Bib numbers and corral assignments have been announced for the 2014 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend! Since these were first released, there’s been quite a bit of chatter across different social media outlets about the changes from previous years.
Both the 2013 Tower of Terror 10-miler and the 2013 Wine & Dine half-marathon had more, smaller corrals with shorter times between them than prior RunDisney Events. I’ve run all four Wine & Dine half-marathons and I definitely felt the new system was an improvement over past years. I’ve started that race from the front corral and from the back corral, but this past year I felt like I was starting with more runners that kept the same pace as me and I felt much less crowded in the tight spots on the course.
I’m hopeful that the new corral system will have a positive impact on the crowding I experienced during the Walt Disney World Marathon. Others, however, are very upset that they are starting from a “lower” corral than they deserve. What they don’t understand is that RunDisney’s ordering system is more about your bib number than your corral letter. RunDisney assigns bib numbers by estimated finish time, although it does seem that runners participating in the Goofy and Dopey Challenges have been pushed back a bit as RunDisney expects us to be slower than our usual times. Many of those with complaints feel they “deserve” to be on Corral A, but since the corrals are so much smaller, they may actually be in Corral D with a lower bib number than runners had in the back of Corral A last year!
The most rational post breaking down the changes for RunDisney 2014 Marathon Weekend comes from my friend Karen at RunTravelKnit. She’s looked at both the runner numbers and the money involved for an extremely well done analysis of the situation.
