As luck would have it, just as i was getting ready to post about how I thought they would change the marathon course for the Walt Disney World (WDW) Marathon Weekend… runDisney just goes ahead and posts all the courses & the event guide!
So instead of posting that I’m just going to jump in and do what I did last year and break down each race and the course changes as compared to last year.
Since this year has pretty significant changes to EVERY course I’m going to break it into a post per race and talk about strategies and other information along the way.
With that, let’s kick things off with the 2020 WDW 5k!
Start time for the WDW 5k is 5:30am and there will be 3 corrals probably released in smaller groups.
Another thing worth noting is that the finish line area for all the races will be similar to past years but bag check appears to be in the middle of the reunion area rather than at the entrance/exit to the start and finish areas. This will mean more back and forth for some of the races as you drop bags and get to the start line. Also could mean a longer shuffle for racers to get to their warm clothes after the race which… is not ideal. I’m guessing they are trying to move people away from the major exits from the finish line, they always have some trouble keeping those areas clear right outside bag check pick-up because runners just want to stop moving after they’ve gotten through the finish line chute. We’ll see how this plays out but I’m not sure about this change.
Now on to the course changes!
So there are definitely some obvious differences with the main one being that we will not be running through Future World at all. This is the same thing that was seen at Wine and Dine and understandable since most of Future World is under construction right now and would be hard/not very fun to run through.
A: The start line looks pushed slightly more into the parking lot.
B: Looks like we might take a different road, looking at Google Maps there is a different spur that would straighten out this part of the route.
C: Entering between Norway and China instead of Mexico and Norway like we did in 2019.
D: Slight out and back before heading backstage and coming out between the UK and Canada like 2019.
E: No Future World 🙁 We run around the front of World Showcase instead.
F: Exit between Mexico and Norway.
G: Taking Avenue of the Stars to the front of the park where we will still run out of the park in the same way to the same finish line location.
The plus of this course is that we get to run around World Showcase more which is by far the prettiest part of this course every year. The downside for me, much less “on stage” time. The strategy for this course is not much different than past years but we may have a new photo op looking across to the American Adventure from Future World. However, I’m not sure if they will be able to take as many nice shots of runners with Spaceship Earth in the background which are always some of my favorites.
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