This was my second half marathon (the first being last year's Dark Side): I'm a transplant from doing 10K's at
Disneyland (where I'm local). I figured that I still wanted to do Disney runs but if I was going to travel I'd push for the half. So I did last year and wanted to do so again this year. Some stuff I just want to say:
1) I'm definitely in the camp of "merch was meh" this year. I bought a finisher shirt, but I'm not a huge fan of it. There were a number of items I liked "except for one thing" about them, and though I did buy a couple of things, nothing stood out to me enough to feel like it was a "good get."
2) I like the medal way better than last year's Phasma-head medal.
3) On a personal note, the race itself was a mixed bag for me. Some other friends wanted to join in the fun, and this turned out to be a big mistake. Nobody really wanted to hang out outside the race, and it really killed a lot of my enthusiasm. Why bother traveling from around the country to WDW if we're not going to hang out and see each other? Between that, the race being two weeks closer to a conference I have to work every year (which makes training harder that week), and injuring my toe in mid March, my motivation to train tanked hard. I did train some, and I did finish, but 7 minutes slower than last year. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it again next year, but I think I'm back to it being a solo pursuit. This group thing was definitely "it seemed like a good idea at the time," even though it most definitely was not.
4) Most amusing moment: the run-walk-run 3:15 group catches up to me on the way out of AK. As we go by the front entrance and turn into that really tiny pinch point near the bus stop, the pace leader (who has of course been doing this repeatedly) yells out "RUN!", but of course there's no running at that point since everyone is sardines in that pinch. She says "no really, RUN!", but physics and common sense of "don't trample other people" win out and nobody actually does so, instead I hear some exasperated laughter from the runners and then the time expires and she calls for a walk, and I like to think that even she knew that particular cadence was kind of a hopeless callout....