2018 Princess Half Marathon

[JulieODC]

Good luck all - have a wonderful Princess race weekend!!!

 

[SarahDisney]

Good luck, Princess Runners! I can't wait to read everyone's thoughts and recaps of the races!

 

[Bree]

I am not running the 5K again. There is no reason 5yo children should be allowed in corral A. The course was 95% walkers 4-5 across 6-7 rows deep. Lines for pictures were ridiculous. I saw two elderly women with canes! It was crazy. We started in the second wave of corral A. I think our biggest mistake was stopping for the first photo op (Mike & Sully). My DD loves Monsters, Inc and wanted a pic. My DD was a bit frustrated with the other participants, but we had a good time with each other.

 

[rteetz]

I am not running the 5K again. There is no reason 5yo children should be allowed in corral A. The course was 95% walkers 4-5 across 6-7 rows deep. Lines for pictures were ridiculous. I saw two elderly women with canes! It was crazy. We started in the second wave of corral A. I think our biggest mistake was stopping for the first photo op (Mike & Sully). My DD loves Monsters, Inc and wanted a pic. My DD was a bit frustrated with the other participants, but we had a good time with each other.

View attachment 304148

Pictures lines are always bad for the runDisney 5K. Sorry you had a rough experience.

I think part of the issue with corralling for the 5K is there is not PoT or timing. It's a family friendly race and people will lie about their anticipated finish times or pace to get in a better corral for pictures or whatever.

 

[Bree]

Pictures lines are always bad for the runDisney 5K. Sorry you had a rough experience.

I think part of the issue with corralling for the 5K is there is not PoT or timing. It's a family friendly race and people will lie about their anticipated finish times or pace to get in a better corral for pictures or whatever.

Last year didn’t seem as bad! I was in corral B and stopped at every photo op and finished in an hour. It took us 90 minutes today and we skipped the last two photos.

 

[joan4mickey]

Dang they delayed our flight. Oh well, I won't get to the expo until tomorrow. Good thing I never want or need anything at the disney booth. I do like to browse the other vendors.

Sorry @Bree about the race. IMO Disney over sells their races. That is one reason why this is my last. I had a good run, haha, and now it is on to something else. I got the opportunity to run with my two daughter a couple of times, and one year with one of my son's, and in 2016 broke the 2 hour mark for the half! My daughter ran the 5k in 2010, the second year and stopped for 10 characters and finished in 30 minutes. At that time everyone self "corralled". They just had markers for 8mm, 8:15, 8:30 etc. The race was also in March...the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot had opened and I loved that.

On to the 10k tomorrow! Good luck out there and hydrate!

 

[AZMermaid]

Ugh- that sounds frustrating! I will say, my 7 year old son is (slightly) faster than me- did his first 5K in 33.42 a couple weeks ago and his 6 year old buddy ran a 28.12. But it doesn't sound like these kids were running, which I agree is frustrating for A.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Hey hey! Not sure if it’ll be much help, but figured I’d give a heads up on expo!

Not sure when they changed it, but if you’re on a resort bus to the expo, they now drop off next to the Arena. Might not be a bad idea to hit up the Arena for official Disney merchandise from the get go or have someone stand in line while getting other stuff. I think I got here today around noon and did bibs/shirts first (no lines). But then I headed over to the Arena where they’ve sequestered all the Disney stuff! I’ve probably been in line for about 30 minutes to get in. They said maybe an hour more. I heard there was a long line to pay as well. Looks like there might be more though, so hopefully that means no early sellouts!

Also pretty warm in here, so definitely have some water on hand!

Quite a happy crowd that’s waiting though! The allure of the merch!

Happy running this weekend!

We must have gotten there at exactly the wrong time (about 1:30 pm)! Had a horrible experience. We were told there was an hour wait when we got in line and 75 minutes later we weren't half-way through and had a least another hour to go, with an hour wait on top of that to check out. Apparently it was empty inside but the register lines were horrible so they were holding people. I ended up leaving 75 minutes in as it was unbearably hot in there, and I was beyond frustrated. Total waste of an afternoon. I hope they still have jackets left when I go to get my knees taped tomorrow. Very sad.

There really has to be a better way. They claimed to have been "surprised" by all the people who showed up. Really? I saw the Dopey lines, I can't imagine there was much surprise. With the merch now located in a completely different area than the expo, there isn't any reason they couldn't sell it online. The previous thought was that they wanted to force people to go to the expo but they are doing that by putting the race shirts in the back of the expo. That was also fun fighting through.

Count me among the people who think that racers should be given access before the e-bay sellers.

On the positive... my son (21) and husband did their first 5k today and had a great time. They caught the first bus from Animal Kingdom Kidani and only had time to wait in one line for pics though. They are fast--13-14 min/mile--walkers and said they had to do a lot of dodging of big groups walking together and taking up the whole path. I said: welcome to RunDisney, LOL!

 

[Tinkerbell8956]

How long have the merch lines been today?

 

[bananabean]

I was supposed to be in corral A for the 5k today. Got to the corral at 4:55 and they had already closed the corral and wouldn’t let us in. As we were entering the corral they told us to hurry up because they were getting ready to close corral B!

So there were a ton of people from A in corral B. A girl next to me got split up from her family - they were in the back of corral A about 15 feet from where we were standing and the staff would not let her join her family.

