Yub nub! I ran today’s Star Wars Dark Side 10k as an Ewok. The revised runDisney costumes and weapons policy had me a little nervous about running with my spear but I figured if they were allowing plastic swords and lightsabers that I’d be ok… And I was fine. Nobody batted an eye at this little Ewok.
Mom had a logistical work schedule issue that precluded her joining me for today’s run. A bit of a bummer only because I have gotten used to her cheering me on… And it’s nice to have a personal chauffeur driver! Instead this morning I wound my way through the paradoxically over and under signaged routes to event parking at Epcot. Some road work construction flashing signs told me to use certain exits rather than following the usual permanent directional signs to the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Then other signs world direct me to follow the usual permanent signage. And ultimately the detours routed me back to the road I would have normally taken anyway. Part of the issue is that there’s twenty ways to get anywhere on Disney property. It may not always be the most direct route but all roads lead to wherever you want to go. It’s magical and frustrating all in one.
And that might be the best way to describe the runDisney organization as a whole – magical and frustrating all in one. More on that in a moment.
Having arrived at a little after 4:10 am, I was astonished to discover they were already closing the pre-race photo opp lines. It was indeed the same character options as the day before but obviously today I was dressed as an Ewok rather than BB-8.
I was able to grab a running shot from the rathtar before they opened the corrals.
In a more typical routing for a runDisney event, the starting corrals were a good 10-15 minute walk from the pre-race staging area. As this was the first point-to-point course I’ve seen them do I was intrigued at how they’d handle the transportation plan to get us back to Epcot from the ESPN Wide World of Sports finish. It turned out they handled it poorly. But again, more on that later.
This panorama gives a flavor of the crowd held in the staging area BEFORE heading to the corrals:
I once again was lucky enough to place in the “A” corral. Rumor has it that due to walls for construction, parts of the course were exceedingly narrow and bottlenecky. As a result, waves were going every ten minutes… Meaning the last corral would be starting almost an hour after I did… Or as it turned out, just as I was finishing.
The start line patter was almost identical to the 5k, albeit the storm troopers referred to this event as Phase 2 of our training tests to determine if we had what it takes to join the First Order. There’s a joke to be made about the first test should have been shooting at the broad side of a barn; anyone who hit the barn should’ve been immediately drummed out of the service.
As always, it’s nice to see some fireworks at the start of any race.
This was an odd course — some overlap with the 5k obviously as we ran the backside of World Showcase but then we turned and ran through the Boardwalk area to get over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Once again I snagged a photo with R2-D2 and Chewbacca:
Inexplicably they didn’t take us past Star Tours and the various Star Wars themed elements of the park. Come to think of it, that’s entirely explicable — because of construction and walled off areas, there’s really no place to take us back there, just as there’s really no place for park visitors to go back there at the moment either.
Instead, they took us down past the Hollywood Tower of Terror and out onto the highway.
From the highway, a automated disembodied voice over the portable PA system warned, “Caution Runners: Dirt Road Ahead.” This first road lead us eventually along the sports fields of ESPN. There were a few photo op staged settings but not a lot of characters.
I suspect runDisney has decided it’s best to offer more characters at the pre- and post-race areas to help alleviate line congestion on the course that could cause people to be swept and receive a DNF (did not finish) due to course time limits. Unfortunately this still doesn’t resolve the line congestion for characters as it simply moves the lines to the finish area… And a hard out of 9 am for the characters still makes for some unhappy runners denied a photo with Darth Vader or Boba Fett. I’m not sure what the solution is, but runDisney is far from solving it.
I finished in just under an hour; Carissa Bealert, one of the usual suspects race announcers, said I was unofficially the first Ewok. But even being in the first corral and putting up a respectable time, the post-race photo lines were already long… And would only get longer as more runners crossed the finish line.
There was a slightly drizzle at one point, prompting characters to be evacuated by order of Captain Phasma… Who I was two people away from seeing. Why there is no contingency plan for rain in Florida, a place where… Spoiler Alert!… It very often rains!… is beyond me.
Fortunately, a check of the radar prompted our Dark Side friends to re-emerge from the shadows… Albeit some looked a little taller, some a little shorter than when they had left.
I prioritized some photos — Darth Vader was always twice as long a wait as any others so I skipped him. All told, it took me about as long to get what few photos I could at the finish as it did to run the 10k.
***
***
***
But that wait was only the beginning. Remember how I said this was a point to point race? Well, they had to get us back from point B to point A. And that proved incredibly difficult. The line for the Epcot bus snaked back and forth the length of a large parking lot SIX times. As we slowly made our way forward, shuffling single file I suppose to hide our numbers, we ultimately were thanked by a trying-to-be-positive cast member for our patience and told they were moving as fast as they could. They could load two to three buses at a time for a total of 100 to 150 people at one go. But it still took me over an hour and fifteen minutes to get on a bus. I should have just run back to Epcot — it would’ve been faster.
Traffic was a mess getting out of ESPN as the expo had opened for the day and people were streaming in to park as the buses were trying to leave. Logistically it was a mess. My suggestion would be to bus us all to ESPN in the morning, start there and run back to Epcot for the finish. We all then would be at our cars. But what do I know?
All in all, I’m glad to have done it and yeah I’m still a little bummed to skip the Dark Side Half and Kessel Run challenge tomorrow, I will not regret missing this bus scenario again as it will be the same start/finish fiasco.
In the meantime, I’ve driven 6 hours out to Destin, FL, for their inaugural marathon. That’s a story for another day… Though in some ways a horse of a similar color.