Official Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend 2019

I actually quite enjoyed the after party, but I wasn't really there for the characters or the rides so that was probably a factor.

After the fireworks concluded, I made a bee line to test track and was able to walk right on in the single rider line. Then I spent most of the night wandering around looking at all the pavillion details and through shop windows that I usually miss due to the crowds. I went to all three shows for the Adventurers Club because they were absolutely hilarious and other than the club induction ceremony each show was completely different. After their last show concluded, walked over to Frozen Ever After and got to walk on the ride twice.

I felt like the night was an enhancement of a Disney trip, but not a replacement for getting an actual Epcot park ticket.
 
At the airport waiting for my flight. Had a great time at both races. Through some sorcery or pixie dust, I was put in corral A for the 10k and it was amazing. Really enjoyed all the characters stops for both the 10k and half. Unfortunately couldn’t hang around for the after party. I was with my sister in law and she was too tired at 9:00. She also ran the half in 2:05 and is 4 months pregnant! Really enjoyed the weekend and hope to return for it again!
 
It was definitely a great weekend! It was by far my slowest 10K ever, but it was also the first time I have let myself stop for characters and photos so it was 100% worth it and the most fun I've ever had during a race! Sad that I missed the HH meet up - maybe I'll make one next time. Until then, counting down the days now until Princess!
 


Well except that onc Disneyland Half weekend where it was record heat ... 88 at 4am and 105 by 10. Worst time ever.
Did that race -- think it was the second year they had it at DL and was over Labor Day weekend. I thought the whole race was awful and not just because of the heat. Long time in corrals, we barely ran in the park and mostly through the service areas, a brief jaunt through the castle then back to the service tunnels. Characters were hanging out by trash dumpsters. Then through the warehouse district of Anaheim, along a drainage ditch that stunk like sewer and through Angels Stadium (which was cool, but then had gravel in my shoes) and back to downtown Disney. I said never again after that one but heard that the future ones had better courses and fixed some of the issues that the initial one had (ie. Princesses, Star Wars, etc).
 
Congrats to everyone this weekend!

Regarding the runner who died...I believe his name is Mark Lockridge. He used to work at a Boy Scout camp in New Mexico called Philmont as a Maintenance Ranger. I worked there as a seasonal staff member in 2010, his first year on staff.

I crossed paths with him a few times and was always willing to help out where needed. He will be missed in the Scouting community.
 


DW and I enjoyed our first W&D Half weekend! The fall is a tough time to travel for us personally - fall sports, football, school, etc - but I'm glad we made it work. My wife has been doing runD races for a few years now and I'm a more recent convert - these things are bad for someone like me who is just looking for any excuse to plan another trip. :rolleyes1

Really couldn't have asked for better weather for the half!

If we are to believe the weather captured by my Runtracker app (which I think records the start?) for the other halfs we did this year:

Princess Half: 68 degrees / 94% humidity
Star Wars Half: 66 degrees / 95% humidity
W&D Half: 66 degrees / 65% humidity

I'll take that lower humidity any day!

The course endings were a little blah, but not sure what else could be done given the substantial construction around Epcot.

We were at Poly for the 5k but moved to Gran Destino Tower for the rest of the weekend. I thought Gran Destino was a pretty great location relative to getting to/from the 10k and Half... the buses didn't share with other resorts... they picked up at the Tower with no other internal stops, and dropped off at the Tower first on the return trip. We had never stayed at Coronado before but it's a pretty straight shot to/from MK and Epcot with only a few turns, so very efficient.

Our bus driver from Poly to the 5k got lost. :rotfl2:

Had a bit of a hard time finding some good carbs the night before the half - lots of places to eat at Coronado but most are Latin inspired flavors, which sort of had us spooked before a longer run. We finally decided on the quick service place as they had a simple rice/protein bowl option. They also had a pasta with marinara sauce station (which may have been special for this night??) that had quite a long line when we were there.

After past races we've headed back to shower/clean up. This time we hung around the parking lot until Epcot opened and headed in. Felt bad since we were kind of stinky, but I'm glad we did as crowds were low and it was a nice way to stay moving/stay loose (and places to buy beer didn't hurt). We went in the Epcot Experience for awhile (which is pretty empty first thing in the AM) - they have four unique Photopass stations set up in there and we had a blast doing all sorts of photos with our metals. It was totally unexpected and we frankly stumbled into it by chance, but with no one else around the PP photographers went all out and they were tons of fun.

No after party here as I had to head back to the real world. Flying out the day of is no fun!

I don't contribute much around here but always appreciate reading everyone's running posts / experiences / advice, so thanks to all of those who contribute.

All-in-all, fun weekend!
 
Just a quick update--I wrote to RunDisney and explained the situation--they said that my daughter would need to contact them, so I'm leaving it in her hands. I apologize for venting last week--in retrospect it was pretty stupid, seeing as I knew nothing about what was going on. She did say (after a good day's sleep) that given what happened, she was kind of glad she missed the race.

My wife was far more practical--"If they ask what they can do, see if they can get your father into the January 5K." The woman loves her Disney trips...
 
It was a fun weekend!

