Oh no! That's terrible. I've never done EEC, but I know it's a fun even that many look forward to every year, and to not finish due to weather must really, well, suck!
I hope everyone, finisher or not, had a wonderful time!
Sorry for this really long review of the race...my husband and I made the best of a bad situation, but I have friends who might never run another Disney race because of the way this one was handled.
We were in wave 9 (ie: started 45 minutes after "official" start) and were walking at exactly a 16 minute mile pace, at least at the beginning. We made it to ~ the 1.5 mile mark when it started to torrentially downpour. He's not a fan of getting wet in the parks (he whines at the little bit of water that gets sprayed on you at the 3d shows!
) so I was quite proud of him for laughing and trudging along with me, through water that sometimes came up nearly to my knees...though we were lucky if we were going 19 minute/mile once we were weighed down with 30 pounds of rain and couldn't see the path in front of us!
I was actually stunned when I got to the obstacle course and it was still open - I just assumed they'd have people walk around (because it was wet and slippery) but I guess they wanted to give people the chance to do it if they wanted. My bigger issue is, because the torrential rains had been going on for so long, there were only a few volunteers left out on the obstacle course, so if something HAD happened, it would have been bad. I thought it was really romantic holding DH's hand while slowly walking across the balance beams and trying to make sure neither one of us fell, though!
As soon as we were done with the obstacle course (probably somewhere right around 9) things fell apart with the race. It started to lightning so they called it off right as we crossed the obstacle course finish, but they didn't tell us they had called it off. They told us we couldn't pick up our scavenger hunt books at the tent in the parking lot (because the tent was metal) so we should all walk into the park as quickly as we could (to be safer there?) and then walk to camp minnie mickey and they would hand out the scavenger hunt books when we got there. There was a group of about 30 of us that wandered around, looking for any volunteers anywhere, and we didn't find a single one between the parking lot and camp minnie mickey. (I had friends that were in a later wave, and instead of finishing the 5k they were just diverted directly to dinoland to pick up their medal - it was only the people that were out in the parking lot when the race got cancelled that had this confusion)
When we got to camp minnie mickey, there were no volunteers there and (obviously) no books - but another couple nearby handed me one so my husband and I continued doing the clues, still thinking they were scoring them at the end. It was pouring so hard that I couldn't really even tell which direction I was facing, let alone where I was going, but we enjoyed the scavenger hunt anyways - the clues were fun and the torrential rain turned it into a real adventure
When we got to the end, they handed us our medals - but since they had been out in the rain all night, and the words on the lanyard part of the medal were just stickers, the stickers were falling apart and off the lanyard. (The medal itself is cool, I'm just really bummed about the words not being on the lanyard anymore! When we asked if we could get a different one that wasn't ruined, they said they were all the same way because they had all been out in the rain)
Then we had a debacle of trying to get our scavenger hunt clues scored - first they said the race had been cancelled so they weren't scoring at all, then the dj announced that you could pick up books and do the scavenger hunt and get your clues scored when you were done, but no one could explain where to get them scored, and after about a half an hour it was finally announced that no, the race was officially cancelled and you couldn't get a score. After doing a 5k, an obstacle course, and another few k through the park, I would have preferred someone stop and get a correct answer as to what was going on rather than make up answers and make me walk all around the place trying to find something that didn't exist.
When we picked up our bags that we had shipped to the end of the race, everything inside them was DRENCHED. I don't really get how this happened. I had stuff inside my wallet, inside my purse, inside a sealed bag, inside THEIR mostly sealed plastic bag, and it was still soaked. Friends had electronic equipment (blackberries, ipods, etc) that were in there that no longer work. It looked like Disney left the bags sitting out in the torrential downpour instead of keeping them in whatever truck they used to ship them over to the race.
I heard horror stories from spectators of being told (while they were out in the parking lot near the obstacle course waiting for their family to run by) that the race and party was cancelled and that everyone had to get on the buses and go back to their hotels, so they did (the party was NOT cancelled - just some of the rides were shut down until the storm passed), wasting all the money they spent on the tickets.
My biggest problem with the race was what appeared to be a lack of a contingency plan for what they were going to do if they had to cancel the race in the middle of it due to inclement weather and how that would affect the people at the various stages of the race.
The bigger problem was that, whether or not they had a contingency plan (and I don't know the answer to that but my guess is no based on the way things were handled), communication was truly AWFUL. I would say it was close to non-existent. It was hard to find anyone who actually knew what was going on - I didn't expect the volunteers to, but I did expect them to know who was near them that was "in charge" of their area and could answer my questions, rather than the volunteers making up answers. I couldn't blame them for that, though, since most of the time it didn't look like there was anyone "official" nearby, and after asking somewhere near 30 people if anyone had a headset and could call to get information (no one had a headset), I finally gave up.
I will say that the volunteers who stayed out on the course through the torrential rain were AWESOME. I don't know if I would have stayed at my post (or anywhere outside) if I wasn't in the race, so I really can't blame them. I also loved the idea of the race (though I think it would work better if they got rid of the obstacle course and shortened the time between waves).
They also should have had some sort of official vehicle (even if it was just the "sweep car"!) ride the whole race circuit and give people actual, legitimate instructions and, if possible, transport people to where they were supposed to go.
I really think Disney should give people some sort of discount on future races that did this one - I don't expect them to control the weather, honest I don't! - but I heard so many horror stories after the race about how completely underprepared they were for this, and how awful the experience was, and even with me trying to keep a positive outlook about the whole thing, I'm not sure I'll pay this much money to run a race again.
)
