RunDisney Wine & Dine Weekend Race Recap
945 days is how long I spent not running at Disney. A lot sure happened in those 945 days. It could have been less than that but I didn't run in the 19/20 season due to having surgery on my hip. Had I known what 2020 would bring I would have signed up for the Princess 5k and just walked the whole thing. And then it would have only been 642. š¤·š¼āāļø Needless to say, I was ecstatic to be back at Disney for the Wine & Dine Race Weekend last month. Here's how the first in-person race since the pandemic started went.
The schedule was the same - the expo started on Thursday with the 5k on Friday, 10k on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday. And, they surprisingly repeated the theme from the Wine & Dine virtual race weekend that they did in 2020 - villain themed! They switched it up some as to who was on each of the medals and as soon as my sister and I saw that the 10k was Nightmare Before Christmas themed, we knew we had to sign up for it. We had intentions of only doing the 5k to start getting back in the swing of things but couldn't resist our favorite holiday movie.
Picking up a RunDisney race bib after so long was a joyous occasion.
After decades of making people print out your race waiver they FINALLY set it up so you could sign it electronically prior to attending the Race Expo. Definitely a great improvement over past years. We also had to get some 'Expo Pass' that we screenshot and had on our phone but I honestly don't ever remember having to show it. With Covid, I thought they'd limit the places you had to go to get everything like they used to do back in the day. But, no, you still had to go to one building for your bib, one for your race shirt and yet another to look at/pick up any RunDisney specific merchandise. Other vendors were in the building where the race shirt pick-ups were but far less than I've ever seen. We showed up Friday afternoon to the Expo in, unfortunately, the pouring down rain. It had been raining all day - including during the 5k. We sure were glad we hadn't signed up for it then! So, having to walk from building to building in the rain was just miserable. After finally getting to where the RunDisney merchandise was we were pleased to see that Disney was finally doing something about the people who buy up mass quantities of items and re-sell them on Ebay for a premium - you were limited to only 2 of one item. Despite that, some of the merch was already sold out. In lieu of character photos at the Expo, they had some photo ops with giant numbers of the race distances. And luckily we had a break in the rain as we left to get our obligatory photo by the sign outside of the race we were running. Even with the rain and the sold out merch, it was really wonderful to be back at a race Expo with our people. Everyone was just happy to be there.
Saturday morning it was time for our 10k. Another change is that ALL of the races started at 5am - not 5:30 or 6. Not sure if it was a Covid related change but Disney has certainly taken the pandemic as an opportunity to change everything and I have a feeling this change is here to stay. So we were up at 2:45am, about the same time we were up for the marathon. I can hardly call that early since it's certainly a time that people can go to bed, but, as early as it was, per a Disney race day, the adrenaline kicked in and we were ready to go.
While there has been rain at a few Wine & Dine weekends over the years it hasn't been cold. It can occasionally be cold that time of year but typically it is always been mild to hot. So, we had planned our outfits accordingly - tutus with tank tops. Come Saturday morning however, the rain hadn't fully moved out and it was misting and 55 degrees. I had been running in 50 degree weather here in North Carolina in long sleeves and pants. Luckily I had packed capri leggings to wear in addition to my shorts and I had made arm sleeves. Arm sleeves that I had planned on pushing down when it got too hot - which I never did. One big tip Iād always give is when planning race outfits, have a sort of back up if the weather were to change. Bring a long sleeve shirt to wear underneath your tank top or t-shirt, pack shorts and caprl or full length leggings. We had most of that but didn't plan for it to be as cold as it actually was. So, while waiting in the corrals isn't ever great fun, it was even less fun with the weather. We were happy to have had our mylar blankets that we had bought off Amazon to keep us mostly warm until it was time to start.
Low quality photo, high quality excitement - despite the rain and cold!
