Disneyland Half Marathon

Demarke

Demarke

Have I told you lately that I šŸ‘ you?
RunningKoen said:
I guess this topic can be bumped back into business :)

2,5 month to go and still untrained ;p
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Haha, i know how it is! I looked back at my Garmin data and realized I have only run one single 4.2 mile training run (for my 42nd b-day in July) that wasnā€™t part of an organized race since January!

Since Springtime Surprise ended in April, I did do one 5k and beer mile on July 4, then starting in September Iā€™ve done two halves and two 5Ks in advance of this weekendā€™s Wine and Dine weekend. Training by doing I guess šŸ˜‚
 
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the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
Race courses just dropped.
5K
1703031677120.jpeg

10K
1703031703671.png

Half Marathon
1703031620881.png

Half Marathon wonā€™t run the bases at Angles Stadium, which is disappointing.
 
RunningKoen

RunningKoen

Well-Known Member
MoonRakerSCM said:
The Mickey and Minnie on the half medal are on springs!!!!

Also, the coast to coast rectangle is uglier in person.
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The round C2C medal , route 2x looks better in person. Kindly bronze look to it.

The rectangular ones I saw this weekend damaged so easily, itā€™s a shame.

I mentioned in the other topic aswell but I had a blast this weekend.
 
Greenlawler

Greenlawler

Well-Known Member
Okay at the hotel tonight.


Thoughts on the Return of Dumbo

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly


The Good
-The Course, (with one exception) even though it was 9 miles outside the parks, they were 9 interesting miles, with lots to see,
-The Support, fabulous support from well-wishers in Anaheim
-The Expo experience, I know shocking. They had what I wanted, and it was not crazy getting there, plus it was not as crazy going from building to building. I know it's a smaller race, but it was much nicer and easier.
-The Runner Boxes: The replaced those awful fruit gummies in the runner's boxes with flavored pretzel sticks.

The Bad
-The Character Experience, I cannot stress this one enough. Not only were there just not very many, in fact it was downright disappointing how few were out. some of the few that were, were not even in places where you could take pictures with them. Half the characters out for the half were not "meetable". My wife actually had a CM tell her she could not stop and take a picture of Rey and Chewbacca who were standing above the course. On top of that, they actually had Dumbo on the course for the first time in the races 7-year history but they only made him meetable to about 20% of the runners because they rotated him out and closed his line. The same thing happened with Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the day before. This was a major flub. Why did they simply not rotate Dumbo with another "Dumbo"?
-The Race Announcers, aside from Carissa. Hey runDisney pay the extra money and fly John and Riley out to Cali.
-Bag Check at the 10k was a nightmare as most of the "detectors" were not operational. Lines were atrocious.
-Pre Race, Post Race, It's pretty amazing what runDisney does at WDW with vendors, food trucks, music, and entertainment. It's probably not fair to hold DL to that same standard, but isn't run Disney the same company? The lack of just about anything interesting pre and post race at DL was glaring.

The Ugly
-The Water Station at mile 3 of the Half Marathon. They actually tried to place a water stop on a small path in California Adventure. This resulted in a log jam of people forcing everyone to stand in line on a half marathon course. Some runners reporting they waited over two minutes to get through the water station.


Overall a fun weekend and a good run. I was very leery of how my body would react after Dopey.

I did fine. I ran with my wife both days, and we had fun.

I really hope they change the date of Dumbo next year; I wish they would move it back to when it was. I understand they have created the Halloween race during that time, but maybe they could honor our Dumbo legacy with that race?
 
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Rteetz

Rteetz

Well-Known Member
Greenlawler said:
Okay at the hotel tonight.


Thoughts on the Return of Dumbo

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly


The Good
-The Course, (with one exception) even though it was 9 miles outside the parks, they were 9 interesting miles, with lots to see,
-The Support, fabulous support from well-wishers in Anaheim
-The Expo experience, I know shocking. They had what I wanted, and it was not crazy getting there, plus it was not as crazy going from building to building. I know it's a smaller race, but it was much nicer and easier.
-The Runner Boxes: The replaced those awful fruit gummies in the runner's boxes with flavored pretzel sticks.

The Bad
-The Character Experience, I cannot stress this one enough. Not only were there just not very many, in fact it was downright disappointing how few were out. some of the few that were, were not even in places where you could take pictures with them. Half the characters out for the half were not "meetable". My wife actually had a CM tell her she could not stop and take a picture of Rey and Chewbacca who were standing above the course. On top of that, they actually had Dumbo on the course for the first time in the races 7-year history but they only made him meetable to about 20% of the runners because they rotated him out and closed his line. The same thing happened with Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the day before. This was a major flub. Why did they simply not rotate Dumbo with another "Dumbo"?
-The Race Announcers, aside from Carissa. Hey runDisney pay the extra money and fly John and Riley out to Cali.
-Bag Check at the 10k was a nightmare as most of the "detectors" were not operational. Lines were atrocious.
-Pre Race, Post Race, It's pretty amazing what runDisney does at WDW with vendors, food trucks, music, and entertainment. It's probably not fair to hold DL to that same standard, but isn't run Disney the same company? The lack of just about anything interesting pre and post race at DL was glaring.

