Disneyland Half Marathon 2024

[fatmanatee]

Have any virtual particpants gotten their medals yet? Admittedly, I’m still getting over sickness after marathon weekend and will be running them after but usually by now the box comes.

They haven’t finished sending out the holiday virtual medals yet, might be a bit.

(see previous post for commentary on RD being disorganized and overwhelmed)

 

[AZMermaid]

I’d lean towards thinking this too. IMO the explanation for the issues is pretty simple: they haven’t done a race here in seven years and many of the people tasked with working the event had far less experience than those at the WDW events. There are security quirks specific to DL that they need to figure out, they also need to get things right with the new start village. Obviously, ummm… they have to pick a better water spot for mile 3. Not sure what they’ll do with photo ops, it definitely seemed like they were playing it safe but I hope they can figure something better out.

This is what I think too. Maybe a security “fix” could at least be a couple of runner only scanners during those peak 1-2 hours of crossover on the harbor side. It seems like they did better with runner security on Sunday- especially considering how many more runners there were.

That graph is interesting. I came through at the 50 min mark and I see it got even worse- which is what that pic shows too. That mile was 2 min slower for me- so I’d say that was about my delay.

I missed the 15K mat. Im guessing it was at the water stop area by the Honda center? I used those restrooms and went out the other side. I had water from the med tent and ended up running 13.61 so Im not feeling bad for not circling back over- except my missed split bugs me haha!

 

[StarGirl11]

Sure, I just found it interesting and wanted to pass it on for the sake of discussion. It would explain QUITE a bit. But who knows if it's actually true.

Oh no I absolutely get it would explain a lot.

I’d lean towards thinking this too. IMO the explanation for the issues is pretty simple: they haven’t done a race here in seven years and many of the people tasked with working the event had far less experience than those at the WDW events. There are security quirks specific to DL that they need to figure out, they also need to get things right with the new start village. Obviously, ummm… they have to pick a better water spot for mile 3. Not sure what they’ll do with photo ops, it definitely seemed like they were playing it safe but I hope they can figure something better out.

Really worth noting that RD has been the butt of many jokes for organizational issues. Registration problems, IT doesn’t work right, the website regularly has errors for dates and times because they don’t proofread their copy/paste jobs, they take a long time to respond to issues, etc. Now on top of everything else they’re adding a fifth and sixth race to the schedule, and the fifth comes immediately after their biggest race weekend of the year.

The photo op situation in hindsight of having a nights sleep. I’m wondering if they were playing it safe to try and make sure they didn’t have a ton of people get swept from waiting in line.

It wouldn’t just explain the low number but also them cutting the line off (even if early I can’t remember them doing it at other races that aren’t 5ks). Which imo it’s a double edge sword. On one hand if you have too little you’ll have complaints. On the other hand if you have lines so long people are getting swept people will complain about getting swept.

At least DL didn’t try to pull what they did in 2017 with zero character stops in the 5k. But they definitely could use more and I think they will. It’s just a matter of needing to find the right balance

It should be noted that even if we don’t have a case of entirely different company. There are definitely new staff. I know at least with the AWDs we used to have a guy in charge of us on the west coast who from what I understand has now been promoted to an upper level position. And we now have a woman in charge who was pleasant and listening to the problems we ran into when I was talking after the race.

I think at the very least with the problems it should be noted that the rD staff were definitely seeming to be listening and taking us seriously. So I think we’ll see them take quiet a few of the issues they had at this weekend and improve at Halloween

Also some of this is just the product of being guinea pigs I hate to say. Some of the things (ie the exit for the expo) I get why they made that choice and it probably made more sense in their head when planning. But in practice doesn’t work as well and unfortunately you’re not going to know as well until you put it into practice. I’m sure their going to look at better water stop placements next weekend at least among other things (though that I just consider a poor planning choice)

the one thing I can’t quiet get that’s not on rD but Trackshack is the placing. I was scrolling through the results out of boredom after I got back to the room last night. And I couldn’t quite understand them at all.

