Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 10k

I loved this race! I ran it as part of the Dopey’s Challenge. This inaugural 10k took place on Friday, a day after the 5k. The organization was superb. The setup for the start and finish was identical to the 5k race. After being dropped off by one of the race motorcoaches, you either head left to check your gear bag or head towards the right for the corrals. Runners enter corral pens and are then released one corral at a time starting with corral A.
The start and the finish lines were the same as the 5k. The course had us out further on the highways than the 5k course and took us around a loop of Epcot as well as the Boardwalk before heading to the finish line. The course was pretty flat and fast. There were plenty of photo ops if you wish to take it easy. I loved the course even though most of it was run through in the dark!

Doing the 10k is part of the Dopey challenge of which there were 7,000 runners taking part: 5k on the first day, 10k on the second day, half on the third, and a full marathon on the final day.
Anyway, 2014 was the inaugural year of the 10k during Walt Disney World marathon weekend and I was impressed! The 10k set high expectations for the half marathon (which were decidedly not met. In fact, the half completely sucked).
The 10k ran on a stretch of roadway for the first three boring miles or so then wound around Epcot in all its sparkly nighttime glory. It detoured into the Walt Disney World resort, which I thought was still part of Epcot and spent all day at Epcot looking for Hurricane Hanna. I was thoroughly impressed with the resort with its beach front and pirate ship, and to add some sprinkles to the cake, a lone old lady with a walker sat at one of the benches and cheered us on at 6 in the morning. Awww. We then ran through the real Epcot with its spaceball and finished at the start area. Yay!
The medal and red long sleeved tech shirt featured Minnie, the mascot for the race. My first red running shirt! The only cons to this race were the lines for the character pictures (to be expected) and my right chicken wing chaffed so badly I woke up from my post-​race nap burning in pain. But it isn’t Disney’s fault my right arm is flabby.
Even the post-​race handing out of the medals and the congestion of checking off Dopey requirements were a significant step up from the 5k. Onto the next requirement: the half.