Registration:
Signing up via Active, registration for the Disneyland Half Weekend events is more difficult than running the event itself! Selling out in minutes, it’s wise to organise a reminder or alarm for the on sale time to avoid disappointment.

Expo:
RunDisney certainly know how to put on an expo, with a range of exhibitors selling clothing, sparkle skirts, shoes, race food - in fact, anything you can think of. The packet pickup was located underneath the Disneyland Hotel Convention Centre and then followed back upstairs straight to the T-Shirt pickup.

New Balance shoes were certainly a drawcard at the expo this year, and runners were encouraged to sign up online for Thursday/Friday purchases and walk ins were accommodated on the Saturday.

RunDisney Ambassadors were also scheduled to give hourly talks at the main stage, which separated the expo with the RunDisney Merchandise booth.

Swag:
Included in the race cost was a t-shirt. For the 5K it was a unisex plain cotton tee with Stitch on the front and the Disneyland 5K logo. For the 10K, Half and Dumbo Double Dare shirts they were gender specific Champion technical tees - true to size and feel amazing on! The colours and images were great this year and definitely something that I would wear again.

Course:
The 10K course was again outside the Disneyland Hotel, however continued down to the Convention Centre, looped around and back behind the Tower of Terror, through Cars Land and around Paradise Bay. The course itself is rather flat until you run in the secret tunnel connecting the two parks, there is a slight incline but nothing to be too concerned about. This way avoids the main plaza, which you do run through in the 5K and the Half. As you follow the park around Tomorrowland, through backstage and back down Toontown to Fantasyland and through the castle. There were enough parade floats, and Disney employees cheering you on backstage to pass that time. You do need to ensure your footing is steady as there appeared to be sections of the path that were lifting up causing some trouble to some runners.

There were 3 water stations on the course and a medical station as you ran into Disneyland (helpful if you forget the Body Glide!)

Once out of Disneyland the course again ran through Downtown Disney, which did cause dilemmas to those who had finished and were waiting for the crowd switchbacks to flow through.

Post Run:
Once finished, the run is really organised - medals are collected immediately and then runners are filtered off to Coast to Coast collection (Half), Dumbo Double Dare wristband/medal collection (10K/Half) or straight through to the Finisher’s photos. The further you walked down the chute, the less of a line there was for pictures the whole weekend. At the end of the Half there is a couple of backgrounds for Dumbo Double Dare finishers.

Once pictures are done you walk through to collect your sealed runner’s food box and banana. Finally you walk through bag check (which was next to no line) before being spat out at the main holding area - with streaming of the finish line.

All walkways back around the resort were well marked, and volunteers were able to advise the route to walk. Downtown Disney is really only affected after the 5K and the 10K, while it is clear for the Half (as runners are directed behind Paradise Pier hotel).