Kimberly Bowers's Staging Area

This is my hometown half marathon – the race literally begins minutes from my house and I run parts of the course during my everyday training!

This is a smaller half marathon but the community comes out and shows its support! I recommend doing packet pickup the night before (I always volunteer for Friday night packet pickup) just because it does get busy during race morning.

Parking is easy – it is pay to park in a garage directly across from Deer Park Tavern (where the after party is) and directly behind the start/finish line.

The course is fairly easy going through Newark neighborhoods and along a paved trail. There are some sneaky hills in the neighborhood!

Swag for the half marathon includes a long sleeve shirt and a hat – the hat is my favorite part!

The after party at Deer Park is nice with complementary breakfast food, 2 drink tickets, and a DJ. Pre-race, race, and post-race pictures can be found on the Fusion Racing page and they are free 🙂

Running in Disney is hard to explain. Everyone tells you it is an experience like no other and that you will be hooked on rundisney races. Those people are correct!

Expo: there is no getting around it – the expo is stressful, crowded, and time consuming. If you are doing the Dopey challenge, you will have to go to the expo the first day (Wednesday). You need to sign up that morning at 8 am (I think this was the time) to get into a virtual queue for official merchandise (this is a separate line/area from the expo). From there you will be assigned a group number and estimated wait time. You will be alerted when your group is up. You will need to use the Disney app for this and can register your entire group at the same time. Getting the bib is organized but the line was extremely long. I recommend immediately getting your shirts and trying them on. You will have an opportunity to exchange them for a different size if needed.

5k: great course basically entirely through Epcot. It’s early, it’s crowded, just have fun! Many people walk the 5k especially if they are doing the Dopey challenge. I ran most of it, stopping for characters/photos along the course.

10k: great course around the Boardwalk area and Epcot. The 10k was definitely less crowded/congested compared to the 5k.

Half marathon: buses start a half an hour earlier (2:30 am) for this race. Get there early, get any pictures taken that you want, then get to your corral. This is the race you get to run in Magic Kingdom and run through the castle! Yay! As soon as you run through the castle you will go in front of it towards the left – there will be photo pass on your right so find a good opening and give a big smile!! After running through the castle you will have an opportunity to get your picture taken in front of the castle (this is a must!). The half marathon does have some stretches of highway that get boring, so be prepared for that.

Marathon: this is the race you get to run through all 4 parks (plus the dreaded Blizzard Beach parking lot). You will have an opportunity to ride Everest in Animal Kingdom (as long as the park is already open by the time you get there) and rides in Hollywood Studios!

Disney is extremely organized and efficient. Depending on the corral that you are placed in, you may have longer wait times for character photo stops. For me, the longest I waited was the first day (5k) and that was 25 minutes. The 10k I think the longest I waited was 10 mins. For the half marathon and fill marathon I stopped at every character and my longest wait was still less than 10 mins (this was when the characters were taking a break). Other than that for the half and full I waited on average 2 minutes!

Buses are super easy to get to and from the races. I recommend staying on property and utilizing the buses. The medals are high quality and amazing!

This was a bucket list race of mine and I am so glad I did it! I flew in from Delaware (did not rent a car) and stayed on the strip.
– Getting to the expo was easy – I bought a monorail pass for the weekend. The expo was well organized with TONS of photo ops. The only downside about the expo was the lack of merch – Lululemon is a sponsor so the majority of the merch was from lululemon. I personally did not want to spend $60 on a tank top (and don’t support lululemon for other reasons).
– Walk or take the monorail to the start area. I tried to Uber (left the hotel at 2:30) and sat in traffic for an hour before I decided to get out and walk to the start. Traffic was a nightmare (not the race’s fault).
– Rock N Roll goes all out for Vegas. The start area was upbeat but directly in the sun. There is a lot of waiting once you get in your corral so definitely bring sunglasses and wear sunscreen!
– Running down the strip at night is iconic!
– After finishing, it was pretty crowded, but everything was well marked!
– Would I do this race again?? Absolutely! But probably not anytime soon because it is a 5 hour flight (and I have my eyes set on running Rock N Rock San Diego in 2026!)

Rehoboth is a cute beach town Delaware, so if you have time race weekend be sure to check out the town!!

Packet pickup was easy, but crowded. Parking is free because it is the beach off season, but I still had to park a little over a five minute walk away. Since this race is in December that short walk was cold! Be sure to have your bib number available as you will need this to pick up your bib – this was said in an email multiple times and there were signs with QR codes posted, but I saw many people unprepared at pickup.

The shirt was a long sleeved Brooks shirt – it was okay. It wasn’t my favorite but definitely wasn’t the worst shirt I’ve ever gotten.