Saw this in Facebook post showing in the data u can see the back up in mile 3.
Thought it was very interesting.
(The words are referring to another post where a guy was like... I was fast and saw no issue at mile 3...)View attachment 826018

The quotes are interesting because like I have a 42 min 5k clocked time in the results. And I know I came through before the wall. (Actually only one wheels got caught in it. She was having issues in gen and clocked a high time). But I guess because I’ve been back of the pack before and I know how congested it gets the further back you go I knew that there were going to be problems eventually.

Unrelated but I’m still waiting for all of my race photos to show up. (Again manual tagging takes a while). But I think I already have my new favorite race photo.

 

[Disneyhanna]

Does anyone have photopass photos from Main St from the 10k or half? They had cameras as we ran up to the hub in DL both days but no pictures yet. I have a few bibs linked to my photopass and no one has any from those cameras so not sure if they’ve started tagging or not.

 

[StarGirl11]

Does anyone have photopass photos from Main St from the 10k or half? They had cameras as we ran up to the hub in DL both days but no pictures yet. I have a few bibs linked to my photopass and no one has any from those cameras so not sure if they’ve started tagging or not.

Yeah mine are showing from both days. But again it can take a couple of days so I wouldn’t worry too much yet. If it’s still not there by Wednesday then I would give them a call

 

[StarGirl11]

Also not to defend runDisney maybe keeping the selection low for the first time back to prevent sweeping but… at the same time the lines I saw were some of the longest I’ve ever seen for the timed races. Like I get some of those were rare rare but it was still pretty long. I do think they’ll find the balance eventually but yeah that could have easily snowballed. And like I know we all say to check our pace and make sure we’re good with the balloons but at the end of the day a lot of runners don’t.

 

[fatmanatee]

Also not to defend runDisney maybe keeping the selection low for the first time back to prevent sweeping but… at the same time the lines I saw were some of the longest I’ve ever seen for the timed races. Like I get some of those were rare rare but it was still pretty long. I do think they’ll find the balance eventually but yeah that could have easily snowballed. And like I know we all say to check our pace and make sure we’re good with the balloons but at the end of the day a lot of runners don’t.

The Dumbo photo op was already very long when I got there, really easy decision to skip. I dunno, maybe it was too early for that one? Not that I know a better spot. Maybe some area backstage AFTER the park portion? These photo ops act as kind of a crowd eater so you need to be smart about where you put them.

EDIT: i’ll add that when I ran by they were yelling about how it was a selfie stop and not a full photo op. At the time I was a bit confused but it seems like they were definitely aware that the line might get too long and this was a way to get more people through.

 

[Kender]

I already was thinking that lack of characters and shutting lines down early (and I mean really early) was a tactic to prevent as much sweeping as possible. They've gotten bad press at DLR races in the past for being heavy handed with sweeps that happened due to bad congestion.

They could have pulled a Tink Half 2017 and cut a mile off the course for the back of the pack to minimize sweeping, but first year back that would have looked probably worse than minimizing entertainment.

I think the 5k showed them they had a big problem brewing. Those lines were crazy. Definitely agree with others I've never seen them that bad. I used to be able to stop for every single character. I didn't stop for anyone except one stop during the 5k.

Also I saw someone complaining they maintained a 17 minute mile and got swept. Lots of confusing comments from them about it that sounded like they knew it was supposed to be 16... But then they said they thought it was 18? Definitely some that signed up but didn't really read. So maybe Disney was trying to idiot proof it after seeing what happened during the 5k.

 

[The Expert]

I already was thinking that lack of characters and shutting lines down early (and I mean really early) was a tactic to prevent as much sweeping as possible. They've gotten bad press at DLR races in the past for being heavy handed with sweeps that happened due to bad congestion.

They could have pulled a Tink Half 2017 and cut a mile off the course for the back of the pack to minimize sweeping, but first year back that would have looked probably worse than minimizing entertainment.

I think the 5k showed them they had a big problem brewing. Those lines were crazy. Definitely agree with others I've never seen them that bad. I used to be able to stop for every single character. I didn't stop for anyone except one stop during the 5k.

I've seen lines way longer at the WDW 5Ks. I think part of the issue was these photographers were treating the stops like park ones rather than click and go.

 

[superchime]

I've been thinking about the character situation and I think a few things happened that were unexpected.

