This is part one of my six-part series on the 2015 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. Part two covers the history behind the race series, as well as step-by-step instructions how to register (for the 2015 event).
Part 1 (Introduction) can be found HERE.
Part 3 (Training & Planning for the Event) can be found HERE.
Part 4 (Course Preview with Virtual Run) will be posted mid-October to beginning of November.
Part 5 (Travel, Event Expo, & Pre-Race) will be posted on Race Weekend.
Part 6 (Race Day & Post-Race) will be posted after Race Weekend.
The event's official website can be found HERE.
Welcome back! Now I'll walk through some background on the event's history, followed by the registration process point-by-point (which often feels like a daunting process).
Onward!
Background on the Walt Disney World Marathon
Surprising enough, other than results and records, the history of the Walt Disney Marathon is few and far between. The WDW Marathon's first running was in 1994 with just short of only 7,000 runners. Over the next two decades, the Marathon Weekend would actually struggle to meet registration quotas, forcing Disney Parks to reconsider. In 2012, Disney offered free admission to the parks on the Monday following the event for participants of any of the events of Marathon Weekend, which did help boost sales. 2013 marked the 20th running of the WDW Marathon, and, despite the incentive being removed, saw its largest registration year in the Marathon's history. Though official numbers for 2014 have not been released yet (that I know of), given the quickness with which registration filled up, another record year seems almost likely.
Due to the rise in popularity of marathons and half-marathons, registration across the US have spiked in the last few years. Not surprisingly, to match the rising demand, runDisney now hosts 9 event weekends at their two US parks. All races have kids-specific races if the offered 5k's may be too much for the little tykes. At the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, runDisney hosts the following, as of 2014 (and 2015):
- Expedition Everest Challenge - a themed "obstacle" 5k through WDW's Animal Kingdom park, which took place on May 3rd of 2014.
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-Miler Weekend - At WDW Resort's Hollywood Studios park, includes a nighttime 10-mile run of the same moniker, and the daytime Disney Happy Haunted 5k Trail Run. This one runs on October 3rd & 4th of this year, but is sold out.
- Disney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon Weekend - starting at WDW's ESPN Wide World of Sports on November 8th (also sold out), also a nighttime half-marathon that finishes with exclusive after-hours access to Epcot's annual International Food & Wine Festival.
- Disney Princess Half-Marathon Weekend - February 19th through 22nd of 2015. Includes a themed half-marathon, 10k, Princess 5k and the coveted Coast to Coast Medal for those that run both the Princess HM in Florida and the Tinker Bell HM in California. Registration opens July 15th at 11:00am Central (12pm noon Eastern). Soon!
And at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California:
Registering for the Walt Disney World Marathon- Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend - similar to WDW Marathon Weekend, but at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, and without the full marathon. Includes a half-marathon, 10k, the "Dumbo Double Dare" (half-marathon & 10k combo), and Family Fun Run 5k.
- Avengers Super Heroes Half-Marathon Weekend - new for 2014, and one that sounds like a blast, the Super Heroes HM Weekend is on November 14th through 16th and includes the Avengers Half-Marathon and the Avengers 5k. This one sold out fast.
- Star Wars Half-Marathon Weekend - also new for 2014, and one that generated a huge amount of buzz. This take place January 15th through 18th of 2015, and includes the Half-Marathon, Star Wars 10k, Star Wars 5k, and the Rebel Challenge, which combines the half-marathon and 10k. This sold out quicker than the WDW Marathon Weekend.
- Tinker Bell Half-Marathon Weekend - a half-marathon, 10k and Never Land 5k offering that took place in May of 2014, and will be offered again May 7th through May 10th of 2015. Registration for this one opens August 12th of 2014 at 11:00am Central (12pm noon Eastern).
Finally, the focus of this race report series, the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. For the WDW Marathon Weekend, eight running events are offered...
- The Walt Disney World Marathon
- The Walt Disney World Half-Marathon
- The Walt Disney World 10k
- The Walt Disney World Disney Family Fun Run 5k
- The Walt Disney World Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge, which consists of running each the Marathon and Half-Marathon
- The Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge, which consists of all four races over four days.
- The Walt Disney World Castaway Challenge, which consists of any of the single races, combined with a cruise to Disney's private Castaway Cay island in the Bahamas, and a 5k on Castaway Cay.
- Any number of kids races.
Again, this is the oldest of runDisney events, and one of the largest. The Health & Fitness Expo itself is a large draw for many, and given the nice beginning-of-year placement, is often great opportunity for health and fitness companies to roll out new products for the new year (I will be eyeing New Balance's runDisney Special Edition Shoes -- more on that during the Planning and Expo posts).
