Why I am Taking a Break From the WDW 5K

For those of you who have been with us from back when we were reporting under the Vinylmation Kingdom website, you might remember that I started my yearly tradition of running the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 5K back in 2014. This was a goal set forth by myself because I was out of shape and overweight. Still probably considered out of shape by normal standards and still overweight, but I proved to myself back in 2014 that I could conquer a 5K race by running/walking it (mainly walking). Since then, each year I have gone back and completed the 5K at WDW in January, attempted the 10K one year, and also have participated in other 5K events and Relay for Life Walks spurred by my initial 5K. However, I have decided that this past 2017 WDW 5K will be my last for the foreseeable future.

Do not get me wrong. These past four years have been great. I have met a lot of amazing and inspiring people because of it, and some have become close friends, or more importantly, my Disney Family. However, increasingly over the years, I have realized that being involved in the WDW Marathon Weekend, even simply being there for it, has had an adverse affect on me enjoying the parks.

There are many reasons why this is…

1. Timeframe

In 2014, the year of my first race, the weekend’s festivities started with the Marathon Expo on Wednesday, January 8th. This was a full week after New Year’s Day, and it gave a weekend buffer between holiday crowds and marathon crowds. This past year, the Expo started on January 4th. Next year is it in January 3rd. This gives zero buffer between the two crowds. In fact, I have been seeing no dip in crowd levels between events, given the inherent overlap. This past trip, the only days that my friends or myself saw manageable crowds were the days where is was rainy or cold, or late night when the park was open for Extra Magic Hours.

In my opinion, that buffer is needed, not just for the guests, but also for the Cast Members. Instead of there being any down time in the parks, it’s more so extending the holiday season by a week or more.

2. The Dopey Challenge

Starting in 2014, Disney introduced “The Dopey Challenge” and, with it, the WDW 10K. The 10K was added to the weekend’s festivities in order to create “The Dopey”, in which participants receive a special medal for completing all of the races that weekend: the 5K, the 10K, the Half Marathon, and the Full Marathon. While this not only extended the weekend by a day (bumping the 5K to Thursday and putting the 10K on Friday), it also created a higher importance on the 5K (previously considered a “Family Fun Run”) and made it so more people were around for the entirety of the weekend, instead of just a few of the days if they were only doing the Half or Full Marathons. Over the past four years, I have seen the crowds both at the races and in the parks increase significantly.

Next year, in addition to both “The Dopey” and the 10K celebrating 5 years, the WDW Marathon itself will be celebrating 25 years… which means special medals and most certainly causing them to be very popular and selling out. While they might have sold out before, Disney could easily increase the number of available entries because they know people will want the special anniversary medals. That would lead to even more crowds both at the events and in the parks.

3. Marathon Weekend Signup

Signups for the Marathon Weekend keep on getting earlier and earlier, and since some of the popular races like the 5K and 10K sell out quickly, you need to make a commitment months out in order to secure a bib. For 2018, registration opens on February 14th… next month. That is a commitment of almost a year out. To me, that is insane, especially when the registration fees are non-refundable. I thought this past year’s commitment of about 9 months out was a stretch… 11 months? I simply can’t commit that far out without being able to cancel.

4. Disney Vacation Club

I absolutely love my Disney Vacation Club membership. It is one of the biggest factors that bring me back to WDW year after year. That being said, I would love to stay at a resort during my January trip that wasn’t my home resort of Saratoga Springs. With my home resort, I can book the room 11 months out, with the ability to cancel up to a month prior to arrival. With any other DVC resort, I can book 7 months out, pending availability. Since I started going to WDW during Marathon Weekend, only once have I been able to book a room outside of my home resort, and that was only because bookings for that resort started within the 7 month window. Every other year, by the time my 7 month period rolled around, everything was booked at the other DVC resorts, being a combination of rollover holiday guests and marathon guests. While I enjoy Saratoga Springs for a lot of reasons, I have yet to try all of the DVC resorts, and would love to do that. Going at this time in January does not give me that freedom.

5. Too Tired / Not Enough Time for the Theme Parks?

Yup, it actually happened this past trip, more so that others. While not being physically involved in the entire weekend of races, I had friends out there on the course for each race. While the Half Marathon technically did not happen, my two Dopey friends, along with hundreds of others, still ran it, only on their own terms at various resorts around WDW. So, if they had a 3am wakeup to get to the starting line, I had the same wakeup to get to the course to cheer them on. Then, after the race was finished, it was back to the room to rest a bit, shower, and get ready for the parks, which was arrived at by late afternoon… if at all. If we did make it into the parks, by the time 7-8pm rolled around, the party was exhausted, both runners and spectators alike (yes, more so the runners). I was at WDW for 6 days, and in that time period I only did two rides at Animal Kingdom and maybe half the rides at each Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Some days only a handful of hours were spent inside the parks, with the rest revolving around the expo or the actual races. I have realized that I want to be there for a WDW vacation, not a WDW Marathon vacation.

 

Hopefully, in the next couple of years, I will revisit the WDW Marathon Weekend and once again decide to do the 5K, or maybe tackle the 10K again. In the meantime, I will be content on getting my runDisney fix with the Virtual Running Shorts, a series of 5K runs over the summer that you do on your own pace. Last year’s inaugural Mickey series was quite a lot of fun, with some really great medals… and this year’s hint of who the medals will feature is “dog”gone awesome.

To all that still will participate in the WDW Marathon Weekend, and the rest of the runDisney events throughout the world, all my best, and congrats on being an inspiration to us all.