Disney World Full Marathon - Last Corral Question

[kagmypts]

My husband is participating in the Dopey Challenge, and I decided to run the full marathon with him. When I went to sign up a few minutes ago, I noticed that the last day to submit a time for corral placement was October 4. I have two quick questions.

1) Has anyone ever signed up after the corral placement cutoff and still been placed in a corral other than the last one?

2) If you have ever been in the last corral, how bad is it? I am not concerned with the late starting time, but is it hard to make your way through the walkers? If the congestion lasts for only a mile or so, my husband and I would be fine with that. We just don't want to spend miles upon miles being boxed in by walkers.

For the record, we aren't looking to be break any speed records. We were hoping to complete the first 13.1 miles in 2:15-2:30 and then enjoy all of the photo ops during the second half of the race.

 

[*DisneyDreamer]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can still submit your time at registration if you're registering for the first time after the POT deadline and they'd look at it. Did you do that?

 

[rteetz]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can still submit your time at registration if you're registering for the first time after the POT deadline and they'd look at it. Did you do that?

I believe you are correct

 

[kagmypts]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can still submit your time at registration if you're registering for the first time after the POT deadline and they'd look at it. Did you do that?

There is a place for me to enter my time. I am just not sure if I want to register if I will be in the very last corral. I was trying to figure out how it would work before committing to the race. If I knew that my time would be considered, I would sign up now.

 

[wilkeliza]

1. You most likely will not be in the last corral if you register now and enter your POT at time of registration. They have not released corral placement yet and every time someone has a POT after POT cut off but late registration I have seen then in the right corral.

2. It depends on how you run to be honest. Congestion is not just a last corral issue. Walker/Run interval users are all across the course including corral A so no guarantees based on your corral that you won't have congestion. I've been in the middle corrals and still had the first half mile or so be hard to get through. The congestion will pick back up around the castle as well so it doesn't just disappear once it clears up. Unless you are Elite congestion is a headache we take with runDisney. I've never really had it affect my time though as I'm pretty good at the bob and weave game you have to play sometimes.

 

[kagmypts]

1. You most likely will not be in the last corral if you register now and enter your POT at time of registration. They have not released corral placement yet and every time someone has a POT after POT cut off but late registration I have seen then in the right corral.

2. It depends on how you run to be honest. Congestion is not just a last corral issue. Walker/Run interval users are all across the course including corral A so no guarantees based on your corral that you won't have congestion. I've been in the middle corrals and still had the first half mile or so be hard to get through. The congestion will pick back up around the castle as well so it doesn't just disappear once it clears up. Unless you are Elite congestion is a headache we take with runDisney. I've never really had it affect my time though as I'm pretty good at the bob and weave game you have to play sometimes.

Thank you so much. I was really hoping that #1 would be the case.

With respect to #2, we are definitely not Elite! I don't mind congestion, but I find gridlock unbearable (i.e. a huge wall of walkers that requires me to stop and walk). We are from Atlanta so are used to the big race congestion. I am not too worried about overall time; this race is for fun. I just want to be able to run (as opposed to walk) if we so desire. I have read numerous stories about poor corral placement at the Disney races.

 

[wilkeliza]

Thank you so much. I was really hoping that #1 would be the case.

With respect to #2, we are definitely not Elite! I don't mind congestion, but I find gridlock unbearable (i.e. a huge wall of walkers that requires me to stop and walk). We are from Atlanta so are used to the big race congestion. I am not too worried about overall time; this race is for fun. I just want to be able to run (as opposed to walk) if we so desire. I have read numerous stories about poor corral placement at the Disney races.

I've done several races and the only time I have been forced to walk were at situations like the Boardwalk. The course just gets too small there so if 2 people are walking side by side then everyone walks until it opens up. I've had it happen in the middle of the pack too. There use to be a path into WWOS on the old Tower of Terror 10 mile course that did it too and it was always frustrating. You'd see people take off as soon as the path opened back up.

 

[pixarmom]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can still submit your time at registration if you're registering for the first time after the POT deadline and they'd look at it. Did you do that?

I'm taking my son to California for a college visit and it happens to be the same weekend as the DL Super Heroes Half. So we registered really late and assumed we'd be in the last corral, but submitted proofs of time during registration anyway. Then I learned on these boards that runDisney would use the proof of time entered at registration - yay! runDisney released bib #s and corrals last week, and I'm in Corral B, so it worked!

 

[RunDisneyDad]

I didn’t have POT when I did the full in 2014 and started in the second to last Coral. There were definitely points that it got really congested, but I was always able to weave around runners without being a jerk to those I was weaving around (except that one couple just after mile 6...sorry). The only time I recall things really slowing down was coming up Main Street, but honestly that’s such an awesome moment I didn’t really care. There are definitely choke points along the first 9 Miles, specifically when the roads go from 2 to 1 lane. After about mile 9 I don’t recall hitting any congested areas. Going into it I remember being convinced I’d end up having to walk portions due to the congestion, but that never happened.

Here’s the funny thing about starting in the back. Because I was forced to slow down early in the race because of congestion I actually ran a negative split and only missed a PR at the time by 2 minutes (3:34:32 for reference). In other words, it worked in my favor.

 

[Keels]

If there is a space for you to enter PoT, make sure you do when you register. This is your only opportunity if you register post-deadline.

RunDisney WILL honor this PoT, provided the race was run before the PoT deadline.