Official 2013 Disneyland Dumbo Double Dare, Half Marathon, 10k, and 5k Thread!

[VickiHD]

Did anyone come across this? I read on Facebook that some of the people in the last corrals did not get any water at the water stops during the first few stations on the course. I know I came across one station that did not have water around middle of the course At least not water ready.

We were in corral E and it seemed like the water was never ready for us. This was pretty much the theme all the way through. The only water stop that really seemed to have it together was the one near the stadium. I hate to even mention it since I appreciate the work that the volunteers do and I am always thanking them.
Maybe because of the heat and lack of cloud cover more runners needed the water and they just could not keep up at the water stops.

 

[Aw Phooey]

Did anyone come across this? I read on Facebook that some of the people in the last corrals did not get any water at the water stops during the first few stations on the course. I know I came across one station that did not have water around middle of the course At least not water ready.

I was in F and I never had a problem with NO water though I had to look for it as I'd have to pass a bunch of empty tables and find it at the very end.

I did run into a table with a CUPS problem though. We were told to save our water cup for a quick powerade fill.

 

[disEAR]

Sorry didn't mean to double post.

 

[disEAR]

Did anyone come across this? I read on Facebook that some of the people in the last corrals did not get any water at the water stops during the first few stations on the course. I know I came across one station that did not have water around middle of the course At least not water ready.

We were in corral E, started around the middle. We never had a problem with water or powerade, however I do recall at a few stops, it looked like they were running low on cups.

I've heard several people talk about running out of water and/or cups, and I find this completely unacceptable. If people wound up passing out or suffering heat stroke due to lack of hydration, then Run Disney should be held accountable. Now I know we all sign waivers and whatnot, however at the same time, while assuming the risks involved with running long distances, Disney needs to hold up their end of the deal in helping runners get there. I do bring my own water bottle. just in case. However, I remember how bad I felt during the half and full marathon in January when cliff ran out of gu shots. If they start regularly running out of water, I would have sworn off Run Disney indefinitely. As magical and fun and cool it is to run through the parks, I refuse to risk my health and safety due to Disney's lack of due diligence.

 

[thndrmatt]

I must say I'm somewhat surprised by a lot of these comments... As a veteran of all of the DL races, I will say that while this was one of the warmer years, it wasn't the warmest by far... It's inland, it's in Southern California, it's in August, if it's anything but warm, consider us amazingly lucky! The weather should not be a surprise to anyone. Runners who train through the summer in most locations will be well prepared.

As for the expo, the massive addition to the total runner count caused by adding the 10k obviously max performed the space, but we wandered in during the afternoon on Friday, had very minimal lines for anything but the official merchandise, and were out of there having perused all the booths in less than an hour. There were a ton of signs on the side of the building directing to the parking ramp down to bib pickup, as well as several volunteers directing traffic. They've used the same bibs downstairs expo upstairs traffic flow for years now and it seems to keep everyone moving.

Just wanted to add my two cents to those considering the race for next year. I personally ran well off my best pace but that was expected due to running both races and the less than ideal weather conditions, and instead had a very enjoyable time with my running buddy. Thanks to all those who came out to the WISH meet, there was a good group of 20+ who made it out.

 

[StarGirl11]

About the water situation I have no clue if Disney is the same way but I know the Rock 'n' Roll races have their water stations managed individually and not by the race itself. I volunteered at the Denver race at the water stop around Mile 20 I think it was? And each station was managed seperately from the next. I wasn't in charge or anything but the impression I got from just observing the lady who was in charge was that there was no concrete rules on how the stations were set up just to try and have the water set up and out for the runners once they came through. Advantage of having runners running a water station though is that we know how much water a runner needs. And had more than enough cups by the time the elites came through and though I had to leave early we weren't anywhere close from running out. Actually were told we had the best format of all the water stations (we filled the cups and stacked them on top of each other. And so it was just a matter of going back to the table to get another cup. And there was enough of us working the station that we never had a back up).

So the water problem may only be resolved in Run Disney starts puts down better mandates for its volunteers run the stations or if the volunteers get smarter on how they manage their stations. The people that are running the stations seem to think short term and not long term. And not about the fact that runners take more than one cup of water from a station especially in hot weather.

