Marathon Weekend 2025

[Fischstick]

That was, hands down, the longest time I’ve ever spent at an rD expo.....and I didn’t even shop the expo! I must’ve been in the heaviest part of the day because I stood in a bunch of lines. More than I ever have fo sure. And lots of people around me were saying the same. Grateful for the inside lines though because it was chilly if you weren’t in the sun. Happy to have that out of the way. Now to get OFF my feet/legs!

 

[jrsharp21]

Finally back at the resort after getting through all that.

Nothing really to write home about at the merch building. Ended up getting a Dopey medal pin, the MW pin, and the AP pin. Grabbed a MW spirit jersey. I contemplated the AP one, but that Tiffany blue color just not my style. Lots of the good sizes were gone in the more popular items.

I thought the expo was pretty good this year. Bought more things than I usually do. But couldn’t find the medal stands mentioned earlier in the thread. I also looked in the merch building and didn’t see them. So figured they were sold out wherever they were.

Back to Epcot for dinner and a few rides before coming back to prep my stuff for the morning. It’s go time!

 

[fatmanatee]

I’ve been reading your reports of weird Dopey bib/corral combos and just realized… it’s so backward from what it used to be! Mostly? Back when I still did challenges, we called it the Challenge Penalty: almost always, we’d be placed in a slower corral for the longest distance and a faster corral for the shorter distances. If I recall correctly, there was no option to enter an estimated pace for the shorter distances and we assumed rD was assuming anyone doing a challenge would be slower in their longest race. It was annoying.

But now a bunch of Dopey folks are landing in faster corrals for the half and full and slower corrals for the 5K and 10K? That’s just as bizarre as the other direction.

I think it’s just too many people marking themselves with a fast pace. If you’ve done these races long enough you know that the fastest pace starts first, and being in the first corral gives you a huge advantage for the first photo ops, which tend to be crowded. Particularly for the 5k. It’s fine, except as more people do this without any intention of maintaining the pace they listed, there’s higher risk for crashes on course.

Anyway, we’ll see how this shakes out tomorrow morning.

 

[Zutroy]

Yeah.. it is what it is. I’ll make the most of it and still enjoy it. It’s runDisney!
I may not be able to rope drop Hollywood Studios tomorrow like I originally planned.

Honestly, for the 5k it won’t matter unless you drive to the race. The buses don’t leave until all the corrals have cleared out, so even in A you’d be waiting for everyone else to start the course before getting on the bus.

 

[Dopey 2020]

Honestly, for the 5k it won’t matter unless you drive to the race. The buses don’t leave until all the corrals have cleared out, so even in A you’d be waiting for everyone else to start the course before getting on the bus.

Another reason I switched to team drive

 

[MissLiss279]

Honestly, for the 5k it won’t matter unless you drive to the race. The buses don’t leave until all the corrals have cleared out, so even in A you’d be waiting for everyone else to start the course before getting on the bus.

I do drive to the 5 and 10k typically for this reason. I don’t want to wait for the buses to start back up. I may decide to take the bus for the 10k this time, since it will probably be going when I finish.

 

[kleph]

Not just that it’s down to where the medal stand pictures are. So it wraps like three/four times and then goes back through the baseball field area and all the way down the hill. I don’t know if this is because everyone’s doing that while waiting for the VQ or what

welp, that cleared any lingering FOMO right up.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Great news, @DopeyBadger! I submitted 1:53:58 again as a half POT for Dopey and once again it got me into the A corral! So your graphic for the Dopey A corral is good for another year!

Always nice to reaffirm the graphic from the margin cases, especially yours which moved the cutoff last year by 13 sec.

 

[fatmanatee]

I do drive to the 5 and 10k typically for this reason. I don’t want to wait for the buses to start back up. I may decide to take the bus for the 10k this time, since it will probably be going when I finish.

I think you have a good shot at HS. I remember waiting for a decent amount of time for the first bus last time I did this, back to hotel, quick shower/change and right back out, was able to get to HS before they started letting people in.

 

[Disneyhanna]

Stickers and tattoos from expo, and free scrunchie was at Echelon. Luggage tag for goofys/dopeys

 

[kleph]

Talked with a staff member out of curiousity. Lines are like this because of increased security after New Orleans

i figured there would be impacts like this. i would advise everyone to expect similar issues acessing event areas before and during the races.

additionally, if you are driving, there is likely to be issues as well in light of NO. vehicle access is likely to be very tightly controlled in comparison with years past.

 

[Disneyhanna]

Here are the shirts no flash then flash (sorry if already posted)





Dopey - a gold/mustard yellow but in sunlight it leans more greenish

 

[camaker]

Talked with a staff member out of curiousity. Lines are like this because of increased security after New Orleans

This doesn't seem right. There were no additional checkpoints or security to go through anywhere during the bib and shirt pick up process or even rD merch access compared to years past or even compared to W&D a couple of months ago.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

I’m curious about the comment that lines are long bc of increased security after NOLA— I feel like there wasn’t security at all so I’m not sure how that played a role.

My gf had a PoT but E corral for the half (she is doing 5k, 10k, and half) and runner relations fixed it (she got C but will start with me in D). The person we had was very friendly but the line was so long.

Agreed on the lines being long comment. I have had CrD in the past two years but have hung out with people without it after getting my stuff, and this was definitely my longest expo. I’m sure runner relations played a role. I got some adorable photos with the Dopey background while my gf was waiting though so that’s cool.

 

[nancipants]

Were they giving out runDisney reusable shopping bags in the vendor/shirt building? I got one last year and love it, and was hoping to pick up another.

I'm bummed the medal rack seems to already be sold out, and hoping they restock before tomorrow.

 

[SheHulk]

Here are the shirts no flash then flash (sorry if already posted)

View attachment 927542

View attachment 927543

Dopey - a gold/mustard yellow but in sunlight it leans more greenish

I'm not running Dopey but I like that Dopey shirt!

 

[Herding_Cats]

The expo was exactly what I was expecting given my last 3 experiences. It did seem that the merch building VQ was moving slower than usual, so that probably made things more congested later into the day than usual. We were lucky to get group 2, and didn’t take too long inside and used mobile check out. DH took our purchases back to the car, and then we hopped in line for a cider and a beer. While we were in this line they moved the bib pickup line from going straight down the walkway to the usual switchbacks between the baseball complex and the bib pickup arena. The line moved steadily. This was not the “switchbacks between the building a AND on the baseball concourse AND wrapping from the right field corner to the left field corner of the baseball stadium (that happened in 2023.)

New for us this year was them sending us on a loop out near the soccer fields to get into the shirt/expo building, but they let us in on the expo floor level and we didn’t have to navigate the stairs up and then back down which was a nice change. This is something that I have seen others report, but never personally experienced.

 

[MissLiss279]

Here are the shirts no flash then flash (sorry if already posted)

View attachment 927542

View attachment 927543

Dopey - a gold/mustard yellow but in sunlight it leans more greenish

I do like the shirts a little better once I saw them in person vs the instagram post.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Soo a strategy we did. Do merch... then go back to hotel eat lunch and relax. Then come back around 2:30ish was great. The bib pick up line was a walk in by that point. Our longest line was waiting for a pic for Goofy. Then went and got into a short line for the cool cups this year. Then got out shirts in the expo. We really liked that strategy.

 

[superchime]

Definitely glad I decided to swap my planned 5k costume for a onesie.