This past weekend my sister Carol Anne, my husband Scott, and I all ran our first RunDisney event! We completed Mickey’s Holiday 5k, which is a part of RunDisney’s Wine & Dine Marathon weekend.

Since it’s RunDisney, running in costume was an absolute MUST for both Carol Anne and I.  Approximately 70% of the participants ran in costume; most of them holiday-themed or well-known Disney characters. We chose Belle and Minnie Mouse, with floral headpieces to top off the look.

Here we are in our corral at our very early arrival time of 5:30am. We boarded a bus to at 5am to report to our corral on time. Ouch! Luckily, we had planned ahead and stashed some bottled Starbucks drinks in our mini-fridge the night before. The sun wasn’t up, but we were ready to go!

Spoiler alert: we got finish line bananas! We did quite well in the actual run, although I would encourage anybody who participates to NOT try to make this a personal record race. The best part is the fact that you are running THROUGH a Disney World park, so take the time to enjoy your surroundings. Our race went through Animal Kingdom before opening. We enjoyed running through some behind the scenes areas & seeing the majesty of Mt. Everest at sunrise.

We had a magical time at the run, and somehow still managed to make it to all 4 parks in the same weekend (thank you, caffeine!). All 3 of us agreed that a RunDisney event is definitely worth the hype and a great way to “earn” those vacation calories.

Next up: the Hot Chocolate Run in Atlanta! Are you planning to run any races in the upcoming year?