We had some travel challenges so DH ended up at emergency bib pick up before the 10K. I flew through the expo and picked up their bibs and mine as well as the shirt for DH prior to the 200m dash. I was pleased with the expo layout, but disappointed as there were many missing expo items, and nothing I that even paused to consider spending money on. I used the beer cup from Marathon weekend and thought the marg beer was just OK. It is similar to how I felt about the 26.2 brew. While I did this, the kids sat at the coloring table and made signs for us to hold for their race! One kiddo made a sign for each adult to hold which just said " GO XXXXXXX!' while the other kiddo drew a picture of herself running in her dalmatian costume.
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I was not really prepared for how the kids races were run, and if we do it again (they asked, but I am not ready to pull them from school again just yet), I would not bother showing up at the beginning of the time window as it was chaos, and when we were finished and leaving at noon there was not a line. We hit AK for the remainder of the day, and while I was a bit concerned about the wisdom of eating all of the things I love at Tusker the evening before a race, I did it anyway. I think it was fine. I tried to pick up an uncrustable at the food court at AoA the night before the race, but apparently lots of people had the same idea and they were out. I was rather surprised about this, and should have gotten something else but I was more concerned about just going to bed.
I got in line for busses at 3:50am and was pleased to have zero wait and no problems getting to the start. I dropped a gEAR check bag with my refillable cup and a change of clothes, and accidentally my sunglasses and hung out before the race pondering the need for the giant aftershokz commercial happening on stage and I wanted to know if it actually convinced anyone to buy. I went in to this race moderately rested, moderately trained, and with a poorly behaved stomach. I was not thrilled with any of the characters on course and stopped with a few, but not all. I met up with a friend somewhere around mile 7 and decided it was more fun to run/walk with her than get the time I think I would have achieved by myself. I am happy with that decision. I am happy DH brought my kiddos to epcot and I happy cried to see them. I am happy I realized Les Halles was opening 10 minutes after I passed and I didn't care about time so I was their opening client.
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Zero regret. Lots of fun.
I was disappointed that I had to walk pretty far to get my gEAR bag. I found it annoying that you had to stand in the food line to pay for a beer refill, and by the time I got to the front all that was left was the so-so tres caballeros beer. I was also disappointed it was a very long walk back to the monorail to meet my family at MK. I was happy to see they revamped the security at Epcot so that you do not have to go through security between the monorail and the EPCOT entrance, or from the monorail to MK any more.

I did not do the after party, it was a long day and my kids asked me to put them to bed- I will always pick that. I do not feel like I missed out. I was happy to have a new rD course to run, but the extras to differentiate it from other races are not a strong enough pull to make it a must do on my race or vacation calendar.
 
We got home late last night and had a great trip. Only managed the one post race meet up after the half as it was a pretty family focused trip, but it was great to see so many Dissers.

It was something really special to finally do some runDisney races with my two daughters (doubt I'll ever get my son to do one :) ). We had an amazing time.
 
We got home late last night and had a great trip. Only managed the one post race meet up after the half as it was a pretty family focused trip, but it was great to see so many Dissers.

It was something really special to finally do some runDisney races with my two daughters (doubt I'll ever get my son to do one :) ). We had an amazing time.
It was so awesome to see you guys again. Congrats to your daughters on their first runDisney races.
 
We finally got back last night. We had our best Disney trip ever this trip and can't wait to try and top it next year! I was really scared of the HH meet-up but really didn't need to be. Thank you, @jennamfeo and @Princess KP for coming and talking with us. And I recognized @rteetz even though I didn't say hi. Can't wait for next year's meet-up.
I had a great 5K and my husband had great times for all 3 of his races. We had a blast at the post race party just eating and drinking around the world.
I'm so happy to be a part of this runDisney community!
 
We finally got back last night. We had our best Disney trip ever this trip and can't wait to try and top it next year! I was really scared of the HH meet-up but really didn't need to be. Thank you, @jennamfeo and @Princess KP for coming and talking with us. And I recognized @rteetz even though I didn't say hi. Can't wait for next year's meet-up.
I had a great 5K and my husband had great times for all 3 of his races. We had a blast at the post race party just eating and drinking around the world.
I'm so happy to be a part of this runDisney community!
Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk! Glad you had a great time!
 
So sad to be back to real life after a fantastic race weekend! I came home with a not so nice cold for a souvenir.

Pros: seeing all my dis friends at meetups, Halloween party, after party & riding the skyliner

Cons: stupid long chute after crossing the finish line, snack box & Location of gear check!
 
I'm finally home after a wonderful trip! I didn't get to meet up with anyone so that was a bummer but we were pretty busy the whole trip. As far as races go, I couldn't have asked for a more fun time. Here are some of my takeaways.

10K- 1) SUPER long character lines. I stopped for everyone except Mary and Bert and Daisy. After those I just decided that's what I'm here for so I just sucked it up and stopped even though it took a while. My husband was behind me in C corral so I was hoping he would catch up at some point. He didn't. Lol
2) The course felt crowded the entire time. Usually a race tends to settle out but I didn't feel like this one ever did.
3) I don't think I ever stopped smiling during this race. I was just so excited to be there and running. Such a fun first experience.

Half- 1)I was expecting the character lines to be long again...they weren't. In fact most of the time, I ran up to the character, took the photo and then kept running. It led to a great time but I never got a break! I stopped for every single character and still finished in under 2 hours.
2) By far the hardest stretch for me was between AK and DHS. I could have used a few more character meet and greets there. The bands and other entertainment were fun though!

Other things- 1) The skyliner was life changing. So amazing!
2) The expo was way bigger than I was expecting. We didn't hang around very long but I was impressed with everything.
3) As mentioned before, the chute at the end of the race was insane. I didn't mind it as much after the 10k but after the half, I was done.

I'm sold on runDisney races! This definitely won't be my last one but I'm not sure when the next one will be. We will be there for Star Wars race weekend but it's our family vacation and I don't know if I want to run a half our very first full day at WDW.

Thanks for all your tips, tricks and guidance about all the things runDisney!
 
Was there the medal pins this year? This is the one thing I purchase every race... ;( I was at the expo late Thursday so I suppose maybe they sold out??
 

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