I was supposed to start in D but I ended up back in E because of the mess (they need to fix the corrals). And while most of the time I didn't have problems getting water (when the first tables didn't have water I would always go to the later to check for cups, usually they had them). The biggest problem was at the stop leaving Disneyland though. Not only did they not have enough water cups they ran out of Powerade cups. And they weren't announcing this so you didn't find it out until you got to the Powerade portion of the station.

Point is complaining to Disney by themselves won't change anything. If we want change at the station level someone needs to sit down with whomever is in charge of the volunteers long before the race is held and give them a heads up on what they should probably do.

 

[jmasgat]

The water stations at Disney races are not independent setups. There is a given amount of water/cups/powerade provided to each stop. Each time I have volunteered at a Disney race water stop, there has been clear direction given on the setup--where to put water vs Powerade, how much to put in each cup, how many layers of cups to have on each table, etc.

Of course, you have to have some flexibility/oversight as runners come through in order to keep up with demand. And I agree that clear direction to the water stop volunteers is needed (e.g. how to hand people cups, clearly stating what you are holding so that runners can hear, etc)

What Disney should have factored in is the overall increased demand for fluids. It's not like the weather forecast was a surprise.

Sort of ironic that Disney has a whole side business to teach companies the "Disney way". Seems like they need to go to school themselves on race management. After 20 years, you'd think they'd have some of this stuff figured out.

 

[StarGirl11]

The water stations at Disney races are not independent setups. There is a given amount of water/cups/powerade provided to each stop. Each time I have volunteered at a Disney race water stop, there has been clear direction given on the setup--where to put water vs Powerade, how much to put in each cup, how many layers of cups to have on each table, etc.

Of course, you have to have some flexibility/oversight as runners come through in order to keep up with demand. And I agree that clear direction to the water stop volunteers is needed (e.g. how to hand people cups, clearly stating what you are holding so that runners can hear, etc)

What Disney should have factored in is the overall increased demand for fluids. It's not like the weather forecast was a surprise.

Sort of ironic that Disney has a whole side business to teach companies the "Disney way". Seems like they need to go to school themselves on race management. After 20 years, you'd think they'd have some of this stuff figured out.

Okay than yeah they had no excuse to have the water stations that mismanaged if it's run by Run Disney. The temperature and humidity forecast had been out for a while they knew what was coming. They knew how many runners were running. They should have accounted for the increase in water/Gatorade consumption.

 

[Tam1067]

I had two great runs.

Got through the expo painlessly (though I did not shop the Run Disney stuff), did the 10k and had a PR in the half beating my previous time (in the WDW half) by 9 minutes. I was really happy with that.

I was in corral C. Water and PowerAde were always available.

Yes, the corrals were messed up during the 10k but we got to the half early enough and had an easy time getting to the corral.

I'm sorry so many of you had a disappointing experience.

 

[jfinke]

Expo & 10k Review:

http://thebaldandtheblonde.com/2013/09/03/disney-dumbo-double-dare-expo/

http://thebaldandtheblonde.com/2013/09/06/disney-dumbo-double-dare-10k/

Half Marathon Review coming up.

 

[jpeka65844]

Expo & 10k Review:

http://thebaldandtheblonde.com/2013/09/03/disney-dumbo-double-dare-expo/

http://thebaldandtheblonde.com/2013/09/06/disney-dumbo-double-dare-10k/

Half Marathon Review coming up.

KC marathon???? I'm assuming you're a Kansas Citian? Olathe-ian here. And my friend from Blue Springs was in the A Corral too. Was it him you struck up a conversation with?????

 

[belle2211]

While I did have tons of fun at the races this weekend, it was definitely set up horribly. I've participated in every WDW race weekend since Princess 2011. I thought the expo for Princess this year at Coranado was horrible. But this beat it by far. 2 hours in line to buy rundisney merchandise? Oh, and that's after shopping with hardly anything on the rack, poor cast members brining out shirts by the handful only to have them grabbed up in seconds. Finally around 1:30pm, they closed to merchandise booth so they could reorganize.

