Disney Family 5K

48.6 is the new 42.4…That’s just Dopey!

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In January of this year I ran the ‘Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge’ at Walt Disney World.  The challenge is the completion of the Half Marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday and the Full Marathon (26.2 miles) on the Sunday.  For good measure my wife and I also ran the Family 5K on the Friday.  That was what everyone traditionally called the unofficial ‘Dopey’ challenge.  I think the names are pretty much self explanatory.  So in addition to the 39.3 miles official distance you add another 3.1 miles to reach the 42.2 miles of the Dopey…or so we thought…

Was this a prediction for 2014?

Was this a prediction for 2014?

Last week runDisney dropped a little note into the runDisney ‘Wine and Dine’ registration email that the upcoming (2014) Walt Disney World Marathon weekend would see all new medals for the races.  I’d seen rumors rumbling around on Facebook and the blogosphere earlier this week that Disney was planning on hosting an official ‘Dopey’ challenge.  There were lots of wild guesses out there as to what would make up the Dopey.  Most thought that it would be what everyone had been unofficially doing all these years but what confused everyone was that it seemed runDisney had slipped a 10K into the Marathon weekend schedule.  Well today all those rumors were put to rest as runDisney announced the official inaugural ‘Dopey Challenge’.  This consists of 4 races on 4 days as follows:

  • Thursday January 9 – 5K (3.1 miles)
  • Friday January 10 – 10K (6.2 miles)
  • Saturday January 11 – Half Marathon (13.1 miles)
  • Sunday January 12 – Full Marathon (26.2 miles)

The Goofy Challenge earns you a Donald medal for the Half, a Mickey medal for the Full and a Goofy medal for completing both, a total of 3 medals.  Add in one more for the 5K and you walk away (slowly and with a limp probably) with 4 medals.  runDisney announced that by completing the Dopey Challenge you get the 5K medal, a Minnie themed medal for the 10K as well as the Donald, Mickey and Goofy and finally for completing all races you earn a new ‘Dopey’ medal.  That’s 6, count them, 6 medals.  Bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling (although the 5K is usually a rubber medallion so deduct a bling…it’s up to you).  That’s some serious hardware.  In addition to walking funny after all this mileage you’ll probably be stooped over from the weight around you neck 🙂

So, what’s the plan?  Am I in?  You bet.  Wouldn’t miss this.  A friend suggested I need an intervention.  Maybe, but it will have to wait until January 13, 2014!!!

Thanks to runDisney I now have 2 problems:

  1. My blog is called Philly2Goofy (oops, didn’t see this coming)
  2. I’m going to need a bigger car for my new distance magnet (see below)
My car

My car

Race you to the Castle 🙂

It's official

It’s official

2013 Walt Disney World Marathon recap – Part 1 – Disney Family 5K

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In 2012 I ran the Walt Disney World Marathon.  I was a fairly new runner and it was my second marathon.  My wife also ran her first Half Marathon during the 2012 marathon weekend and we had such a great time I really wanted to go back again.  This year I signed up to run the Goofy Challenge and raise funds for Autism Speaks.   As I had signed up for the Goofy my wife Shari decided that she would take on her first Full Marathon and my sister-in-law Rina (who last year came to help and support) signed up to run her first Half Marathon.  A great weekend of firsts was ahead of us.

Friday January 11th

It has been a long time coming (we signed up before general registration opened) but we finally made it to the first part of our Marathon Weekend.  The alarm clock went off at 4am and we made our way to EPCOT for the Disney Family 5K.  Me and my brilliant sense of direction and lack of following instructions missed our exit and had to do a turn around to get to the starting line but better today than the big race days.

We still got there early enough, parked the car and got into our costumes.  Shari was Cinderella and I was Prince Charming (in spandex).  We parked next to a family dressed as the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and their little girl was dressed as Alice.  Glad to know that everyone was getting into the spirit of the weekend.   We made our way to our Corral (‘A’) and waiting for the fireworks.  They still get me every time.  This was my second official Disney race (I ran the Marathon last year) and I think there is nothing better than fireworks to start a race.

The race was so much fun.  We ran slowly at first as I was concerned about my right knee but then we just set into a regular pace.  Shari and I had so much fun spotting other people’s costumes and talking to the folks running alongside us.  Once we entered EPCOT we made sure to stop and take pictures with each character we met.  We didn’t care about the time.  We even waited in line when Goofy had to ‘disappear’ for a few minutes.   I took every opportunity to take a photo with Goofy this weekend.  In the last mile bumped into Sid Busch who runs the Disney Marathon Weekend page on Facebook.  I recognized him from his ‘Buzz Lightyear’ costume (an unexpected but nice surprise).

The funniest part of the race was that people were stopping Shari and I and asking to take pictures with us.   It was just so much fun.  We quickly learned to take pictures for other people so they would take pictures of us.  We laughed so much it just relaxed us and set us in a great mood for the rest of the marathon weekend.

Disney Family 5K

Running through EPCOT with my wife Shari

After a quick shower we all headed out to EPCOT for the rest of the day.  The parks weren’t too crowded which was nice so we got to do all the rides, attractions and see all the countries we wanted.  We actually hit all the countries in the World Showcase this year which was great for the boys.   We then met up with the TeamUp (Autism Speaks) team for a pre-race pasta dinner and stayed for the fireworks before heading off to bed for as much sleep would be possible before the 2am alarm on Saturday morning.

Friday night TeamUp dinner at 'Wonders Retreat' in EPCOT

Friday night TeamUp dinner at ‘Wonders Retreat’ in EPCOT