Mickey's Jingle Jungle 5K

By now it’s no secret….I love Disney 5Ks! For Mickey’s Jingle Jungle 5K, runDisney has combined some of my favorite things — Disney theming, holiday theming, and a chance to run a Disney event with good friends. It was the right mix for a wonderful experience.

This newly-themed runDisney event was one of the events during the Wine and Dine Race Weekend. More and more runDisney is packaging running events with an opportunity for everyone in the family to run. This “family fun 5K” is definitely for everyone, with everyone from toddlers in strollers, to young children, to teens and preteens, to new adult runners, to very experienced teen and adult runners. Everyone was there!

I was excited to run with three of my buddies — Amy, Sara, and Christine. The 5K is a perfect race to run…or walk, as we did together, with plenty of chances for photo ops.

The “Jingle” part of this race referred to the holiday theme. In the pre-race area, folks had a chance to get their photos taken with giant Nutcrackers, “snow covered” scenery, and Christmas trees. Holiday Mickey and Minnie were also on hand for some photos.

The “Jungle” part of the title was in reference to the setting — Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The park was decked out with the traditional huge animal-themed tree at the entrance, many characters along the way — of the animated and real variety.

Pluto and Goofy were around for photos, too, but I got a chance to hang out with my favorite character in his holiday best….Donald.

As with all Disney races, the race start and mile markers were themed and my buddy race announcer Rudy Novotny was even decked out in a holiday scarf and hat to call the race.

Another fun feature of 5Ks is that often runners dress up to match the theme. We saw elves, Santas, reindeer…and even Wreck It Ralph.

Runners received a cute holiday-themed race shirt….and of course, the bling was pretty neat, too (I especially liked the candy-cane colored ribbon).

The only down side of this race series is that the 5K is held on the very same morning as the Wine & Dine Half Marathon. This made for a very tiring day (up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the 5K and then running 13.1 miles that very same evening…and then the after party!).