runDisney races start early. Period. Fortunately, the 5K has a "later" start than the 10K and half marathon, but we were still up quite early - like 3am early. We had to wake up a little earlier than some other runners because we had to 'get ready" and by get ready I mean put on make-up (yes, for a race). Once we were all up, dressed, and had our "dirty faces" ready we headed up to the bus stop in order to be on one of the first buses to the race from our resort. We are definitely the "if you aren't early, you are late" type of people, but we don't want the stress of the bus being stuck in traffic and being rushed to the start line once we got there.
I know the northerners out there are about to yell at me, but it was cold the morning of the Frozen 5K (28 is cold for central Florida). The joke of the morning was that Elsa wanted to make sure that we knew that this was her race. Huge shout out to runDisney for putting out heaters for the runners and allowing us to hang out in the tents before the race. We all greatly appreciated this for sure.
After hanging out in the tent area for a bit and eating our breakfast, we headed to our corrals. One would think that waiting in a corral would be boring, but at a runDisney race it goes by so quickly as you are looking at all of the fabulous costumes and chatting to other runners/Disney lovers. Before we knew it, it was time to toe the first start line of the weekend.
The thing to remember about Disney 5Ks are that they are intended to be a "fun run" - there are no results and you receive a rubber "medallion" rather than a medal. Yes, a 5K is a 5K and it is an accomplishment to cross that finish line, you just need to have your expectations set correctly for what you will receive. People tend to complain about the lack of results, but runDisney states on the website that these are un-timed events. We used the 5K as a shake out run and a fun family run with a few character photo ops. We truly had a blast at the Frozen 5K as the pictures show.