I understand the need to keep the corrals moving, but closing them more than 30 minutes before the start - and not making an announcement - just seems like terrible planning.

 

[Figment1990]

I was supposed to be in corral A for the 5k today. Got to the corral at 4:55 and they had already closed the corral and wouldn’t let us in. As we were entering the corral they told us to hurry up because they were getting ready to close corral B!

So there were a ton of people from A in corral B. A girl next to me got split up from her family - they were in the back of corral A about 15 feet from where we were standing and the staff would not let her join her family.

I understand the need to keep the corrals moving, but closing them more than 30 minutes before the start - and not making an announcement - just seems like terrible planning.

First let me say I totally agree that this was aggravating and wrong and they should have communicated this better.

But just to add some more details to the picture of what happened in case it helps anyone for the rest of the weekend or future 5ks. They started pulling corral A into the starting line "chute" way ahead of 5:30. As is often the case with princess the large number of runners seems to mean a lot of extra walking before a start. No difference today for sure! We wound in front of all the corrals and then up the side of the last corral and then back towards the starting line. I know I'm not explaining it right but I just wanted to explain why they may not have been able to get into corral A. Corral B (and possibly even C) could have already been loaded in after A. I don't know if it will be different set up for tomorrow and Sunday but I thought I would share my experience.

We did have a GREAT time this morning! Very fun run!

 

[Miss Whimsy]

Expo was pretty empty today and they still seemed to have a ton of merch. Only line I had to wait in was to pay for merch, and it was maybe 6 minutes. Arrival to departure and going to get my bib, race shirt, and meander the expo and runDisney merch was a total of like 45 minutes.

There was a LOT of Dooney and Bourke available, which i really only made note of because last time (uh, 3 years ago?) I went to the expo on Thurs afternoon and they were already out of most D&B items. So I wonder if they make a lot more now or if people just don't like this pattern?

 

[bumbershoot]

All the princess weekend magic bands were gone

Fwiw I saw someone with those boxes in their basket today.

most of the sizes of the annual pass holder princess weekend shirt

Same shirts that were sold on the shopdisney app to anyone, not just ap holders?

There is no reason 5yo children should be allowed in corral A.

Agreed.

We must have gotten there at exactly the wrong time (about 1:30 pm)!

Yeah that timing was the opposite of this weekends sweet spot. Arrivals at around noon to maybe 3 had a hard time.

How long have the merch lines been today?

Perfect. Quiet.

I understand the need to keep the corrals moving, but closing them more than 30 minutes before the start - and not making an announcement - just seems like terrible planning.

I was closed out of tot 2013 corral because they did that. Nothing new. I was glad it happened for my first race so I knew that it happens.

They get people moving early.


I would like to be tired...

 

[Bree]

They tell you to be in your corral by 5. There’s a reason for that! They walk the corrals to the start before 5:30 for efficiency.

 

[Bree]

10K was much better today. I was at the front of corral B and was able to easily run the entire course. I was really stiff the first 2 Miles and couldn’t get into a groove. A missed setting a PR by 31 seconds.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

I guess I missed @Keels!

Need to get my own mimosa now

 

[bananabean]

First let me say I totally agree that this was aggravating and wrong and they should have communicated this better.

But just to add some more details to the picture of what happened in case it helps anyone for the rest of the weekend or future 5ks. They started pulling corral A into the starting line "chute" way ahead of 5:30. As is often the case with princess the large number of runners seems to mean a lot of extra walking before a start. No difference today for sure! We wound in front of all the corrals and then up the side of the last corral and then back towards the starting line. I know I'm not explaining it right but I just wanted to explain why they may not have been able to get into corral A. Corral B (and possibly even C) could have already been loaded in after A. I don't know if it will be different set up for tomorrow and Sunday but I thought I would share my experience.

We did have a GREAT time this morning! Very fun run!

A had just started walking when I got to the corral, so they could definitely have still let people in (this morning for the 10k we definitely saw some stragglers running to catch up). We stood in B for about 5-10 minutes before they started moving us to the chute. So definitely time to give people a chance to get into the right corral.

That said, it didn’t impact my experience at all and I still had a great time! I was able to make all the picture stops I wanted. I was just bothered by the lack of communication. (Lack of communication? From runDisney? No! Surely you jest!)

 

[Novatrix]

Well, that was fun. Stopped for every single photo stop available (plus a port-o-potty) and ended up with a 2:04:XX 10k. Ended up being more a series of sprints since I was doing 7:30-8:00 miles in between stops. Hope that the fact that I was past 1:30:XX doesn't screw me for the challenge medal.

Congrats to everyone today and good luck to everyone running tomorrow!

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Well, that was fun. Stopped for every single photo stop available (plus a port-o-potty) and ended up with a 2:04:XX 10k. Ended up being more a series of sprints since I was doing 7:30-8:00 miles in between stops. Hope that the fact that I was past 1:30:XX doesn't screw me for the challenge medal.

Congrats to everyone today and good luck to everyone running tomorrow!

It won’t!

I know my Stitch stop took almost 20 minutes!

 

[Belle22518]

Congrats to all who have raced already! Anyone who has done the 5k or 10k this weekend and has driven yourself there - how has it been? What time did you leave/where from/how long did it take?

Good luck to all doing the half tomorrow!