Review: runDisney Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-miler

With the announcement of the Springtime Surprise Weekend event from runDisney, we knew that the Tower of Terror 10-miler was a must do list. We signed up fresh off our 10k run in January for the runDisney Marathon Weekend. We trained up for the 10-miler and were ready to go.

Then Monday of the race week had me go to the ER for luckily nothing serious, but I did have to rest a bunch for the week. On top of that, both of my IT bands decided to act up during the race around mile 5. If you don’t know what an IT band is or how it feels when you are a long distance runner, you should feel lucky. With those two things to deal with, I marched on.

Even with the pain, I knew that I needed to push through and make sure all of my training did not go to waste. When you are running the course, you have to maintain at least a 16-min-per-mile pace or you will be swept off the course. Usually we pace 13-min/mile to 14-min, our miles may vary. Around mile 5 is where the pain of my IT bands decided to get intense so we adjust our pacing schedule accordingly.

runDisney Tower of Terror 10-miler Course

Starting in the parking lot of EPCOT at 5am, the course headed into the park where we traversed around the world. The sun was not up at this point and the energy level was high. Starting a course in one of the parks for me is a good rush and sets the tone for the race. I give the start of this race an A. The next part runs us through the resorts between EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios (DHS). I know logistically it is tough to spread out EPCOT and DHS for runs but I would have liked a bit of spacing.

Making our way through DHS, we did capture a picture with José Carioca, one of “The Three Caballeros”. Notable other characters along the trail were the spooky bellhops in front of the Tower of Terror, Mickey and Minnie in front of their attraction. The lines for these were too long for us to wait in, therefore we opted to skip them. Photos of the other characters who came out to cheer us on are below this article.

Ending of the course was a bit tiring as the scenery was mostly service roads and overpasses. We did get to pass the new Guardians of the Galaxy attraction building which was cool, it opens on May 27th, as discussed in our previous article Guardians of the Galaxy get’s an opening date . Also keep in mind, my IT bands were on fire at this point.

I blame my newer On shoes. They are great shoes but I feel the cushioning in my Brooks shoes are better. I won’t do a comparison of my main running shoes at this point but stay tuned in the future as I go down that rabbit hole. As we cross the finish line, we still managed to stay well in front of the balloon pacer. runDisney veterans know if the pacer catches you get swept and when you train hard that is not something you want to have happen to you.

Conclusion

Couple of thoughts on runDisney and the Springtime Surprise Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-miler: runDisney events are very fun and for us, totally worth doing, however, they are expensive. If you are running just to run, you can find cheaper options. For us, the dedication of the training and being able to run through the theme parks we love is what sells us on the experience. Sure the medals look great, but they are just a representation of the whole experience from the months of training to crossing that finish line. The 10-miler was a very fun course overall and good experience.