runDisney’s Dopey Challenge: Walt Disney World 5K

This is part one of a recap of the 2018 runDisney Dopey Challenge. For the intro post click here!

The Dopey Challenge begins nice and easy with the Walt Disney World 5k on Thursday. At 3 miles, for an experienced runner, this seems pretty easy, right? That’s the tricky part of the Dopey Challenge- you start with this nice easy distance and before you know it you’re at the start line of a marathon!

The Walt Disney World 5k is a great starting race as it’s untimed and family friendly. I saw lots of fellow Dopey’s bringing the whole family along to get the weekend started. For my Dopey Challenge my sister Caitlin was along for the ride (run.)

Tip: Research the weather and dress accordingly

We rolled out of Coronado Springs Resort approximately 3:30am to begin the cold and dark wait for the race start at 5:30am. Fortunately through our previous runDisney experience we brought plenty of warm clothes to bundle ourselves up with.

If you’ve read any other post of my blog you might know that I LOVE coffee, especially from Dunkin’ Donuts. Thus, how our costumes for this race were born:

Our custom t-shirts say Dopey’s run on Dunkin’ and were made by an awesome facebook seller. If I can find her page I’ll link her back! We actually stopped at a Dunkin’ in Orlando the day prior to pick up the munchkin boxes and some coffees. We did run and pass out the donuts but we thought it was safer to take the cups empty so we drank the coffees the day prior!

The 5k course takes you through the Epcot parking lot, into the park behind Test Track, around World Showcase, and back out to the parking lot by looping around Spaceship Earth.

We took many pretend coffee drinking pictures!

I love running through World Showcase in the dark. All the buildings are lit up and the torches are glowing- it’s the perfect way to see the sun rise! The beauty of the 5k is that it’s untimed so you can walk the whole thing if you please. We wanted to take it easy but it was so cold so we decided to at least maintain a slow job to keep moving!

Horace was greeting by The Land Pavilion so we jumped in line (and passed out munchkins while we waited!)

Generally I find that the character lines are the 5k are wayyyy too long for us to consider wanting to wait so we were pleasantly surprised that we only waited 5-7 minutes for Horace. After meeting him we headed for the finish line so we could get on the bus and warm up!

The 5k is a great start to the Dopey Challenge! It was the perfect way to start the weekend and shake out some of the excited energy I was feeling. We had a lot of fun! Best part? The race is done with enough time for us to go back to Coronado Springs to take a well deserved nap before heading out to Epcot.