The race starts right by the Rehoboth boardwalk. Parking was easy (I got there an hour before the start) and there were plenty of spaces. The start line had plenty of bathrooms available.

The start line was crowded as the half marathon and full marathon start together and there was a bottleneck situation at the start – this didn’t affect me. I started near the 2:00 half marathon pacers and had to do minimal weaving in the beginning of the race. This race had pacers for the full and half marathon which was awesome!

The race starts at 7:00 AM so you get great sunrise views over the ocean. Many people came out to cheer especially on the boardwalk section of the course. The course is flat compromised of road, boardwalk, and packed gravel running. Because it is flat and there are not a lot of turns this is a great course for a personal best – BUT it can get boring.

I wish there were more water stops on the course and would bring a handheld bottle if I ran this race again – which I probably will run again since this is semi-local for me!

The afterparty is AMAZING! This is a top afterparty for sure with a DJ and tons of food. After running in the cold (real feel of 15 degrees at the start) I was glad to go into the warm tent for the afterparty.

Overall, I recommend this race if you are looking for a fast and flat course, stunning ocean views, great race production, and an after party like no other! 🙂

This race was challenging but so much fun!

I opted to have my packet mailed to me, so I did not go to the expo. Getting the packet in the mail was easy – they do not provide you with safety pins, but it wasn’t a problem since I have 35416 of them around the house from previous races.

The race had excellent communication leading up to the event. It was advised to get to the city early for parking. The half marathon did not start until 9:45. I parked at 8:15 and there were still plenty of spots in the free race day lots.

Because the 5k, 10k, and marathon all started way before the half marathon, all of the bathrooms at the start line were out of toilet paper ☹️

There were plenty of aid stations on the course and many stations were on both the left and right side of the course which I appreciated because it led to less runners cutting over in front of others to get to the aid stations.

The course winds it’s way through the city with many uphill climbs. If you plan on running this race you must prepare for the hills. Part of the course is the Baltimore 10 Miler course, so if you have ran that in the past you will have an idea on the elevation in Baltimore. The scenery wasn’t anything too spectacular – it was mostly just city running.

The course is unique because there is a merge with the marathon runners at the start. The marathon starts at 8:00 am, and the marathon runners pass by the start line of the half marathon at their halfway point and then continue on the course. This did not cause any confusion for me, and the merge ran smoothly.

There is a lot of spectator support for this race and it ends at the Inner Harbor. The medals are awesome – I did the Black Eyed Susan Challenge (Frederick half, Baltimore 10, and Baltimore half) so I was rewarded with a huge additional medal at the end of the race. The half marathon medal is a crab that opened up to reveal a tribute to the Key Bridge.

This race was awesome! And I got a personal best – finally getting that elusive sub 2 hour half marathon.

Packet pick up was easy and there were many options throughout the week to pick up your packet. I opted to pick up my packet Monday before the race at 5th Company Brewing. There was limited day of packet pick up available for those who needed it.

This race runs across the Hatem Bridge, so if you needed to drive across the bridge to get into town you needed to get there early because the bridge was being shut down for the race. I am pretty sure that they still had traffic on the bridge, but it was the westbound side of the bridge – don’t hold me too that though! I got there early (ish) around 6:30 am for the 8:00 am start. Parking was a disaster. Because Havre de Grace is a small town there are any parking garages, so it was parking along neighborhood side streets. I grew up in the area, so I knew how to get around, but if you don’t know the town well it would be challenging to find parking.

The start and end area was at Tydings Park, so there was plenty of space pre and post race with ample bathrooms. There were pacers for the half marathon which I loved, and it was what helped me secure my sub 2 hour goal.

The course takes you over the bridge from Havre de Grace into Perryville. There were water stops before and after the bridge, and no water cups were allowed on the bridge. The views of the Susquehanna River were amazing when running across the bridge. The course winds it’s way through Perryville, and that part wasn’t very scenic and was a little boring.

Coming back over the bridge and through the town of Havre de Grace you ran next to the river where there was a photographer there to get an awesome shot of you running with the bridge in the background. One of the best parts of the race was that the race photos were free!!

The afterparty was nice. I didn’t eat any of the food, but you were provided with a meal ticket for a pulled pork (?) sandwich, chips, a side, and a soda. You also got beer tickets and had the option to purchase additional beer from 5th Company Brewing.

I saved the best for last… Olympian Deena Castor was there! It was so unbelievably cool to meet her. She announced the start of the race and handed out the awards (I did not win an award but they were duck decoys – that’s what Havre de Grace is known for!).