Are you doing a race during Star Wars weekend more because you're a Star Wars fan, or more because you're a general runDisney fan and don't really care about Star Wars, or because you love both running and Star Wars equally, or for some other reason? In other words, are you primarily a Star Wars fan who will run a race sometimes, or a runner who happens to have signed up for a Star Wars race?
My first race ever was the 2011
Disneyland Half. When I saw the 5K medal was for Star Tours, which realaunched that year I wished I had registered for the 5K instead because I dreamed of a Star Wars medal. In the end, it worked out just fine for me as the half marathon taught me that I could handle the distance and future race experiences told me that the idea of a 10K and Half on back to back days could happen.
This will be a tough race weekend for me because I can't run it. I'm an accountant so anything before April 15th is not happening. It will be the first year since 2015 that I haven't run a Star Wars race at Disney. I ran the first 3 Rebel Challenges at Disneyland, the 2017 Dark Side Challenge for my first Kessel Run, and all 3 Dark Side races, plus Kessel last year. I am doing the virtual this year, but chose to use the Walt Disney World Half Marathon as my virtual run.
As to which came first, definitely Star Wars. My parents took 2 year me along to the theatre when they finally got around to seeing it after it was originally released. That same year they also took me to Disneyland. RunDisney came much later after a couple of trips to Disneyland during Half Marathon weekend intrigued me enough to actually talk to some runners about the event. They answered all my questions and explained that I could actually handle the pace, and that eventually pushed me into the running thing. Ironically enough, I probably can blame my love of Star Wars for running Dopey this year. After successfully completing the 2015, 2016, 2017 Rebel Challenges, 2017 Dark Side Challenge, and 2018 Dark Side 5K and First Order Challenge, I decided to go real crazy and run my first marathon as part of Dopey.
I'm doing all 3 races and there seems to be some great photo ops and the Star Wars music is fantastic.
In some ways, my favorite part of the course is running through World Showcase with the Star Wars music playing over the Epcot sound system. So amazing.
We are doing the race weekend because we are Star Wars fans and runDisney fans. This race weekend unfortunately is a 'one and done' for us. My husband is a bank auditor and April is a bad month with 1st quarter ending 3/31/xx. He had to get special permission to miss the few days he is missing.
April race weekends are tough on me too. I couldn't do the inaugural Dark Side weekend, and increase my stress level substantially in order to train and handle my increased workload professionally. But it has always been worth it once I'm at Disney World and reveling in my Star Wars geekdom.
The change to Rival run from dark side is a big bonus for me.
While I love Star Wars in general, I'm glad to see the Rival Run theme stick around for 2020 as well and I have plans to be there for that race. All that said, I really hope that 2021 sees a return to the Dark Side theme in Florida because races return to Disneyland.