Thanks a bunch Matt for finding the 2007 Marathon Weekend brochure. I'm doing a 2 hour long run in a few minutes, and this really has me revved up to go out and train.
After doing the Goofy thing in 2006 I believe the rolling half marathon start is a totally excellent idea dude, and will make everyone's day much easier.
The start for the "new" half marathon in 2006 was very poorly designed and executed. Since the half starts just before the road in front of EPCOT goes down to ONE lane, the start itself needed to be one lane, otherwise you'd have a funnel effect with thousands of people getting compressed down to one lane, and you can bet your house that many injuries would be caused by collisions.
Unfortunately since you had a one lane start and thousands of half marathon runners, the starting corral was like a strand of spaghetti, very thin and very long. In addition the Disney people had metal parade crowd control barriers on both sides of the starting corrals, so there were thousands of people literally enclosed in a long and thin corral, and it took forever for the entire field to clear the starting line.
For 2007 you'll get a corral letter and a wave letter. The "A" waves will step into their corrals first, and take off. After the A's clear the start the "B" wave will get called into their corrals, and then go. Then for the "C" corral. This way the people at the end of the field won't take forever to clear the starting line, which is really hard mentally and physically before a race.
For the marathon this isn't necessary. There are TWO starting groups, Red and Blue, plus the road is 3 lanes wide for each group. You have the marathon field starting in 6 lanes of smooth and wide road, and nothing happens on the marathon course until mile #1, by which time the field has stretched out and people are running pretty free. I don't know how long it took the last person to cross the marathon start in 2006, but I was across the starting line and moving easily in something like 1 minute.
I know a few people will be inconvienced by moving marathon bakc next year, but other will be helped. I'm sure the reason is the MLK holiday. They run the races the weekend before MLK weekend. This year MLK is early, so we run on the 6th and 7th. Next year is is later so we run the 12th and 13th.
Cheers
Craig
After doing the Goofy thing in 2006 I believe the rolling half marathon start is a totally excellent idea dude, and will make everyone's day much easier.
The start for the "new" half marathon in 2006 was very poorly designed and executed. Since the half starts just before the road in front of EPCOT goes down to ONE lane, the start itself needed to be one lane, otherwise you'd have a funnel effect with thousands of people getting compressed down to one lane, and you can bet your house that many injuries would be caused by collisions.
Unfortunately since you had a one lane start and thousands of half marathon runners, the starting corral was like a strand of spaghetti, very thin and very long. In addition the Disney people had metal parade crowd control barriers on both sides of the starting corrals, so there were thousands of people literally enclosed in a long and thin corral, and it took forever for the entire field to clear the starting line.
For 2007 you'll get a corral letter and a wave letter. The "A" waves will step into their corrals first, and take off. After the A's clear the start the "B" wave will get called into their corrals, and then go. Then for the "C" corral. This way the people at the end of the field won't take forever to clear the starting line, which is really hard mentally and physically before a race.
For the marathon this isn't necessary. There are TWO starting groups, Red and Blue, plus the road is 3 lanes wide for each group. You have the marathon field starting in 6 lanes of smooth and wide road, and nothing happens on the marathon course until mile #1, by which time the field has stretched out and people are running pretty free. I don't know how long it took the last person to cross the marathon start in 2006, but I was across the starting line and moving easily in something like 1 minute.
I know a few people will be inconvienced by moving marathon bakc next year, but other will be helped. I'm sure the reason is the MLK holiday. They run the races the weekend before MLK weekend. This year MLK is early, so we run on the 6th and 7th. Next year is is later so we run the 12th and 13th.
Cheers
Craig
