Marathon Weekend 2027

[nancipants]

I selfishly want you to hand me a coke on the race course

If @The Expert ditches me for spectating ( ), I will still be there! Cokes ahoy!

 

[accm]

As an unplanned experiment, I had a taste of waiting around for hours for a race to start this past weekend… and it sucked. My race didn’t start until 9:15am, but the race before it started at 6am and I was worried about finding parking later, so I got there a little before 6. I killed time walking around, watching the earlier race’s finish line a bit, eating 2nd breakfast, listening to podcasts, watching the sun rise… by the time my race was staging to start, I was tired and just wanting to be done already. All pre-race energy and excitement was gone. If rD really expects people to show up by 4am for a race starting at 7:30, I’ll never sign up for that.

The way they have it written it sounds like they'll have more than one arrival time:

The first group of runners for the 2027 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 5K will start at 4:30 a.m., 30 minutes earlier than before. Participants’ start times will range from 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., based on assigned start groups. Arrival times will vary depending on your start time.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

But do you really want to wait until the 7:30 start groups?

If I have to get there early, no. But I’d rather not do 4:30 AM when I probably have a flight at 5 AM on Wednesday and the marathon starts earlier too. I will take all the sleep I can get!

If @The Expert ditches me for spectating ( ), I will still be there! Cokes ahoy!

Okay, @The Expert , you’re allowed to do Dopey now. My coke is secured!

 

[KCO5988]

I may be in a very small minority of people who would want to be in the 4:30 AM start group . I find the early first wake up of the 5k day a good way to get myself to fall asleep early that night and get closer to the 7-8 hours of sleep for the longer races. Plus, then I can be ready to rope drop at one of the parks.

 

[Dopey 2020]

I’ll take the 4:30 start. As team drive my own car I like to get the 5k out of the way and be at the resort and showered by daylight. Back to bed for about an hour and a half and it’s like it never happened, ready for the next three days.

 

[PrincessV]

The way they have it written it sounds like they'll have more than one arrival time:

I don’t trust that rD marketing and I have the same definition of “arrival” lol - I view that as the time I must be parked at EP, while they may consider it the time you have to be walking into your corral. I likely won’t ever do another 5K regardless, but I’m very curious to see how they arrange this.

 

[accm]

I don’t trust that rD marketing and I have the same definition of “arrival” lol - I view that as the time I must be parked at EP, while they may consider it the time you have to be walking into your corral. I likely won’t ever do another 5K regardless, but I’m very curious to see how they arrange this.

True, although I hadn't thought of it like that. I'm glad I'm not running Wine and Dine and being their guinea pigs, because if I can count on one thing, it's runDisney screwing something up the first time.

 

[Disneyhanna]

I'm so curious what they're going to do about the 5K. Glad to be a guinea pig at W&D in case it helps me plan better for Marathon. In theory I'd prefer the late time to sleep, but in reality I'd probably just want it over with and regardless of a 4:30 or 5:00 start I get up at the same time. I do like being done in time to rope drop since I'm never usually up early enough to do that.

 

[jrsharp21]

I am curious to what type of traffic the later start groups will run into. I imagine it is going to be a mess. I think they are going to find that even though people have later start times, they are still going to show up early to take in the environment, root for friends before they start, etc.