1) There were no waves for corral releases, so the balloon ladies started sooner than they would at WDW and people had less of a buffer for photo lines. I think this may have surprised some people who are used to running at WDW and who know they can have more than a 16 min mile if they start early enough.

2) Maybe DL didn't anticipate the demand for character photos? I know characters here tend to just wander a lot in the parks and do quick little pop ups, vs WDW where people will stand in line because this may be their only trip and they want that character photo.

3) Related: they seemed surprised/annoyed when people were trying to take photos with non-line characters. I ran by Chip and Dale in the half and people were trying to at least stop for selfies with them and were shooed along.

4) I heard of at least one, maybe two incidences during the 10k where it seems like cast members or race staff lied (misrepresented? were misinformed?) about where the balloon ladies were in an attempt to keep people moving. This is not first hand knowledge, just my interpretation of what I heard, but if it's true using the balloon ladies as boogie men is definitely not the image those ladies want to project, and isn't a cool thing to do to back of the packers.

5) as @fatmanatee said, character lines are crowd eaters. Maybe not having them contributed to the course crowding?

I don't know. I'm new to all of this, so these are just guesses/thoughts. I hope things will be better for the Halloween races, now that they've seen what some of the issues are. Pre and post-race character photo ops would help, I think, along with more (and better managed) character stops in the parks.

 

[thndrmatt]

I missed the 15K mat. Im guessing it was at the water stop area by the Honda center?

Yep, mat was right as you went to make the left handed almost U turn to get back onto the road from the Honda Center parking lot, immediately prior to the water tables. Maybe just happened to be 15k, maybe was to ensure people didn’t skip the lot as well.

One note I haven’t seen mentioned much, as I was leaving finish area at about 2 hours 15 min after the initial start, coming in through the exit were several busfuls of HUNDREDS of people who had clearly been swept, finisher snack boxes and medals in hand, where I guess the buses had dropped them off in a segregated area just north towards the Harbor entrance, you could see all the buses through the gap in the fence. I was shocked by both the quantity of people and how early on the clock it was, but most of the conversations were “I only wanted to do the part through the parks” “I didn’t train anyway” “I just wanted the theme park pics and medals” etc. makes you wonder if they found a way to put the park miles at the end, or at least the middle, if many of the problems exhibited go away…

 

[fatmanatee]

I've been thinking about the character situation and I think a few things happened that were unexpected.

1) There were no waves for corral releases, so the balloon ladies started sooner than they would at WDW and people had less of a buffer for photo lines. I think this may have surprised some people who are used to running at WDW and who know they can have more than a 16 min mile if they start early enough.

2) Maybe DL didn't anticipate the demand for character photos? I know characters here tend to just wander a lot in the parks and do quick little pop ups, vs WDW where people will stand in line because this may be their only trip and they want that character photo.

3) Related: they seemed surprised/annoyed when people were trying to take photos with non-line characters. I ran by Chip and Dale in the half and people were trying to at least stop for selfies with them and were shooed along.

4) I heard of at least one, maybe two incidences during the 10k where it seems like cast members or race staff lied (misrepresented? were misinformed?) about where the balloon ladies were in an attempt to keep people moving. This is not first hand knowledge, just my interpretation of what I heard, but if it's true using the balloon ladies as boogie men is definitely not the image those ladies want to project, and isn't a cool thing to do to back of the packers.

5) as @fatmanatee said, character lines are crowd eaters. Maybe not having them contributed to the course crowding?

I don't know. I'm new to all of this, so these are just guesses/thoughts. I hope things will be better for the Halloween races, now that they've seen what some of the issues are. Pre and post-race character photo ops would help, I think, along with more (and better managed) character stops in the parks.

That Chip n Dale spot was WEIRD. There was no line so I was like “great! i can stop by for a quick photo” and they were like nooooooope.

 

[Deisell78]

Yeah mine are showing from both days. But again it can take a couple of days so I wouldn’t worry too much yet. If it’s still not there by Wednesday then I would give them a call

Does anyone have photopass photos from Main St from the 10k or half? They had cameras as we ran up to the hub in DL both days but no pictures yet. I have a few bibs linked to my photopass and no one has any from those cameras so not sure if they’ve started tagging or not.