The 10k corral system was horrible. I like to arrive early so I'm not stressed about running late. But because of the 5k, you couldn't get in until the last minute. I did enjoy the 10k course though. I liked the picture stops and we took full advantage of them.

We decided to leave later for the half corrals since we couldn't get into the 10k ones early. That was a disaster. Like previous people said, the D corral was packed. Luckily for us (but not other D people), we got stuck heading to the back of the corral and ended up at the side of D near the front. I thought they would let the D corral go and we would filter back and through. But they just had us turn around and go so we were kind of in the front of D. I didn't enjoy the half course that much. I knew that it was a lot of Anaheim but for some reason I still thought there would be entertainment I'd enjoy. Like there is on Osceola. Didn't think about the fact that there couldn't be Disney entertainment. SO the 2 miles of car shows bored us. I would like to thank whoever said to wear sunglasses--it was so bright and I was so grateful to have them! Running through Anaheim stadium was fun. And I'm from Orlando so the temps didn't bother us at all. In fact, we were only 10 seconds away from a PR!

I did get injured though. Around mile 10 my right foot started hurting around the Achilles area (I think!) I limped the rest of the day and the next. It's still tender to the touch but not really painful to walk. However I now have pain in the bottom of my left heel! Gah! No idea what that one is! I start marathon training on Tuesday and have a half at the end of the month, ToT, W&D, and Space Coast half coming up before the full so I'm reallllly hoping its nothing serious that I have to take time off for!

 

[jfinke]

KC marathon???? I'm assuming you're a Kansas Citian? Olathe-ian here. And my friend from Blue Springs was in the A Corral too. Was it him you struck up a conversation with?????

Technically, I live in Olathe as well. However, I am stuck in the OP/Lenexa/Olathe triangle where the zipcodes and city lines do not match up, so I just say I am in Lenexa.

No, he told me he was from OP. I did a search on KS finishers and there was one person who beat me in both races from OP. I assume it was him.

 

[longhorns2]

Here's my 10K review

Working on Kids Races and the Half later this week.

In short- doing back to back races was NOT bad at all.

I loved the 10K race- even with corral issues. I think they needed more water stops though- I even had my belt but stll could have used more water and powerade. Lots of characters, lots of new, fun characters, and as opposed to WDW races, I never felt crowded or penned in other than the corral walk. That did stink- but it wasn't a mile like WDW so I was cool with that.

The Half was a much better experience for me, and I'm a back of the pack runner. Didn't have any issues with water or powerade- I thought they were really good at keeping them both flowing!

I'm going DDD in 2014 - thought this would be 1 and done, but I really loved the experience. Yes, it was hot, and NO I didn't expect it to be that humid. And most so cal residents claim this was not the norm.

 

[longhorns2]

I don't understand why having more people participating in a new race (10K) meant that the children's races would get fouled up logistically. They knew exactly how many children to expect. The waiting in the corral without entertainment for 2 hours for a one-two minute sprint doesn't seem to have any connection to people running a Dumbo Dash.

I'm thinking- and it's just a guess here- that personnel might have been stretched thin since they were doing 3 events back to back. We did the kids races too, and while not AWESOME, I didn't think it was terrible. The corralling of the kids was dumb- I agree.

Again- a guess- is that this will not repeat. the 5K and kids races will move to Friday, which means expo will open Thurs. This should help both expo issues and the kids races IMO. GSC has this schedule and so does the Tink, so I think this one was a schedule conflict that required them to do the races back to back. Like maybe they couldn't get permits to do it another day? They rolled the dice.

I always thought the 10K was going to start late due to the 5K... and sure enough it did. There just wasn't enough time to make that work.

I did it. Holy cow I actually did it. I was hobbling at the end. My legs decided to cramp up as soon as we were clear of the sweeps at mile 10 and so I dropped from a pretty good pace to a crawl. But I finished! Looking forward to room service at the hotel and a massage after hobbling over to the Mandara Spa.

Hoping to be back next year to try again with a lot less weight on me!

