Tighurt's Walt Disney Family Safari 5K 2008 Race Report
For a race that promised no results and no awards, this was an awful lot of fun. Packet pick-up was in the Butterfly parking lot of Disney's Animal Kingdom. The set-up was huge - dozens of port-a-lets, tents, scaffolding, etc. The registration was huge too - more than 3000 runners signed up for a running tour of Animal Kingdom. The runners were entertained before the race by a number of Disney entertainers interviewing guests and bantering with each other an a small stage by the start line. Everything was decorated safari-style - Disney re-themes this race every year. Even the entertainers were sporting colonial British dialects - a la Jane from Tarzan (who was there too, by the way.) The race started after Mickey (in safari gear, of course) mounted the platform to wish the runners luck. Disney does nothing small, so the starting gun was actually a fireworks display shooting out of the scaffolding. Very cool.
The race course took us around a huge section of the parking lot. The reason for this (I assume) was to try and stretch out the huge crowd before we reached the narrow entrance passages of Animal Kingdom. We ran in the main gates at 1 mile and headed left through the park past the Tree of Life and the entance to Camp Minniemickey. The race started early so the park was empty except for dozens of Disney employees who were out on the route to cheer us on. We crossed the bridge into the Africa section of the park, took a sharp right, and headed into a backstage area. We ran on an access road that is directly between the train tracks that lead to Conservation Station. After a turn-around we headed back into the park, through Asia, and by Animal Kingdom's biggest thrill attraction: Everest. A quick trek under a giant dinosaur later we headed out the side of the park through another cast gate. After a short run we arrived back in the parking lot for the finish.
While the race had no official results, a clock was running for participants to check their own times. The entertainers were encouraging runners to tell their friends whatever time they wanted! No trophies for winners, but medals for all finishers. The medals were huge, but they weren't metal. They were a rubbery plastic of some sort featuring Mickey in his best Indiana Jones gear. It sounds rather tacky but is actually very cool. Disney provided lots of Powerade, fruit, and snack cakes for all. Nice goody bag with a Sharpie and other fun stuff. Even the t-shirt was excellent: light blue with a cool safari logo on it.
I had a nice run. It was very crowded, and I was really just trying to have a safe warm-up for the marathon in two days. Maybe for this reason I ran a decent (for me) time without too much effort.