I show 4 castle photos

 

[DisneyParrothead]

I already was thinking that lack of characters and shutting lines down early (and I mean really early) was a tactic to prevent as much sweeping as possible. They've gotten bad press at DLR races in the past for being heavy handed with sweeps that happened due to bad congestion.

They could have pulled a Tink Half 2017 and cut a mile off the course for the back of the pack to minimize sweeping, but first year back that would have looked probably worse than minimizing entertainment.

I think the 5k showed them they had a big problem brewing. Those lines were crazy. Definitely agree with others I've never seen them that bad. I used to be able to stop for every single character. I didn't stop for anyone except one stop during the 5k.

Also I saw someone complaining they maintained a 17 minute mile and got swept. Lots of confusing comments from them about it that sounded like they knew it was supposed to be 16... But then they said they thought it was 18? Definitely some that signed up but didn't really read. So maybe Disney was trying to idiot proof it after seeing what happened during the 5k.

Yeah it's always been a 16-minute mile pace, and at DL they have to be quite strict about sweeping because they don't own the roads. They can be much more lenient at WDW, but when Anaheim says these roads need to be open at this time, Disney has to have people through, period.

Someone on here called it way further back, but this was a growing pains weekend. It's also far from WDW races and always have been. The problem is not many active rD fans knew what to expect and only had WDW to compare. I actually like the smaller vibes and since I don't normally stop for characters, the crowding was quite small once I got into DL. I never felt congested after the 5K mark.

 

[StarGirl11]

The Dumbo photo op was already very long when I got there, really easy decision to skip. I dunno, maybe it was too early for that one? Not that I know a better spot. Maybe some area backstage AFTER the park portion? These photo ops act as kind of a crowd eater so you need to be smart about where you put them.

EDIT: i’ll add that when I ran by they were yelling about how it was a selfie stop and not a full photo op. At the time I was a bit confused but it seems like they were definitely aware that the line might get too long and this was a way to get more people through.

Same I’m pretty sure I was somewhere in A/B when we went by Dumbo. Judging by the thinness of the crowd (meaning sure amount of runners around)

I already was thinking that lack of characters and shutting lines down early (and I mean really early) was a tactic to prevent as much sweeping as possible. They've gotten bad press at DLR races in the past for being heavy handed with sweeps that happened due to bad congestion.

They could have pulled a Tink Half 2017 and cut a mile off the course for the back of the pack to minimize sweeping, but first year back that would have looked probably worse than minimizing entertainment.

I think the 5k showed them they had a big problem brewing. Those lines were crazy. Definitely agree with others I've never seen them that bad. I used to be able to stop for every single character. I didn't stop for anyone except one stop during the 5k.

Also I saw someone complaining they maintained a 17 minute mile and got swept. Lots of confusing comments from them about it that sounded like they knew it was supposed to be 16... But then they said they thought it was 18? Definitely some that signed up but didn't really read. So maybe Disney was trying to idiot proof it after seeing what happened during the 5k.

yeah I can’t remember which Tink 10k it was that there was a huge hubbub about a lot of people getting swept because of congestion right as they were exiting the park.

I've seen lines way longer at the WDW 5Ks. I think part of the issue was these photographers were treating the stops like park ones rather than click and go.

Yeah I think they had smoothed some of it out by the morning of the half. Because when I stopped for Joy I didn’t have to explain how uploading photos for wheels works. So I think there was definitely some first morning confusion on how this works for the 5k. At least the 5k was untimed I suppose?

For the half I’m also wondering if there might have been one or two planned more. But because we had that unfortunate delay they had to pull.

I've been thinking about the character situation and I think a few things happened that were unexpected.

1) There were no waves for corral releases, so the balloon ladies started sooner than they would at WDW and people had less of a buffer for photo lines. I think this may have surprised some people who are used to running at WDW and who know they can have more than a 16 min mile if they start early enough.

2) Maybe DL didn't anticipate the demand for character photos? I know characters here tend to just wander a lot in the parks and do quick little pop ups, vs WDW where people will stand in line because this may be their only trip and they want that character photo.

