2013 WDW Family 5K Race Report

The first race of our 2013 Coast to Coast Challenge was the Family 5K. This race starts in Epcot's parking lot and follows a route into the park for a trip around World Showcase and part of Future World.

This was our fourth time doing this race and we've watched the number of participants almost double to 10,000 people this year. Amazingly, Disney had a good corral system figured out and everything seemed to go smoothly. We were also lucky to be in Corral A (assigned based on registration date).

The morning started off with a 4:15am wake up call and quick drive to Epcot from our hotel, The Boardwalk. We wore our new Teamtizzel.com shirts we made specifically for these two weekends. Since Dave wore a Duffy outfit last year alot of our friends were confusing Tizzel with Duffy. We joined the rest of our Team AllEars friends and had fun chatting with everyone.

We assembled for the team photo then took off for the corral. We had a great time hanging out with our friends before the race. When the fireworks went off it was race time! We made sure we said hi to our friend, the race announcer, Rudy Novotny.

The first mile plus of this race is boring. It's parking lot and woods. Occasionally you will pass junk, like a Jungle Cruise boat, but that is it. Usually we stroll this whole race. Dave had the bright idea of picking up the pace so we could get to the good stuff quicker. Mile one was completed within the 16 minute range - last year we were in the 20 minute range.

The fun begins once you come out of the Mexico Pavilion. Our first character sighting was Daisy Duck in her Norway outfit. That was different. The line was long, but we got through quickly.
Next character sighting was in the American Pavilion. Colonial Goofy. Yet another long line.
In France we visited French Pluto. Still lots of people flowing through the course. We had fun talking to friends as we passed each other.

Yes that clock means a 32 minute mile.

Mile 3 had one more character stop. It was Canadian Donald. After stopping for that picture we made our way into Future World. We were tapped on the shoulders by our good friends Faye and Jim. They started in Corral D and maintained the required course pace and caught us. Fun! We passed the mile 3 marker indicating a 1:13 time. We were now about 5 minutes behind last year's time. The four of us crossed the finish together and got some great pictures.

Once we got our medallions we headed back to the Team AllEars Cheer section to welcome the rest of the runners in. We stayed until all the runners came in to the finish area. All-in-all another fun 5k.