What are the differences between marathon weekend and other race weekends?

madalex

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 24, 2004
Having run my first rD event (the half marathon on Saturday), I'm hooked and want to participate in future races at WDW. I'm currently thinking the Wine & Dine events in November (although, on the rD site, it appears that the Star Wars Dark Side races aren't fully sold out, so I may convince myself to sign up for one of those).

What differences regarding other race weekends compared to Marathon Weekend should I be aware of? I believe the other races aren't quite as crowded as the Marathon Weekend races; does that make the race itself or the logistics (bib pick up, buses to the races, etc.) any easier? Are those other races as "magical" as the Marathon Weekend races?
 
Marathon Weekend is 1 day longer with the marathon at the end - so the expo starts on Thursday instead of Wednesday
The half marathons on the other weekends are the marquee events, so those are on Sunday.
The challenge option is 10K + half marathon
The themes are different obviously
The courses are different (Princess course is the same as the one you just did)
I *think* the expo is smaller
The weather is really different for Dark Side (warmer) vs. January
Dark Side I think you have Flower & Garden Festival going on
Wine & Dine you have Food & Wine Festival going on, normally the last week for that, which affects the crowds (also normally Veteran's Day Weekend)

etc. :)
 
Dark Side is pretty cool as you have lots of people running in Star Wars costumes and all the themes are centered around Star Wars. Big screens set up on the course showing Star Wars clips, characters with great backdrops, etc. I only did the first Dark Side, but it looks like last years course was much better, and definitely better than the half marathon course this past weekend.

As for W&D, we only did that one when it was still a night race. That was fun because you finished up in Epcot and got to stay in the park until about 4am. An overall fun night. I am not sure how it is now that the after party is hours after the race ends. However, the course is still better than the January half marathon. Being there during Food & Wine was definitely a fun time.
 
Dark Side is awesome as @Nole95 said, it's all centered around Star Wars. If you enjoy Star Wars even a little bit you will love these races. These also tend to be the hottest races though, as they are at the end of April.

Wine & Dine is great too. The biggest draw for me is the after party they have at Epcot on Sunday night (it goes from 9-1am) for the half-marathon runners. They shut down the park and there are unique character photo ops, short lines for all rides, live DJ, etc.
 


The 2016 Wine and Dine had 12,000 finishers, while last week's half and full had 20,000 each.
 
The most obvious difference is the themes of the weekend. The January event is more a generic Disney Running theme using the traditional characters while the other weekends have a more dialed in theme. I haven't done them all but the biggest difference besides that is the size. There are more runners and more events in January. It is also the original event weekend and those two things combine to make it feel more runner focused. Everywhere you go you see people in race shirts (Disney or otherwise) and each park has a noticeable runner presence. That is less obvious at other race weekends in my experience.
 

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