Disneyland Halloween Half Marathon Weekend 2025 (September 4-7)

[Zutroy]

well, then apparently all fat people are unwelcome. Copy. Instead of encouraging them we will shame them. And why should you have sympathy for someone - well, because I'd think you'd be a good person and wouldn't shame people over their weight or their ability. It's a freaking Disney race, where everyone is supposedly welcome, but I guess let's just turn runDisney into the Elite Runners club and be done with it. Anyone overweight need not even register, well, because they are probably lying about their ability anyway.

And you know what, instead of shaming people about their weight, ability, or whether they are liars, maybe you should act for a change to the corral system then. Contact runDisney and tell them to make elite corrals for you superior people and let the fatties sit in the back.

I’m not really sure where you are getting that people should be shamed for their bodies, except for whatever self-hatred and insecurities you have. My position is that people should run in corrals that match their actual ability and not lie about it. RD posts the rules:

• Must maintain a minimum of 16-minute-per-mile pace for all participants in the Half Marathon and 10K.
• A training pace of 15-minutes-per-mile is recommended.

If you can’t do that, why are you signing up for the race? And where do you draw the line ethically?

“There’s no way I can run that full distance, so I’ll just cut the course so I can finish.”

“It’s not fair that the races sell out so fast, so I’ll get a fake bib off the internet to bandit the race.”

I see those as no different than a person who pushes to the front of a corral they lied to get in to. Race results are divided into age and gender because people have different abilities based on those characteristics, and it’s not fair to lump them in together. Just like it’s not fair to the people who can actually run a sub 7 min/mile 10k to have walkers pushing in front of them. Run in the corral that matches your ability.

 

[The Expert]

The popularity of rD is responsible for a lot of this mess. You have many otherwise non-runner "influencers" and just regular folks posting the races all over social media as fun, party-pace events, which sets an unrealistic expectation that LITERALLY anyone can do them. And yes, within reason, anyone CAN do them, but not everyone can do them on a whim and some pixie dust. Herein lies the problem.

Folks get excited, sign up (maybe even with the true intention to train) and then months later when it's time to do it and they can't cancel or defer, they are damn well gonna get their money's worth out of the experience. Intro the FB groups, blogs and Disney content creators telling them how to game the system, and here we are. One thing I think MIGHT actually help is if those same groups and people emphasized race etiquette all the time, not just as a race approaches or in recaps. Give specific advice on how to be a good rD participant (for people both fast and slow) and do it often.

Sadly, there are also just people who are just in it for their own experience and don't care at all what impact they have on others.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

I think race etiquette, or lack there of, is a big part of the problem. I remember reading the race rules diligently and listening to all the announcers remind people of rules before the start of my first race and I honestly feel like no one does this anymore. I’m not a fast runner so I try to stay towards the middle right of a path, and I can’t tell you how often I tried passing people on the left for them to just abruptly stop their run, no warning, and start walking (far on the left side of the path) and me almost trip over them. If I was faster, I probably would’ve gotten hurt on multiple occasions.

So I understand the frustration, but I think even if you were placed in a corral that doesn’t match your abilities, most of the faster runners would zip by you pretty quickly…as long as people maintain race rules it shouldn’t be as big of a deal.

I’m kind of glad the DLR races are stopping as rD popularity has gone up because the amount of tight choke points in these courses is ridiculous. I was almost relieved to leave the parks and go onto wider roads even if it was boring. WDW has a lot more space and hopefully runs into this problem a bit less.