Congrats girl! It was fun, wasn't it? In a sick way...lol

We did it! Wasn't pretty for me but I finished in the allocated time and DH and I got C2C really hot...sorry I brought the heat and humidity from TX. Off to a celebratory dinner at Napa Rose !

Good for you! We finished as well, and DH will get his C2C at W&D. Fun race! Temps were cooler than TX, but I stayed on the TM the whole time for training. I wasnt going out in that mess. So I did suffer a little on the 10K- more than needed.

 

[DenverVal]

I must say I'm somewhat surprised by a lot of these comments... As a veteran of all of the DL races, I will say that while this was one of the warmer years, it wasn't the warmest by far... It's inland, it's in Southern California, it's in August, if it's anything but warm, consider us amazingly lucky! The weather should not be a surprise to anyone. Runners who train through the summer in most locations will be well prepared.

It's difficult to train for humidity when you live somewhere where there isn't any. And it makes a HUGE difference. Having grown up in soCal, this degree of humidity was not normal. I expected the heat. I did not expect the humidity, and I was unable to cool down, so had to slow down.

I, too, noticed a lot of people who wanted to be front and center of every photo opportunity, and jumped in front of me or stopped unexpectedly. I don't see many of them in my photos, probably because my bib is not visible and not assigned to me, but I looked through the photos of one pair who surprised me by cutting in front of me, and they did this the entire race. I am going to start photo-bombing these rude people from now on, and do my best to make sure I can't be cropped out. Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave. Keep moving.

 

[longhorns2]

Kids Race recap! If anyone is interested. I really do NOT like doing the kids on the same day as my run. Maybe I'm a high needs runner- lol- but I thought it was all too much! Anyone else?

http://margaritasmilesandmouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/dumbo-double-dare-race-recap-part-2.html

 

[Davidg83]

It's difficult to train for humidity when you live somewhere where there isn't any. And it makes a HUGE difference. Having grown up in soCal, this degree of humidity was not normal. I expected the heat. I did not expect the humidity, and I was unable to cool down, so had to slow down.

I, too, noticed a lot of people who wanted to be front and center of every photo opportunity, and jumped in front of me or stopped unexpectedly. I don't see many of them in my photos, probably because my bib is not visible and not assigned to me, but I looked through the photos of one pair who surprised me by cutting in front of me, and they did this the entire race. I am going to start photo-bombing these rude people from now on, and do my best to make sure I can't be cropped out. Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave. Keep moving.

I had one guy jump in front of me at the castle. He was so close that I didn't have time to stop or move and ended up plowing right into him. It's so rude AND dangerous to other runners when people do that. Guess that picture didn't turn out as he had expected.

 

[longhorns2]

My final recaps!

http://margaritasmilesandmouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/dumbo-double-dare-race-recap-part-3.html

And

Finally....

http://margaritasmilesandmouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/dumbo-double-dare-race-recap-part-3_10.html

 

[pixarmom]

Kids Race recap! If anyone is interested. I really do NOT like doing the kids on the same day as my run. Maybe I'm a high needs runner- lol- but I thought it was all too much! Anyone else?

http://margaritasmilesandmouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/dumbo-double-dare-race-recap-part-2.html

Hi Patty! Thanks for the links - enjoyed your reports! I would not have minded the kids' races on the same day if runDisney organized them differently. I ran the 10K with my husband and our teens, and then we had a La Brea breakfast reservation. After breakfast, my parents brought our 6-year-old for the 200 meter dash, and we all met for the kids' races at 9:30 in the family reunion area. I expected that we'd be finished around 10:30. Not so! We didn't leave the Mickey and Friends parking structure until after 11:30. With all the standing and waiting with no water or entertainment for the kids, it was a bit of a downer. Our boys loved the 10K and were happy to stay to see their brother to run, but were disappointed that runDisney didn't maintain the fun atmosphere that we expected or had seen from videos of past kids' runs. I'm guessing it's easier to keep that up if they aren't organizing several runs in one day.

For the PHM, we'll do the 5K on Friday, kids' race for our youngest on Saturday and then Princess Half on Sunday - I think I like that schedule better!