3) Related: they seemed surprised/annoyed when people were trying to take photos with non-line characters. I ran by Chip and Dale in the half and people were trying to at least stop for selfies with them and were shooed along.

4) I heard of at least one, maybe two incidences during the 10k where it seems like cast members or race staff lied (misrepresented? were misinformed?) about where the balloon ladies were in an attempt to keep people moving. This is not first hand knowledge, just my interpretation of what I heard, but if it's true using the balloon ladies as boogie men is definitely not the image those ladies want to project, and isn't a cool thing to do to back of the packers.

5) as @fatmanatee said, character lines are crowd eaters. Maybe not having them contributed to the course crowding?

I don't know. I'm new to all of this, so these are just guesses/thoughts. I hope things will be better for the Halloween races, now that they've seen what some of the issues are. Pre and post-race character photo ops would help, I think, along with more (and better managed) character stops in the parks.

On point 5 maybe? I get what you and @fatmanatee are saying there. But also just in gen the further back you get the more the crowds are. And even in FL you’ll still end up with choke points or varying degree. Not saying they shouldn’t do something to fix it in the case of mile 3. Or that it might not have helped. But also it still happens even when you have more

Waves I do think would help though

Point 4 actually had a report from someone in the thread of that happening with Chip and Dale.

It definitely feels like they were trying to avoid as much sweeping as possible.

Yep, mat was right as you went to make the left handed almost U turn to get back onto the road from the Honda Center parking lot, immediately prior to the water tables. Maybe just happened to be 15k, maybe was to ensure people didn’t skip the lot as well.

One note I haven’t seen mentioned much, as I was leaving finish area at about 2 hours 15 min after the initial start, coming in through the exit were several buses of HUNDREDS of people who had clearly been swept, finisher snack boxes and medals in hand, where I guess the buses had dropped them off in a segregated area just north towards the Harbor entrance, you could see all the buses through the gap in the fence. I was shocked by both the quantity of people and how early on the clock it was, but most of the conversations were “I only wanted to do the part through the parks” “I didn’t train anyway” “I just wanted the theme park pics and medals” etc. makes you wonder if they found a way to put the park miles at the end, or at least the middle, if many of the problems exhibited go away…

I heard of a report of a weird sweep on FB that didn’t quite add up time wise for the 10k. But like technically they can sweep anywhere they can get a bus to block the road. And I definitely noticed a few points they had buses waiting for sweep.

That being said doing some rough math in my head that sounds like the sweep they probably did right as we came out of the parks. Balloons left approximately at 5:40 something and hit the 10k around 7:20 something. So that would line up with a 5 mile sweep.which does make sense for a sweep point

 

[disneyrunnergrl]

That Chip n Dale spot was WEIRD. There was no line so I was like “great! i can stop by for a quick photo” and they were like nooooooope.

During the 10k we were in line for darkwing and launchpad and the cast member wasn’t even letting people stop to the side for selfies. She was shooing them away and telling them if they wanted a photo they had to get in the line. Didn’t notice it at any other stops but also didn’t stop much and wasn’t paying attention for it.

 

[StarGirl11]

During the 10k we were in line for darkwing and launchpad and the cast member wasn’t even letting people stop to the side for selfies. She was shooing them away and telling them if they wanted a photo they had to get in the line. Didn’t notice it at any other stops but also didn’t stop much and wasn’t paying attention for it.

I have a vague memory of that happening before during the races. So I don’t think that’s a DL thing tbh necessarily. I think it’s a ‘whichever staff member is working the spot’ thing if that makes sense

 

[StarGirl11]

Also just kinda a last thing on the Chip and Dale at the half. I get it sucks to not get a selfie there. But on the other hand they had unmonitored selfie lines kind of get out of control on the shorter races. Particularly Jack and Sally was way long at the 5k. So I’m wondering if that contributed to the selfie situation for them

 

[Disneyhanna]

I show 4 castle photos

These were facing towards the park entrance, no castle!

 

[fatmanatee]

These were facing towards the park entrance, no castle!

I got a few from the 10k, possibly one from the half but not sure, hard to tell where that one was taken.