Race recap: Dopey Challenge 2025

After my mom died by suicide a little over a month before Dopey, I debated heavily whether or not to continue with my training and/or to even go for the race. She was always so supportive of my running, even if she never showed up to any races. I immediately moved back in with my dad the day she died, and had bought a ton of stuff to set up a temporary work station and bedroom. I put my life on hold because her life ended, and I did what had to be done. In the middle of all of this, I of course had laid down my usual fall and winter tune-up races to prepare for Dopey. All of it was coming to a head 6 weeks + 5 days after her death.

Race registrations, plane tickets, a timeshare, park reservations, meal celebrations with friends were all pre-planned. Was this time to discard those plans, or should I proceed? I put out an SOS to the runDisney Facebook group, and got a varied bunch of answers. One piece of advice that really stood out was to continue with my laid plans, not because I was selfish but because I had already sacrificed so much to take care of her final affairs. So, with that, my dad traveled with us to Dallas for our tune-up marathon, saw me continue a little bit of training, and then went with us to Disney World for a week.

Thursday 5K

I was able to snag a last minute 5K charity bib for him, so it was also his first race. It was good to have him there with us, to experience a Disney race for the first time. I wish my mom was with us of course. I think she would’ve really liked the fireworks, festivities, and scenery of Epcot. We stopped for lots of photos of course. It’s not a timed race, but they do try to nudge you off the course. There were still a crowd of people behind us, and they had not shut down any character photos, so we knew we were in the clear. It was a fun finish line photo. I thought he was a good sport, because most of Disney races are just standing around in the cold waiting for them to begin.

Friday 10K

The race itself was a blur. I was trained up enough for the 10K so I didn’t have a problem finishing it. I really enjoy the 10K distance. This is one of the better distances because the course is so nice. Not really any parking lots…mostly in Epcot and along the Boardwalk hotels. It was fairly cold, but not enough to run with mylar. I actually enjoy 10Ks quite a bit and have no clue why I don’t do more of them outside of Disney.

Also, look at this cutie patootie! She races with her human in all the runDisney events of the weekend. I’ve seen her on social media but never in person. So adorable. She has her own registration and medal, which is amazing.

Saturday Half Marathon

This race was also a blur but it’s usually the best race of the whole weekend. You get a lot of park time, and lots of great photos.

I don’t think I really started relaxing into race weekend until this race. It was wet and rainy. Pretty sure I had on a jacket but clearly in these photos I had already stuffed it into my hydration pack.

There was a lot of construction going on in between the hotels and the main entrance of Magic Kingdom. I’ll never understand why they took us through the construction. There was a significant bottleneck, and the sidewalk pretty much dumped you in front of the lagoon. They revived a water version of the electrical parade, so people pretty much just stopped in their tracks to take photos (which of course causes a slew of collisions behind them). I have videos of them but never got a chance to upload it to Instagram. It was pretty cool, and helped break up the monotony. It was so boring between Epcot to Magic Kingdom, so the “parade” was a welcome distraction.

Running through Magic Kingdom was fun of course. I loved seeing all of the happy places I’ve spent with my husband and friends. For a moment there, I was able to cast aside some of the stress around my mom’s death.

Sunday Marathon

This is the distance I fret about most. After my DNF in Dallas, I was even more worried about my ability to finish. Despite my being swept, I knew at that time I was on pace to finish under the cutoff for Disney, but I really wanted that win.

The Disney World Marathon hits all 4 parks, as well as one of the water parks (or at least the parking lot). I spend a lot of time at Disney World, so I pretty much recognized every place in every park we ran through. I was seeded in corral D, which gave me an extra hour to finish the marathon. I definitely needed it.

There were a few PRs that day:

I did not run with any music. However, Disney has a lot of on-course entertainment, so earphones would’ve been futile anyway
I cried from mile 16 to 23. The longest distance I’ve ever run while crying. The run from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom is punishing and boring. If you thought you couldn’t be bored at Disney World, you are most certainly wrong. Mile 11-17 takes you through the Magic Kingdom parking lot and then winds you through the backroads into Animal Kingdom. The only saving grace are the animals that come say hello, as well as the Animal Nutritional Science team. They bring out their best puns for the course. It is typically here that I cross paths with Erik. I saw him and called out his name but he didn’t hear me. The race is so congested that there was no real way to flag him down after he passed me. I was already so stressed out from the race so I ended up just crying until after the Blizzard Beach parking lot. I told myself that I had to really put my head down and eventually stop crying by mile 23, because she died on the 23rd, and that’s exactly how long I gave myself to cry until I had to put in the work to finish.
I looked over my shoulder so much over 26.2 miles and did not see the balloon ladies. Not because I had gotten any faster, but because of that early corral. I’ll take any win I can get at this point.
I finished with a Mickey pretzel. I wanted to grab a coke too, but didn’t want to carry a bottle or an open cup of soda.

I didn’t stop for many photos. My friend who was interviewed on a podcast once said that the best photo/souvenir from the race is the one with your finisher medal. I’ve ran plenty of Disney races before and have lots of photos. I wasn’t in too much of a photo mood but I think the photographers did a great job of capturing the few times I smiled that weekend.