50,000 runners joined this weekend at the Disney World Marathon weekend. The weekend started on Thursday morning with a family fun run 5K. Friday participants ran a 10k and on Saturday runners began their morning with a half marathon. Last but certainly not the least the weekend ended with a magical 26.2 mile run.
7,000 of the runners endured all four races during the marathon weekend and received six medals. This challenge is accurately named the ‘Dopey Challenge’. Also during the weekend there was a ‘Goofy Challenge’ were runners completed both the half-marathon and the full-marathon.
Fredison Costa, 36, from Brazil took home the gold for the men after a 2:21:39 marathon finish. First place in the women’s category was earned by Angela Brito, 28, with a marathon time of 2:47:44.
Disney has seven different ‘runner’s weekends’ placed both in California’s Disney Land and Florida’s Disney World. These weekends truly stick to the Disney motto of making dreams come true and making unforgettable memories.
The marathon weekend is not only for benefiting runners individually but also raising money and awareness for different charities. One major beneficiary is the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Through the dedication of a charity group called Team in Training millions of dollars have been raised for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. The Disney World Marathon Weekend is the number one fund raising opportunity for this charity.
The weekend was full of personal achievements and met goals. Emil Zatopek who has earned four Olympic gold medals, couldn’t have put the marathon into better words when he said “If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.”
Reading this article definitely makes me want to run a marathon for a good cause now! To know that 50,000 people came from all over the nation to Disney to run countless amounts of races, including a 26.2 marathon at the end of the weekend is astonishing to me. I think it is so amazing what people are doing to not only raise awareness to diseases such as Leukemia, but to also raise money for these charities such as the Lymphoma Society. I always look up marathon runs and different races I could do for a good cause but I have never actually ran one. To know that Disney has seven different ‘runner’s weekends’ placed both in California’s Disney Land and Florida’s Disney World makes me want to gather a couple of friends up and pick out one of the seven different spots that Disney has there ‘runner’s weekends’ and do one of the races. I would love to give back and do whatever I can to help raise awareness and money to these charities and after reading this article I definitely think I will!