14,000 Have Magical Experience at Walt Disney World Half Marathon

January 11, 2009 by Larry Eder from www.runblogrun.com (Florida) The Running Network has had their annual meetings at the Walt Disney World Marathon since 1994, and we have had an official arrangement with Disney sports since 1996. The beauty of the arrangement is that our 24 publications have their national meetings, we provide coverage for the various events that take part of the WDW weekend. It was also a great weekend for our publishers to get a feel for the health of the sport.

For me, WDW weekend is a litmus test. Race director Jon Hughes and his team have consistently tried new approaches to old problems or challenges and have been remarkably successful. The announcing has been done by Creigh Kelly, one of the sport's top announcers, and a team of local celebrities for the history of the WDW cheer on the starters and then entertain, for several hours the families, friends and fans of the WDW Half Marathon and Marathon, presented by Cigna.

There is music, Disney characters, and many of the lucky finishers have their names called out as they cross the finish line. Besides runners of all shapes, ages and sizes, there are some pretty impressive costumes. There is a Japanese male runner who runs as Minnie Mouse and runs under 1:30, even with stopping to have pictures taken with Jiminy Cricket and the Chipmunks! Several were dressed as Tinkerbell, with both female and male interpretations of this iconic character. Hats off to the gentlemen who dressed as Tinkerbell, waving his magic wand and wearing pink running shoes. One runner, who was passed by said Tinkerbell impersonator, mentioned, "You would never expect that Tinkerbell could drop under seven minute pace....." As we have seen many times at the WDW, expected the unexpected.

The WDW was the first major event to see that elite prize money just did not fit at the event. It has not diminished the event, nor diminished other events that have elite fields, WDW has walked or run its own way.

The WDW added a half marathon in 1998, and it doubled the field. This year, 45,000 runners and walkers have registered for the 5k, half marathon and marathon for this coming weekend.

It was not that long ago that WDW gave the half marathon a day and the marathon its day, giving each event its due respect and swelling the weekend fields over 40,000! This year, given the economy, 14,000 of the 17,000 accepted and signed half marathoners, showed up at the start.

Disney choreographs virtually every moment in the part. Your memories are to last a life time here and the WDW does try to live up to that goal. For nearly 14,000 runners, including David Jankowski and Elizabeth Chelagat, who won both the men's and women's half marathons this year, their yearly excursion through the Walt Disney World was a magical experience.

For more coverage: www.runningnetwork.com/read_feature/special-2009-walt-disney...