Marathon Weekend 2026

[camaker]

Would anyone like to volunteer to host SAFD next weekend? DW and I will be in Scotland celebrating our 20th anniversary next weekend, so I may not be able to post in a timely manner.

 

[Erika10021]

SAFD:

When I was turning 50, I decided I wanted to have a real vacation (with work, kids and too much debt, it just got moved to the back burner for many years). I narrowed it down to two possibilities: Paris or WDW. I decided I wanted to go where people would be happy to see me, so I decided on Disney (figuring that people in Paris didn't like tourists). That vacation was the most amazing time I had had in my adult life and WDW became a place where we went more and more. A few years later, my husband said "you know, they have races there, should we sign up for one?" We got shut out of the 10k so we signed up for the springtime challenge. We never ran before signing up. We started by going to a local track. Those first few runs were barely 2-3 laps. A couple of years later and we have run every runDisney race at WDW since then, finishing all but the marathon last year. We have also gotten my husband's youngest son and my sister running. What a difference it has made in our lives.

 

[DisneyParrothead]

SAFD: my dad first discovered runDisney by accident, back in 2003. He’s a life long athlete and took up running after college.

When we lived in Boston, he had six weeks of break between semesters (he was a professor for thirty years, now he’s retired), and my senior year in high school, he was getting a little bit of cabin fever after my mom was back at work and I was back in school. He decided to take a long weekend at Disney World, and it just so happened to be Marathon Weekend. He kept seeing sign sin the hotel lobby about a bus schedule to the expo and start line, so he asked a cast member.

Fast forward to the next year, he had signed up for the half, and since I also now had six weeks of semester break, we all went down to cheer him on. I was getting ready for my first college season and enjoyed getting some of my training runs outside with no snow.

He loved the half, and knew he wanted to return the next year and so the first year of some new challenge: Goofy’s race and a half! My mom did the half tue next year, and I continued to go with them to do my preseason prep in the warmth.

Once I graduated college, I did eventually find my way to running. It had always been something I had to do for my athletic career, and I never enjoyed it. Well, enter runDisney. My first race was in 2010, the first year of Wine and Dine, and I did the 5k, which went thru MK. I was hooked, and my first half was Princess 2012. I’ve since done multiple 5k’s, 10k’s, and half marathons on both coasts.

 

[Dopey 2020]

SAFD I was a Disney fan but was in my late 30s before we finally made it to the parks with our 4yo daughter. Then it was every year in the parks and a Disney Cruise for our 20th anniversary. At the same time I was recovering from shoulder surgery and found that there was a 5K on Castaway Cay. Being that I was very limited as far as exercise and physical activities I started jogging and we did it. Until then I thought people that ran for fun were crazy. Talking with folks there I found out about runDisney and that was the end of it. My wife and daughter decided it was not for them after a couple 5ks and I decided the opposite. Now after 18 marathons, one ultra, and Dopey #7 coming up I can without a doubt say that Disney made me a runner.

 

[Naomeri]

SAFD: I was a Disney fan who kind of hated going to the parks because I was so out of shape that I was miserable after just a couple days. So during the pandemic, I discovered virtual races through Yes.Fit, which were cumulative distance medals, so I started walking more. And then I started looking for other virtual medals I could earn and I found the 2021 runDisney summer series, and decided to try running it using run/walk intervals and learned that I could actually run without hating it. I signed up for the 2021 W&D virtuals, and the 2022 MW 5K/10K/Half virtuals, and did my first in-person event at 2022 Princess Weekend, and I've been doing at least 2 in-person race weekends per year since then.

 

[JackosinDIS]

SAFD: I was a big Disney fan with no interest in running at all. However my DH is a very keen runner (not quite so keen on Disney), and doing MW was just my cunning plan to get another WDW trip by telling him that he could run a marathon through the parks!
However, I also had to sign up for a run to make this work…. 9 months later and I appear to be running 13 miles a week… how did that happen?

 

[RuntheMouse]

SAFD: I became aware of runDisney when I found the DisBoards back in 2021. There was a thread that came up about the races coming back after Covid. We signed up for our first 10k at Wine & Dine that year and then everything but the full for marathon weekend. We were hooked and ended up with the perfect season. We’ve now settled on MW being our thing and we’ve been back every year since!

 

[matt and beth]

SAFD: 2014 DW and I ran Princess Half to raise funds for Noah’s Light now Dragon Master. Our DS had a brain tumor when he was four. By 2014 we were in the clear and wanted to give back. As a family we loved Disney and Noah’s light was raising funds for pediatric brain cancer. DW and I joined up and were excited to give back. I promised DD I’d go back and run with her when she was old enough. Fast forward a few years and we are now running our 5th Dopey. We still pick a charity on occasion

 

[col1]

I was a Disney fan prior to running a race. In January 2003 I decided to finally stop smoking at the age of 32. My DW had a health scare the previous year and had quit but I had struggled with it. We had been taking the kids to WDW & DLP from around 1997.

I decided best way to keep from giving in to smoking was too do something I could not achieve if I continued and also telling everyone I knew I was doing it !!

For some reason despite never having ran a step I signed up for the full marathon and found a training plan and a log book, got some cheap training shoes and other gear.

I found the WDW team penguin group on Yahoo groups who were a source of inspiration and encouragement. We met before the race and I still have a copy of that picture.

I finished in just over 6 hrs and I found it a very challenging experience but I returned numerous times over the years probably 10 events or so between WDW and DL California.