest race start I’ve ever done – 5am!!

We were staying at Disney in Animal Kingdom Lodge and there were free buses transporting runners to and from the start and finish areas. Alarm went off at 3am, I had collected a runners breakfast box from the hotel the night before so headed to the bus eating my bagel and banana on the way.

The start was pretty epic – welcomed by the running legend Jeff Galloway, followed by a minute silence as it was Veterans Day in the US and then star spangled banner played on the sax.

Fireworks replaced the “start gun” as each wave set off.

The conditions were something I hadn’t anticipated; 27 degrees and 98% humidity made running tough but I just kept reminding myself I was here for the smiles not the PB!

The route was lined with huge speakers blasting Disney tunes and placards in the ground with motivational quotes from Disney movies. Every mile or so there was either a character to have your photo taken with or some kind of live entertainment; everything from soul singers, to DJs, a mariachi band and at the finish line, a full on gospel choir!

One big 13.1 mile party from start to finish, probably the most surreal race I’ve ever done!