That's it for the background. Let's get in to the actual race (or at least, let's register for the damn thing).
For those that will be registering for the up-coming Tinker Bell and Princess HM Weekends, this should provide a great cheat-sheet on the registration process, as runDisney uses all the same portals for registration.
That's it for the background. Let's get in to the actual race (or at least, let's register for the damn thing).
For those that will be registering for the up-coming Tinker Bell and Princess HM Weekends, this should provide a great cheat-sheet on the registration process, as runDisney uses all the same portals for registration.
Registration for any runDisney event is a popular demand, so spots fill up very fast. Sometimes, spots for the more popular events will fill up within minutes (seriously!), so make sure you are online as they roll it out. There are also some finicky website things that are important to note going in, so be sure to read on.
For the 2015 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, scheduled for January 7th through January 11th, registration was set to be open on April 22nd, 2014, at 11:00am Central Time. I made sure to set an alert on my Google Calendar with a link directly to the Marathon Weekend home page.
To get to the specific event, all runDisney events are centralized around their runDisney website at rundisney.com.
 |
| The runDisney home page. |
From there you can use the "Events" tab at the top of the page to find the specific event you are interested in. Be it the Disneyland Prices Half-Marathon, or Disney World's new Start Wars Marathon. I, obiouvsly, opted for their oldest-running Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. I would run the half-marathon.
 |
| Hovering over the events tab with your mouse will show all of runDisney's events. |
Once you arrive at the WDW Marathon Weekend page, you get a nice little ticker right at the top, including how full each of the offered events are at the present moment.
 |
| The Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend-specific runDisney page. In time for my page visit, all of the offered events were sold out, except for the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge. |
 |
| The registration page for the WDW Marathon Weekend. |
Now...here's the tricky part. Registration opened up promptly at 11:00am CENTRAL TIME on April 22nd, 2014, for the 2015 running. These are very popular events, so you can imagine that right at 11:00am, site traffic skyrockets. Clicking on an event may not work the first one or two (or twelve) times. I recommend clicking on the event, and if (and when) it displays an error message, just keep clicking Ctrl-R (to refresh the page) until you get through. Do not assume waiting for site traffic to slow will help! By the time site traffic clears, your chosen event may already be sold out (yes, they sell out that quickly).
After about 10-or-so refreshes, I finally got through to the registration portal, run by popular registration management website Active.com.
 |
| Finally got in! |
I clicked in the "Register Now" button, Again, you may hit site traffic here. But don't worry -- once you finally get on the pages where you enter your name and registration deets, you shouldn't hit any more brick walls.
 |
| Three ways to register: 1. If you have an Active.com profile, 2. If you would like to open up a new Active.com profile, and 3. If you'd rather skip all that jazz and just register as a guest. |
After signing in with my Active.com profile, it's time to select my event -- for me, the half-marathon. Any events that are sold out will be noted here.
 |
| Pick your poison. |
Then you got your "we're not responsible if you die" agreement. Also known as the participant waiver.
 |
| Sign your life away. |
Then, having signed in to Active.com already with my user credentials, most of my personal information (name, address, etc etc) is already filled out for me. If you sign in as a guest or are creating a new profile, presumably all of this will be empty for you (at least, I hope).
After your personal info, you'll have a few additional quiz items to attend to, the most notable being previous half-marathon history. In order to set up corral assignment, you must provide an anticipated finishing time, along with info on a previous half-marathon finish (or a marathon, if you chose that event), including the name of the race, the official distance, the city and state, the date, and the finish time. If you've never done a similar-distance event before, just enter N/A and move on. Likely, you'll be assigned to the last few corrals.
 |
| The "how slow are you?" portion of the quiz. |
Then you got your common quick questions, such as t-shirt size, and you're ready to pay.
Once finished, you should receive an Active.com email within 24 to 48 hours (I think it took about 8 hours for me). If you don't a confirmation email within two days, email the event organizer using the runDisney home page's information...there may be a problem.
 |
| Not my official race confirmation, but rather confirmation of my commemorative pin purchase, which is available on the registration page as well. The race confirmation will look the same, though. |
Additionally, you may receive two emails that look similar, but in fact are not: One is your transaction confirmation, the other is registration confirmation.
And that's it! Print off the confirmation and bring it to the packet pick-up and expo. Electronic copies work, too, but you can never trust that you'll be able to pull it up on-the-spot. But all of that stuffs will be covered in my Packet Pick-Up and Marathon Expo post on race weekend.
That's all she (or I) wrote for now. Keep posted for Part III next, including info about training & planning. That will likely go up in a few months (late October-ish) once my training gets underway.
Keep R/B/S-ing.
~~__o
_-/<,_
@/ @
No comments:
Post a Comment