In 2009, my current habit is to run the Disney endurance events. I completed the 2009 Goofy Challenge, you see, by successfully running the Half Marathon and the Full Marathon on the same weekend. You get an extra, bonus medal if you do that. And all of a sudden I realized: this is the year I should do all the races. I won't be doing Goofy again (I'm not that crazy!), so it makes sense to do the Disneyland Half Marathon and earn the "coast to coast" bonus medal as a result. And since I started that path of slippery thinking, I figured I might as well do every run this year. Well, maybe not the 5K runs on weekends where there is also a longer run. I'll do the longest run on every event. By my calculations, that will give me ten medals for 2009 by the time I'm done:

I'm envisioning all of the medals framed together in one long rectangular box, hanging over my sofa. I just have to figure out the right order for them to go in… probably not chronological.

The hard work is behind me already; the Goofy is done. The short runs, by and large, are all that's left. It's a lot of mileage when you think about it. Adding up all those events yields 86 miles, all hopefully run in the 10-12 minute pace.

As you know if you've read my earlier articles on Disney running, I practice what is euphemistically known as "running stupid," which is to say, I haven't been training for any of this. I do sometimes bike the 3 miles to work, so it's not like I get no cardio workout at all. Plus I'm walking 15-20 miles each weekend in the parks. But real, formal, "climb on the treadmill" type of training just doesn't happen often. In 2008, I did a fair amount of training until summer, but then stopped for six months before the Goofy. This is not by design exactly; I'm just lazy. Besides, I find it hard to locate time for training and sleep and kids and cooking and my various other hobbies. That said, I really should start training for the remaining events. Please don't be like me.

The prices haven't been released for some of the later events, but I'm guessing that the final tab for my 2009 running/medal hobby will be something like $700-$800. The custom framing of the medals will assuredly be a few hundred dollars also, so we're hovering around $1,000 when all is said and done. Good thing I'm planning to get this out of my system and not do it any more after this!

I'm going into such detail about my plan this year so as to minimize my embarrassment when you learn that I also showed for an ostensibly women's race, namely, the Disney Princess Half Marathon. It took place this last weekend, and I did take part, along with some 400 other men (we constituted a mere 5% of the roughly 8,000 participants). But before we get into that, let's look at the running event which happened the week prior, the ESPN 5K.

This is the inaugural year for the ESPN The Weekend 5K, an attempt to "beef up" the ESPN Weekend event at Disney's Hollywood Studios (DHS). Until this year, the weekend consisted of numerous interviews with sportscasters and athletes on stages, and then some interactive sports booths off in the backstage behind Rock ‘n Roller Coaster (and right near the Tower of Terror): things like batting cages, tennis courts, bike ramps, soccer goals, etc. The public is invited to jump right in and play along, and numerous exhibits are meant for younger kids.

Frankly, the ESPN Weekend never seemed to ‘gel' for me as much as other DHS events. The granddaddy of those events is the Star Wars Weekends, which goes on for seemingly months at a time, and rabid fans turn out in hordes. Equally successful is the smaller-scope Soap Opera Weekend (reportedly not to return in 2009); it too brought out the fan base. But did the ESPN Weekend really draw in a fan base? Did it lure additional travelers to take a trip they might otherwise have missed? I'm not sure that meeting sportscasters is as "special" as meeting soap opera stars.

It occurs to me that all three of these events are pretty "niche market" based. Have you heard the notion of the Long Tail Economy, popularized by Wired editor Chris Anderson? The basic idea, one cribbed from business, is that any item you're selling has a frequency distribution curve with a bulky middle and a "long tail" of people potentially interested in it. In other words, those niche markets occupy that space in the tail, and Anderson's point is that the tail is getting longer and longer (and more and more worthwhile for the vendors) in the Internet age. A community based around Disney fans is rather case in point, in fact.

The DHS events fall into the same category of filling up space in the long tail of the Disney World visitors. Not the bulk, not the mass market, but each has its own demand. The more "mainstream" parks occupy the bulky curve of the frequency distribution (ie, most visitors to WDW), who want to visit the MK and Epcot. But the long tail seems to cry out for something different, something niche, and here DHS and DAK are happy to satisfy. The DHS special events even more so.

And yet, with the dissolution of the Soap Opera Weekend in 2009, it's just possible that the ESPN Weekend feels the need to pick up the slack, as it were, and become an even bigger event. Perhaps the pressure is on to make ESPN Weekend a destination unto itself, if Soap is going away. Maybe it's just me, but this strikes me as an effort doomed to failure. I mean, assuredly the sports fans are a big demographic, but will they travel to Orlando the way soap fans do? Is the fervor that great?

And, it strikes me that bulking up the ESPN Weekend with a participatory athletic event may not be the way to go. Are the folks who watch sports (those you want to draw to the ESPN Weekend) exactly the same people who would be likely to jump at the chance to run a 5K? There's got to be at least some disconnect between the runners and the couch potatoes. Trying to lure sports fans by offering sports venues is a bit like luring soap opera fans by offering the chance to "live" a simulated soap opera… is that really what people want?

