Marathon Weekend 2025

I feel like there were less in-park photos in general, compared to the last two years! But there were so many character photos that perhaps that balanced out. I also am a bib belt convert, makes stressing about pinning the bib or dealing with layers a non issue.
There were a lot of characters and good ones too. Sorry @nancipants there was no Clarabell, but it was nice that they didn’t stick us with a bunch of Disney Junior characters this year. Did anyone else feel like the lines were shorter or was that just me? I think I waited maybe a minute for Jack Skellington and Bolt was pretty much a walk up.
 
There were a lot of characters and good ones too. Sorry @nancipants there was no Clarabell, but it was nice that they didn’t stick us with a bunch of Disney Junior characters this year. Did anyone else feel like the lines were shorter or was that just me? I think I waited maybe a minute for Jack Skellington and Bolt was pretty much a walk up.
I was thrilled with the photo op wait times, didn’t think I’d be able to comfortably do as many as I did.
 
There were a lot of characters and good ones too. Sorry @nancipants there was no Clarabell, but it was nice that they didn’t stick us with a bunch of Disney Junior characters this year. Did anyone else feel like the lines were shorter or was that just me? I think I waited maybe a minute for Jack Skellington and Bolt was pretty much a walk up.

There was a Clarabelle statue photo op on the marathon.
 
Made it home. We sat next to a man on the plane that came in on crutches and sure enough he injured his thigh during the marathon but was able to get to the finish. Had a nice talk trading injury stories. Lot of runners in the airport and on the plane too.

This is our laundry pile of running clothes.

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I have a request: if anyone has an extra women’s large red marathon shirt from the that they wouldn’t mind giving up, we would greatly appreciate it. It was my wife’s favorite from the weekend and they needed to cut it off to treat her arm. Please message me to let me know. Thanks.

Edit: thanks to a fellow diser, a shirt has been located. Thanks !
 
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I get it for Jack since that's a character, and he's not trying to be an influencer or whatever. But someone mentioned runninginmakeup, who not only is an influence/content creator and chooses to put her life why there, but she is getting special treatment for it. I just don't get wanting to live your life so publicly, but then wanting to hide how long it took you to run a race.

Maybe I'm just old and grumpy and don't get it 😅

Sometimes people that have social media presence will remove there tracking if there is additional personal details included (like hometown for example or age) that they don’t actively share publicly as unfortunately there are people that will do strange things with this info!

Edit: Ooops my thread hadn’t refreshed I see others shared the same!
 
Writing this from my flight back to London!

Another amazing marathon weekend! I’ve done three solo now and this one was my FAVOURITE as I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it! HUGE part of my comfort came from the updates from @DopeyBadger and I can’t thank you enough for that!

I started writing more and realised it was far too much detail and I should do a proper trip report which I haven’t done here for a long time!

A couple of bits to highlight:

  1. Loved the new course, world showcase at the start was lovely and not being at the end was nice too as mentally I was in familiar places like Blizzard Beach (ugh) but I was ahead in terms of course miles over previous years.
  2. The PEOPLE that I got chatting to made it so much more enjoyable, I’ve made YT videos for a while now but have a relatively small channel and this year was the first time I had several people stop to chat on course with some having signed up as a result of watching previous years videos, that picked me up so much exactly when I needed it and I may have cried a little.
  3. The volunteers at the water and food stops seemed extra awesome this year and had some fab interactions with lots of encouragement
  4. Boo to no single rider for Everest
  5. The colder weather was great for this Irish girl!
  6. I want to come back next year
 
Not sure what others think but I love all the medals. My only other Dopey / marathon weekend was 2023 - with all due respect to the 2023 theme and medals, I just didn't love them all that much. I know anniversaries are popular, but the 10 years had zero meaning to me personally and the medal to me just seemed weird with the major emphasis of 10 and de-emphasis of 48.6. This year's Dopey medal, and all the medals frankly, were perfect in every way, in my humble opinion! Going to need to do a nice display or something.
 
Made it back home after a 13 hour road trip. Icing on the cake for this weekend was kids got a snow day today and a 2 hour delay tomorrow so I can sleep in a little longer. 😀

This weekend was AWESOME! I had so much fun during each race. Wish I could have made it early to the meet up. I just wasn’t getting to bed like I wanted so I opted to sleep a little longer.

I thought I was going to end up in C corral. The bus seemed to take longer than the normal 10ish minutes it had been doing and then the security line was super long. Ended up getting to B corral with 2 minutes to spare. The girl I was standing in line with waiting to get to the corral ended up staying with me. This was her first marathon. It was nice to have someone to chat with and help the miles go by.

I was able to finish the marathon in 5:19:48 which is 15 minutes faster than my first marathon. I stopped for 8 characters. Loved how short the lines were toward the end. Wish Belle and Beast were later and not 2 miles into the race. Too many people in line for me to stop that early. I loved all the time in MK. It’s my favorite park. The Star Wars part was super cool too.

Ended the night at MK with dinner at Be Our Guest, ride on Tron (too fast and too high for me), HEA and just about 80,000 steps.

Thanks to everyone in this group for sharing their knowledge and helping this first timer navigate the weekend. Maybe one day I’ll get to meet some of y’all! I may still lurk around and see what’s going on for MW 2026.
 
On a plane back to the real world... I don't want to work tomorrow but I got to pay for all this Dopey merch I bought. Lol

So many people who ran in wdw marathon weekend are on this plane. All of us colorado folks love running.

I also woke up at like 4:30 and my body thought we slept in...lol. Good news waking up so early meant I could get all packed up and get a couple early morning hours in at MK before we leave.

Also my fav pic of the weekend... my photopass photographer came up with this idea 💡 love it! A new way to show off our bling.
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The photographer stole that idea from @Herding_Cats , same as I did.

And to @dancingtodisney , if I had seen any of your posts and where you were from sooner, I could have said hi when the DW and I were in Dublin back in August.
 
That was the last of the six for me also. Got it at Spring Surprise last year. I thought it went well, but favorite remains September. Such a great ride!!!!
I celebrated my marathon by riding Guardians 6 times on this trip. FINALLY got to hear EWTRTW which I had never heard in 20+ rides. My roster is now complete 🤩
 
There was some talk of that out on the course heading towards HS. Who has it harder the people that can do the faster paces or the people that are slower and spend more time on the course. I don't know. I do know that I can't run it even with intervals. My knee can't take it. But walking, I got that! I got a sub-7 time and I am thrilled with that. Wasn't sure that was something I could do.

I know what you're probably thinking, that is so close to the POT cutoff. If only you had pushed a little harder you could've gotten a POT for next year. :rotfl2:Oh well.
I wound up walking - and specifically walking at a slower pace than I normally do with my run-walk intervals - for a lot of the half, partly due to how congested it was and partly to stay at a friend’s pace to run it with them. And I have to admit that my 4+ hour half felt a lot better than any other halfs I’ve done! My hips are more sore than usual, but I recovered SO much faster and better. I’ll pick up on this more in the 2026 thread, but the big problem with this discovery is that it’s making me rethink my “no more long distances” stance lol!
 
What an amazing weekend!! There simply too many highlights and too much typing for one hand. Nevertheless, I have to thank my superlative husband (Rick1Zoo2) for being such a wonderful running companion and graciously agreeing to all my crazy running wishes; the fabulous volunteers and cast members; and this community. There is no question that we are doing the Dopey next year. As I keep telling people "thank goodness I didn't hurt any running parts!"
 
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