As we’ve mentioned before, the 10k distance is our favorite to run. The 6.2 miles present the perfect blend of challenge and “doability”. We wouldn’t necessarily say we were looking forward to doing the Walt Disney World 10k for the Run Disney Dopey Challenge, but it was the race we were most comfortable doing.

The Theme and Start

This year’s mascot for the 10k was everyone’s favorite female mouse Minnie! Minnie was back to greet runners prior to and following the race. Unfortunately for us, her line was massive. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to see her, so we got into Mickey’s shorter line and got a picture with him instead. Not bad for a second option!

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Finishing up with the characters so quickly allowed us to do something we don’t normally have the opportunity to do, which is get to our corral right as it opened. Run Disney separates their corrals into letters based on your estimated completion time. However, something that we’ve seen in previous races is now official and that’s the mini corral.

Run Disney now separates each corral in several smaller waves each timed two minutes apart. Two minutes may not seem like much, but it makes a HUGE difference to help race-start congestion. By getting to the corral as early as we did we snagged a spot in the very first wave of corral D.

If you have the opportunity, try getting into the first wave of your corral when you run!

Characters

As with every race, there were a good variety of characters to see along your journey. We didn’t stop to see them all, but we made sure to make note of who was there.

It’s important to note: Not all characters translate between years, so just because we saw someone in 2019 doesn’t mean you’re going to see them in 2020 and beyond. We are listing out the characters here more so as a reference point.

Here are the characters we saw and their locations:

• Mary Poppins — Located on the overpass just outside of Epcot’s entrance. She wasn’t a character you could stop and see, she just gave her encouragement as you ran.
• Wreck-it Ralph and Vanellope Von Schweetz — On the side of the road shortly after Epcot’s entrance
• Chip and Dale (Rescue Rangers) — On the side of the road just after one of the off ramps
• Evil Witch from Snow White — On the side of the road shortly before the back entrance of Epcot
• Stilt Walkers — At the back entrance to Epcot
• Jiminy Cricket — Inside the Italy Pavilion
• Abu — Inside the Morocco Pavilion
• Football Goofy (wears pads and a helmet!) — Outside of the ESPN restaurant at Disney’s Boardwalk
• Max from A Goofy Movie — Right at the entrance to World Showcase
• The Ball

It’s interesting to see that even though the race is double the distance of the 5k, there are only two additional character stops. We also noticed a lot of characters right at the beginning, with a bigger gap in character appearances throughout the race.

We don’t know the exact reason for this, but our ideas are that Run Disney only has so much room on the side of a road for characters and their sets, so there just might not be enough room. The other idea we had was if you’re waiting in line for a character and get passed by the balloon ladies, you’ll need the extra space to catch up.

Matching our surprise and excitement over the characters from yesterday’s 5k, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to meet Football Goofy.

(It was especially fun because Jessica wore her Packers jacket to the race!)

We had a lot of fun and were extremely happy with our time. We’re taking it SUPER slowly, but we’re still finishing faster than we thought. Tomorrow is our first big test though with the half marathon. Wish us luck!

Miss our 5k report? Read it here!