As a result, it should perhaps be no surprise that only 1,500 runners signed up for the ESPN Weekend 5K, a very far cry from the 24,000 who participate in the WDW Marathon weekend. I know there were only 1,500 runners because all 1,500 of us were on a corkboard at the race, listed alphabetically and with our race number visible nearby. This struck me as providing more public exposure than Disney usually does, but I don't know that I minded particularly.

The event itself took place in the usual "too early to be believed" hour, in this case in the DHS parking lot. We lined up behind an erected start line, and the low turnout resulted in a quite refreshing "choose your own starting corral" based on your expected finish time. Usually we are herded into a corral, so the small race size has its advantages.

We heard from beach volleyball great Misty May Treanor, who was nursing an injury and promised to simply walk the course, and then we heard the national anthem played via recording, rather than live performance. I thought this might be due to the small turnout, and was amused when the song looped around to play a second time (they let it go all the way through). The tempo of this recording was upbeat and rousing, as indeed the DJ had been all morning. This was clearly an event playing to the "sports" audience, as though we were all testosterone-laden jocks itching for our chance at the start line. In fact, I saw lots of women – a full 50%? – and plenty of non-prime-aged male runners. The 70s-decorated, mullet-bearing, flag-waving gaggle of men in short-shorts that I have seen on numerous occasions in the Disney Half showed up here, too.

The route took us up the main DHS parking runway, then double-back to a gate near Lights Motors Action. We hopped backstage, across LMA, through most of the tram route (including the tunnel), up Big City Sets, across Star Tours, over to the ugly Sorcerer Hat, then down Sunset Blvd. We jogged around Tower of Terror, via a quick turn backstage, then returned to Sunset for a trip down Hollywood and a final turn before the turnstiles to the end line. The 3.1 miles ended just like that. I was surprised to see I kept a 10-minute pace without really trying. At the finish line were Miami Dolphin cheerleaders in all their plastic glory, but I hardly noticed. The finish area was cramped. We were adorned with the lanyard and medal, and that was it.

Somehow, it seemed anticlimactic. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Surely not fireworks or some such. But for $40, it seemed like a lot of money to pay for a medal, even accounting for the usual post-race drinks and snacks.

The medals are worth it… if you get all of them.

If this event was geared for the jocks, what with the pumping music and the enthusiastic female encouragement at the end of the race, the next week's event was geared for the ladies (and all that supports female motivation). You can see the metaphoric comparison immediately: jocks one week and cheerleaders the next (it helps that it's also "real" cheerleader competition season at WDW these days). I'm referring, of course, to the Disney Princess Half Marathon.

Also in its inaugural year, the Disney Princess Half Marathon tried hard to replicate the success of the regular WDW Half Marathon. And it very nearly succeeds, I have to say. The regular Half draws 12,000 participants while the Princess Half enticed 8,000 on its first go-around. And this is while targeting women only! The advertising made it sound like only women would be allowed to run the race, when in fact, men were also permitted (though not encouraged to sign up). Seen in that light, the 8,000 number sounds even more impressive.

To my surprise, the Epcot parking lots were re-configured for this Half marathon. Usually they use the "third" set of parking lots for the marathon staging area, but this time they set up in the closer "second" set of parking lots, with the staging and the completion area sharing space entirely. Interesting. The port-a-potties were arranged differently (a set behind the bag check tents and another perpendicularly off along the canal), and the bag check tents were dead-ends rather than pass-through.

The walk to the start line took us through the regular parking lot, out to Epcot Center Drive, and almost to the turn off for the Magic Kingdom. It seemed closer than what I'd seen before from half marathons, but that could just be my faulty memory.

A lot of expectant souls got a not-so-overwhelming race start.

There were no port-a-potties at the start line, and the final set of them out on Epcot Center Drive were positively swarmed with anxious pee-laden participants. It was plainly obvious that Disney miscalculated here. Whatever formula they use for how many port-a-potties to rent on a usual marathon weekend was clearly failing here. And this should come as no shock to a running veteran. The reason for the failure is that the "usual" formula takes into account that a percentage of runners with full bladders will just dart off into the forest to relieve themselves, leaving a relatively sedate number of folks waiting for the port-a-potties. But this race was stocked with 95% females, and as a result there were fewer people willing to drop trou in the shrubbery, and the lines stacked up as a result for the potties.

That's not to say that people happily "made do" in the situation. I usually see a stray woman or two emerging from the forest on marathon weekend, but on this occasion I saw entire scores of women swear off the long lines and swat aside vines to gain access to more secretive locations in the greenery. In fact, by the end they weren't even bothering to conceal themselves particularly. I've never seen so many women squatting and peeing at once. In fact, my eyeballs still haven't recovered from the sight of seeing Snow White hunched over, her skirt hiked up, urinating in the forest because no other option was left to her. I'm pretty sure this is not what Disney had in mind when they advertised a princess half marathon. This one woman was far from the only participant to be dressed up in character, but she stuck in mind, since it's not everyday you see Snow White in a compromising position. Bottom line: if Disney is going to do a Princess marathon again, they need to adjust the formula for how many potties to rent. If a normal race means 50% of the runners (i.e, the men) will pee in the forest, on this race they need to add twice as many potties to prevent ANY peeing in the forest. There are hardly any men, you see!