The Ugly
-The Water Station at mile 3 of the Half Marathon. They actually tried to place a water stop on a small path in California Adventure. This resulted in a log jam of people forcing everyone to stand in line on a half marathon course. Some runners reporting they waited over two minutes to get through the water station.


Overall a fun weekend and a good run. I was very leery of how my body would react after Dopey.

I did fine. I ran with my wife both days, and we had fun.

I really hope they change the date of Dumbo next year; I wish they would move it back to when it was. I understand they have created the Halloween race during that time, but maybe they could honor our Dumbo legacy with that race?
Click to expand...
I wonder if with Dumbo they just don't have the other suits. We rarely ever see him even for special events so my guess is they don't have the costumes like they do for other characters. Overall I do think they need to improve the character thing there. Many didn't have photo pass. Some were just selfie stops. Chip & Dale during the half was not a stop at all. You got told not to stop but there were right there on course. It was weird.

As for announcers, from what I understand it's two different teams operating these things. The WDW team did come out to help but wasn't in charge so to say. You could tell this was a very scripted event whereas WDW is much more loose and improvised. Carissa talked about this a it on their podcast.

I do know Anaheim has some different rules when it comes to things. This for example is why there was no food/beer tent like at WDW. I do think they could've done more tho with the area.

I give them some benefit of the doubt since it's a "new" event. I expect changes for September. They even made changes just with security from 10K day to Half day.

It seems this is here to stay in January but not always the week after Marathon. It moves back a couple weeks next year. I can't see runDisney honoring Dumbo legacy for two different weekends. I was surprised they even honored it with the return after 7 years gone.
 
Greenlawler

Greenlawler

Well-Known Member
Rteetz said:
I wonder if with Dumbo they just don't have the other suits. We rarely ever see him even for special events so my guess is they don't have the costumes like they do for other characters. Overall I do think they need to improve the character thing there. Many didn't have photo pass. Some were just selfie stops. Chip & Dale during the half was not a stop at all. You got told not to stop but there were right there on course. It was weird.

As for announcers, from what I understand it's two different teams operating these things. The WDW team did come out to help but wasn't in charge so to say. You could tell this was a very scripted event whereas WDW is much more loose and improvised. Carissa talked about this a it on their podcast.

I do know Anaheim has some different rules when it comes to things. This for example is why there was no food/beer tent like at WDW. I do think they could've done more tho with the area.

I give them some benefit of the doubt since it's a "new" event. I expect changes for September. They even made changes just with security from 10K day to Half day.

It seems this is here to stay in January but not always the week after Marathon. It moves back a couple weeks next year. I can't see runDisney honoring Dumbo legacy for two different weekends. I was surprised they even honored it with the return after 7 years gone.
Click to expand...

As far as Dumbo goes I am sure that is the case. But did they need 30 minute intervals? Not just for Dumbo but for every character.

My wife and I are veteran character hunters, I mean it is very, very rare when we see a character we have not met. Dumbo was kind of a "Holy Grail" for us.

We got to the line and they told us, it was closed. We were at the start of Coral B. Then my wife was in a chat group giving live updates. If we had waited the full 30 minutes the ballon ladies would have been right on top of us and we could not have stopped for any other character, turns out we didn't anyways.

WDW does 15 minute intervals,
 
Rteetz

Rteetz

Well-Known Member
Greenlawler said:
As far as Dumbo goes I am sure that is the case. But did they need 30 minute intervals? Not just for Dumbo but for every character.

My wife and I are veteran character hunters, I mean it is very, very rare when we see a character we have not met. Dumbo was kind of a "Holy Grail" for us.

We got to the line and they told us, it was closed. We were at the start of Coral B. Then my wife was in a chat group giving live updates. If we had waited the full 30 minutes the ballon ladies would have been right on top of us and we could not have stopped for any other character, turns out we didn't anyways.

WDW does 15 minute intervals,
Click to expand...
I think it was wine & dine this past one. The fairies from Sleeping Beauty were out. When I got in line they said they would be leaving and not back for 30 minutes. That and dumbo are the only two times Iā€™ve ever heard that.
 
Rteetz

Rteetz

Well-Known Member
the.dreamfinder said:
Didnā€™t get one. For anyone who did, what kind of questions were they asking? Anything interesting?
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Nothing special really but did ask about all aspects of the weekend. Expo, yoga, each race, pre and post race and entertainment. Some sections asked for written feedback such as what did you like best or least about the weekend. Most were just what would you rate X.
 

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