There were two changes with what happens pre-race. There were NO characters out before the race where usually the characters for the race theme and Challenge theme are out. They did have some backdrops for photo opportunities but no Photopass were there. So this change could have been to limit the closeness of people in a line or just due to lack of staff. The other change was with the corrals. And, TBD, I think the change was done just to confuse us. Normally each corral had a letter - A, B, C, D, etc. and they would let each corral off a bit at a time in waves. This year the bibs had S1, S2, S3, etc. At first we thought there would be different letter and number combinations to break the corrals up even more but no, it was just like the old A, B, C sent off in waves. So who knows. We were quite anxious to start and once we did, we finally started to warm up.
We love a RunDisney start line!
We knew there were characters out for the 5k (which we hand been unsure if that would happen) so we were anxious to see who would be out for the 10k. Especially since no one was out pre-race like normal. However, all before Mile 2 they had both Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie! They were also back to back which was interesting as this caused two long lines very early on in the race. You couldn't get right up next to them like pre-Covid but being able to stand with them to get a PhotoPass photo was amazing. They are such rare characters to see!
The course was a familiar one, starting in the Magic Kingdom parking lot and taking the long, straight (and thankfully flat) road until you took the exit ramp towards Hollywood Studios right around Mile 3. So the first half isn't very exciting but was made more so this time by the 2 race theme characters. However, the last half of the race is where it's at. You come in the back of Hollywood Studios and get to go by Tower of Terror and down Sunset Boulevard. They had the Christmas stars up already as usual and it was glorious to be running through a park again. You aren't in that park for long unfortunately. We hope some year you are and they allow us to run through Galaxy's Edge. After you exit DHS you'll head along the walking path between the park and the Boardwalk area resorts. And walking is an appropriate term. It's the biggest bottleneck of all the courses and all the races Disney holds. But once you're through it you get to run around the Boardwalk - and on sunnier days - the sun is rising as this happens as you head into the back entrance of Epcot. Running through World Showcase is my favorite. For most races it will still be somewhat dark so they'll have the torches around Bay Lake burning and now, you'll get to see Spaceship Earth lit up in all it's 50th Anniversary Beacon glory.
We were so excited to cross the finish line - excited to be crossing one again and so excited to be done so we could warm up. They were thankfully passing out mylar blankets (as everyone had to ditch theirs before the start line) and we were ecstatic to see that we were back to having tortilla chips and the beloved plastic cheese in the snack boxes. š Although, now that I think about it, it was likely the cheese from the canceled Star Wars 2020 race weekend since that stuff could probably survive the apocalypse.š³ But there is just something so satisfying about eating it after you have finished running. They had the standard food and drink booths in the post-race area and we had one glass of champagne before we had to get out of there so we wouldn't freeze to death. It had thankfully stopped raining for the last mile or so but at this point was starting to get windy.
Thank you Disney Photopass for possibly our most favorite race photo ever.
After a shower and an accidental 3 hour nap we were ready to go to our obligatory after-race park - Epcot of course! It was still a bit windy and never got sunny but the rain was done thank goodness. And I wasn't really going to complain because I was actually able to wear a sweatshirt to the park - which is a rare thing to be able to do. To celebrate as we always do on this race weekend we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around World Showcase partaking in the Food & Wine Festival food booths.
Epcot, RunDisney Race Medals and Nightmare Before Christmas - these are a few of our favorite things
So while there were some changes to the race weekend, overall it was the exact same wonderful Disney magic - everyone's costumes, the characters and just the joy that is RunDisney. We didn't sign up for the Marathon or Princess weekends but may sign up for the Star Wars replacement weekend (still bitter BTW since I only got to do that weekend once and we had a ton of costume ideas!) which is called the Springtime Surprise Weekend. We didn't know what to expect but I think everyone was surprised to see that they had brought back Expedition Everest 5k and the Tower of Terror 10 Miler. They came with changes though - instead of the scavenger hunt being after the Everest 5k, it is during it. Which is fine by me. It is at least still at nighttime unlike the Tower of Terror race - which is now a Sunday morning. No matter though, RunDisney will keep changing and we will keep signing up. ššš¤·š¼āāļø