One could tell they did think of the male/female mixture, though, when it came to the start line festivities. Normally, the start line of a marathon and all the corrals are areas brimming with high energy. They position loudspeakers every so often, and erect viewscreens to show the start line for those further back. Loud music punctures the heavy morning air, in an effort to lighten the mood.

Not this time. We arrived and were uncertain if there was even a loudspeaker nearby. There were no viewscreens set up (is this a cutback?) Eventually we came near a loudspeaker, and discovered that the volume was cranked way down. This was not the usual loud start line procedure! Soon, the national anthem was sung, and it was appropriately sung sweetly, not bombastically. It was apparent that they wanted to cater to the female audience present, which also explained the lack of overbearing speaker volume. I get it. Estrogen, not testosterone. Yet the speakers were too low. Up next was a story told by the Fairy Godmother, yet we caught none of it despite being close to the speaker. Note to Disney: the marathon start line is not the place for wordy storytelling.

Any old Disney character will do at this event.

On a side note, I can see why Disney would select the Fairy Godmother as the symbol for the Princess Half Marathon. After all, it's the Fairy Godmother who more than anyone else in a Disney movie "turns" the heroine into a princess. I wonder if Disney is familiar with the literary background here. The fairy godmother is a French construct of the Italian and German inspiration in the Cinderella stories, which was the dead mother as resurrected in the form a tree. The message for the modern-day marathoner is a bit garbled. My dead mother wants to send me off on a race?

But that's a trifling issue. Much more urgent is the complete lack of ceremony to kick off the race. It's one thing to downplay the testosterone if few men are in attendance, but it's quite another to begin the race so low-key that people don't even know it has begun. Usually, there are fireworks to signal the moment, but in this case, the Fairy Godmother gave way to Soothing Male Narrator (SMN), and the SMN simply added a few lines of exposition (I wish I heard what he said) and then proclaimed "and you're off" with such a deadpan and downplayed delivery that I was certain he was being ironic for a few moments. But no, that the was the race start. Not an auspicious beginning.

Tyco drums are new, so far as I can tell, but they were very cool indeed.

It was the usual "out and back" course: out to Magic Kingdom, and back to Epcot for the finish. There were trivia signs planted alongside the course every so often, with the question on one sign and the answer on the next, in the style of the Burma Shave ads from so many years ago. That was fine, as far as it went, and I'd probably appreciate them a lot if I didn't have music to listen to.

Answer: Aurora.

As you might expect, the course was dominated by women wearing pink clothing. This was especially anticipated because the giveaway shirt at the Expo was a pink women's running jersey (only available in women's cut, alas). There were lots of women dressed up, too, some in simple tutus but others in more elaborate Disney princess costumes. We ran across more than one male also dressed up as a princess. It had flashed across my mind to come in drag—if we're going to a princess run, maybe I should just go "all the way" and dress like a princess? In the end, I didn't do it, but other straight men apparently did on this race.

Tutus every few yards.

People were in good spirits. There was very little ribbing of us men on the course, and what little we saw was good-natured. I found myself appreciative of the female mindset. A flip-flopped situation would doubtless have yielded untold sexist men, but there were few sexist women around on this day.

A-ha! We aren't the only men out here today!

While the female participants pulled their weight, I'm not sure the same could be said of Disney. They did have the usual coterie of characters available for photographs, including some pixies near the end who seemed ignored and just a little bored as we came by.

They were playing with road cones a few moments early, just to stay busy.

This race cost just as much as the Half Marathon to participants, but the delivered product was lessened across the board. There were fewer bands on the side of the road, for one thing, and far fewer ASI photographers to capture your running glory. The Half features an erector-set photography moment near mile 11, but there was none on this princess half. And, most damningly of all, the Half features a gospel choir singing choice songs (Hallelujah! leaps to mind) at Mile 13, but they were replaced with a smaller (was it a cheaper?) brass offering at the Princess Half. Was this merely a misplaced attempt to be "feminine" in the approach, or was it cost-cutting? There's nothing testosterone-filled about the relief and spiritual satisfaction of reaching Mile 13; this would be appropriate for both sexes. But to take it away for the Princess Half was a mistake.

Praise the Lord, it's a sax group!

In conclusion, I'd have to admit that both the ESPN Weekend 5K and the Princess Half Marathon were nice enough events, but both seemed to lack sparkle and a clearly defined raison d'etre. As such, both were overpriced for what you got.

I don't begrudge the participants who had a good time, or for that matter Disney for offering the event, but neither one of them "spoke" to me (no surprise there for the princess one!), and even if I were to continue my running events in 2010, I wouldn't sign up for these. I'm apparently not a part of the Long Tail they are aiming at.

I'm done! I'm done!

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above books, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.