4 Things You Need to Know About the Wine and Dine Weekend!

The Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend is one of the best weekends you can have as a runDisney participant! The After Party is the main reason many people run it, and it’s no wonder why! Having your own mini Food and Wine Festival is amazing and a great way to reward yourself for your weekend! But before you go, here are 4 things you need to know!

1. Dogs are Welcome!

This will be the first runDisney weekend that you can bring your lovable dog with you!. Well…. That is if you are staying in certain resorts…

There is a fee involved and not all rooms are included at these resorts:

Art of Animation
Port Orleans Riverside
Yacht Club
Cabins at Ft Wilderness

If you are staying at one of these resorts, give Disney a call to see if your room qualifies to bring your pets.  407 – W – DISNEY

Now the flipside to that would be – if you are staying at one of these resorts, and are allergic to dogs!  Give Disney a call to request that you are not in a dog friendly room.

2. The New Course Includes Pandora!

How exciting!  This will be the first runDisney weekend that you can run through Pandora!  Animal Kingdom is your first park after leaving the Starting Line, so hopefully you will still be able to see it in the dark!

3. The Course Details!

I love looking at everything on the course and figuring out all the details!. And you guys know I don’t like porta potties so first up - where are the real bathrooms!

Real Bathrooms
Animal Kingdom
- As you enter Rfiki’s Planet Watch area
- Past the Festival of the Lion King on the Discovery River Side
- <none in Pandora>
- Across from Isle of Java on Discovery Island
- In Dinoland as you are leaving Animal Kingdom

Hollywood Studios
- Past Tower of Terror as you enter Sunset Boulevard
- As you leave Hollywood Boulevard by the Exit

Epcot
- Morocco
- American Adventure
- Germany
- Norway
- As you Leave Epcot

Next up is water stations and First Aid!

They have added more water stations than in earlier years of runDisney and this is a good thing! It can be so hot and humid that staying hydrating is really important!  9 Total this year!

Water Stations
Miles: 1,3,4,5,6,8,10,11,12

Food
Mile 8

And It is always a good thing to keep in mind where the first aid stations are.  Another big improvement this year is the number of first aid stations:  6 total.  Just knowing where they are can help you push through to get there!

First Aid
Miles: 1, 3, 5, 7.5, 9, 11

4. The Weather
Always look 10 Days Out and start planning.  The Wine and Dine has seen wild weather in the past – don’t go into the weekend blind.

Highs in 81/64 40% chance of thunderstorms
Very typical November Florida Day!
Plan for humidity – should be your biggest problem.  But, check the weather again before your leave!

Know about the weather...
Being Weather Wise in WDW for runDisney

So those are the 4 things you need to Know about the Wine and Dine Weeknd!
Having run in many different types of Half Marathons, runDisney really is the best at taking care of you - And giving you a Magical Race to enjoy! As will be the case for the Wine and Dine Weekend!

Please let me know if you bring your pets and how you felt the pet services were.
And let me know how much fun you had at the After Party!

Kesselrunner77@gmail.com

Download this episode of the Beyond the Kessel Run Podcast (right click and save)

We Rebel! A FanGirl Conversation

This week on the Broadcast I talk to FanGirl Megan Cullinan on beating Breast Cancer, being a FanGirl,  loving Star Wars, and running the Dark Side 5K!

Megan's blog, https://rebelcancerwar.wordpress.com/, is about her journey through Breast Cancer and surviving!

Megan not only shares her survivor story with us, we talk Phasma, The Last Jedi and The Dark Side Weekend coming up in April!

If you have any questions on the podcast, please let me know kesselrunner77@gmail.com

If you are a FanGirl and want to join us for the Star Wars Dark Side 5K, let me know!  We will all meet up!

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You can find all my podcasts, Beyond The Kessel Run, on Podbean, iTunes and Stitcher! Need help planning your Dark Side Vacation, contact TravelWithTheMagic! 

FAQ on the runDisney Health and Fitness EXPO!

The Health and Fitness Expo is essential to the runDisney Experience!  It’s a big deal and a big topic to discuss, so I’ve compiled the most commonly asked questions on the Expo.

The Princess 10K and The Frog

October 2017

Jonathan Seal joins me on the podcast to relive his experiences running the Inaugural 10K at the Princess Half Marathon Weekend in 2014!  Listen to the broadcast HERE and enjoy his blog below!

I’m not really much of a runner, but my family is.  It’s not that I dislike running, but I’m always trying new exercises and routines and not sure if I have the discipline to build endurance to the level of the rest of my family.  But I want to.

Combine this desire with my childlike love of all things Disney, and running my first 10k during Disney’s Inaugural Enchanted 10k seemed like a perfect fit.  Of course, training in one of the coldest winters South Mississippi has seen in decades didn’t go as planned and before the race my artistic side got more into the fun of creating a costume for the race (I went as a Mardi Gras homage to Prince Naveen).  Needless to say, I wasn’t quite in tip-top performing shape.

Still, runDisney had way more to teach me than just how under prepared I was physically.  In fact, that was the least important thing I took away from the weekend.  Here are the top four things I learned from my first Disney run that I can take with me into my day-to-day life.

1. It’s Never too Early for Fun