My question is has anyone ever dealt with any comments/issues from utilizing this method at a non Disney race?
YES.
IN fact on the Rock 'n Roll Vancouver page there's a "funny" picture of someone with a sign saying "there's no time for Walken in this race", with a picture of Christopher Walken, but meaning "walking". I am glad I did not see that.
That race was a bit odd in that those of us assigned to the last corral and with a very long expected finish time were told to go up BEFORE corral 1. So the elites were actually behind us. We started at 7:45am and the race actually started at 8:15. We were told that this was the corral for the slower people, for the walkers. I was already planning on walking a whole lot of it (had done the 10K the day before and it was my first back to back event) and that really gave me stronger "permission" to do so. About 2K into it we came across a group of people who were telling us that it's a "run, not a walk".
So...that wasn't nice. But the group didn't look like they would be joining us anytime soon (I think they were just waiting for a bus or for work to open or something), and I tried to not let it bother me, but I did sort of feel like explaining things to them.
And then once the race started, I definitely felt bad for the people who hadn't paid attention to anything ahead of time, and didn't know that there would be a group of walkers (or run-walkers) ahead of them. The elites, I'm sure knew, and of course they had a truck in front of them telling us to move out of the way, but a few corrals back, I'm sure, paid NO attention to the whole thing.
Now NONE of that is told to you to make you feel sad or worried or anxious or anything. I'm an obnoxiously honest person, and I tend to tell my whole truth and experience. And that was my very recent experience during an otherwise very nice event. I didn't let it get under my skin (the Walken thing I just found out about so it's still irksome) and I didn't change what I was doing to make some random strangers happy.
Do what you do. Just...don't be freaked out if something like that happens. Smile, wave, move on. What they think doesn't matter at all.