Reviews of the Kids Races

[bekkiz]

We're planning a trip to the Princess next year, and I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to sign my kids up for the kids races. They'll be 6 at the time.

We're coming from the West Coast, and the Saturday will be the second day of the rip. I have some concern that an 8am start time will be a smidge to early for them. BUT, if the experience is awesome, then I'm happy to do it.

Also, if anyone could give me a recap of how they are run and organized, that would be super helpful. How far do the 6 year olds run?

 

[bumbershoot]

2nd day is going to be very hard for them.

The info is on rundisney.

runDisney Kids Dashes Age Groups

12 months and under - Diaper Dash for crawlers
1-3 years old - 100m dash
4-6 years old - 200m dash
7-8 years old - 400m dash

Also:

One Mile Run Age Group

13 years and under

And as far as I know, a 6 year old can run the 5K, too. Though that's not considered a kid's race.


DH did the Mickey Mile during the WDW marathon weekend. It was a bit chaotic, and the course is waaaaaay in the back of the Expo area complex, so you end up walking longer than the kids run. Give yourself plenty of time so they aren't exhausting themselves just getting to the course.

Even though it felt chaotic, it all worked and ended up fine. DS's mile would have been great except that it turned out he was coming down with whatever plague i already had, and the temperature had swung up by about 30 degrees from bedtime to race-time, and it was all very difficult for him. By Feb hopefully the weather will stabilize vs January, and that won't happen to you.

 

[luvformickey]

DD8 and DS11 ran the Mickey Mile this past January. It started at noon and was very well organized. The kids ran alone, but we walked them to the corral start and then booked it to the very back of the WWOS for the finish. They had a blast! Mickey was there to high five every kid that crossed the finish line and then they had their own stations to stop at after the race--one for the medal, one for pictures, one for post race snacks.
It was nice for them to have their own race since DH and I were running in the half and full.

 

[DVCFan1994]

We're planning a trip to the Princess next year, and I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to sign my kids up for the kids races. They'll be 6 at the time. We're coming from the West Coast, and the Saturday will be the second day of the rip. I have some concern that an 8am start time will be a smidge to early for them. BUT, if the experience is awesome, then I'm happy to do it. Also, if anyone could give me a recap of how they are run and organized, that would be super helpful. How far do the 6 year olds run?

The kids races for PHM are at EPCOT. My kids did them for the first time this year, and are excited to do them again in 2015. The staging area was the same as the 5k and 10k, just labeled differently. The finish is the same finish as all the other PHM races. Instead of being labeled as corrals, they had the age group as signs. I thought they were well organized, but I don't have anything to compare it to.

The only thing that threw me was that my 5 year old wanted to run alone. There were other kids running alone too, but I felt like each age group should have had a subsection in the waiting area for kids running alone. The vast majority of kids ran with a parent. My 7 year old ran with my DH. My daughter just really wanted to do it like mommy and run alone. But I felt weird leaving my 5 year old kid alone (amongst other kids running with parents) to run - I had to leave her to be able to see her finish. It worked out fine. They don't let kids out of the area without a matching parent bracelet, but I was still nervous.

Not sure about how your travel and vacation plans will impact the experience, but it was fun and my kids loved it.

And my independent daughter wants to do the 5k this year, she's 6 now, and I've said she can, but I have to be with her