What you need to know about Mickey's Jingle Jungle 5K

Greetings!  In just a few days thousands of people will flock to Disney World to experience the Food and Wine Festival and the weekend of races that go along with it.  In addition to the Wine and Dine Half Marathon ( that is run on Saturday night), Run Disney also hosts a 5K.

I ran the 5K last year and thought I would make a list of things to know about it.

*The Jingle Jungle 5K starts and ends at the Animal Kingdom.  There will be bus transportation set up for runners and spectators ( if you are staying at a host resort).

*Once you get to the parking lot at Animal Kingdom, there should be characters set up for photo ops, and some holiday displays as well.  When I was there it was Mickey and Minnie Mouse in their Holiday outfits.

*You will see lots of runners dressed in holiday themed attire. Make sure you join in the fun by dressing up.

Me and Christine from We Run Disney

I just loved Christine's Elf costume!

*Runners must be in their corrals by 6:45 am and the race starts at 7:00 am.
*I've noticed that volunteers are now starting to check your race bibs even at the 5K's now to make sure you are in the correct corral.  This is a good thing because the last Disney race I did, I started to walk into the "C" corral because I thought it was the "B" Corral. (Hint: the corral is in Front of the letter.)

*The start line is in the parking lot of  Animal Kingdom and it is also the finish line too. If you have friends or family that want to spectate, there is a set of bleachers set up.

*This race started off in the parking lot for the first mile, then you enter the park through the main entrance. The first mile in the parking lot felt very congested and it was hard for me to really get in the groove to run.  After the first mile, the congestion cleared out a little bit.  I think this is because we were entering the park and people were  now starting to stop for pictures. People were stopping at the Animal Kingdom sign and in front of the Christmas tree at the front of the park.

*Even though this is not a timed race, there are clocks at each mile marker.


*I felt that there were plenty of characters along the course. Ones that I remember seeing were Chip & Dale, Pluto, Donald Duck, and some characters from the Jungle book.

Up until this time, I've only ever done the 5K races that run through Epcot so I wasn't sure how this one would compare. It is safe to say that I think this one was just as fun and I wouldn't hesitate to run it again!

This post is part of a Blog Hop that is sponsored by DisTherapy. Move along to read more posts about Disney's Wine and Dine race weekend!