Margaritaville 10K Recap:

When one door closes another opens and so when I was five minutes from getting through the Wine and Dine Queue only for the 10K to be sold out I THOUGHT that open door would be that I would attempt a Disney Half and do the challenge… however with that selling out just as I logged in to register and spectrum deciding to crash mid 5K registration prematurely saving me from being a guinea pig for the new double sized field set up I saw that the Margaritaville Run wasn’t conflicting with the Jewish High Holidays and impulsively decided to sign up.

At first I had planned to do this solo much like I do for most of my non Disney races however my sister decided to join and we made it into a party staying in the Disney bubble in a resort we don’t normally stay with for RunDisney events due to cost and bus logistics and we added on Not So Scary Halloween Party.

Since this is strictly about my races I will not go into a full trip report however we had an amazing time and if I had the chance to stay at Dolphin again I definitely will….

As far as Margaritaville goes the bib pick up times were the Thursday and Friday pre race and since Thursday’s times we would be at the above mentioned party we spent a few hours at Epcot Friday before driving over.

The pick up was in a meeting room downstairs where we got our bib and shirt. I feel like I had ordered add on merch but there was nothing I noticed on my actual email and there wasn’t an area for anything to be picked up so maybe it was a Mandela effect especially since I registered all the way back in February. I also feel like it said that you got something for making a charity donation but all I got was an honor bib and a jelly bracelet and I only got that because I noticed a Give Kids the World table as I was exiting the room…

Anyway… on to the race

I didn’t do a flat lay for this race as I was between what I wanted to wear for bottoms. I was between either the shorts that came with my set from Amazon, the shorts with a sewn skirt over it or the skirt with old navy bike shorts under it… I chose the skirt with the old navy shorts and then I wore a white Yogalitious Tank under the button down shirt from the above mentioned Amazon set. I wore my castaway cay headband and a borrowed Lei to accessorize.

We left the Hotel at around 6:05 AM and between the drive and walking over from where we parked it was 6:30 AM-ish when we got to the staging area.

I did a weather check and it was a cool 65 feels like 66 with it peaking in the low 70s during the event.

A few minutes after arrival they announced that the shoot was on the EAST side of the arch as was the Port-O-Lets. We were on the WEST side so we began to walk. We accidentally bypassed the port-o-lets and realized we could use the REAL restroom in the Hotel Lobby. The line was long but with more stalls than my last minute restroom run during Red White and Brew and with many runners lined up behind us we were at ease.

It was self seeded with three WAVES….

FAST which was less than 8 min mile

FIT which was 8-11 min mile

FUN which was 12+ min mile

The 10K and Half started at the same time and we were standing near the 13 min mile Half pacers at the start.

Based on screenshots we started the race at around 7:04

We hit mile one in roughly 16 mins. There was a water stop. Mile two was in 17 mins (33 mins). There was another water stop. Mile three was in 17 mins (50 mins)... I hit my 5K point and shortly after hit my daily step goal (I think between the race and a day at Hollywood Studios we were at or close to 30,000 steps by days end) We hit mile four in 18 mins (1:08:00) After mile four there were two more water stops followed by one of the few bits of entertainment on course (aside from a few locals giving crowd support, a few runners running with music playing not through earbuds and watching a garbage truck driver crash out because they couldn’t turn into a development due to road closures)

Okay, so it was more of an inside joke than actual entertainment and with the race on mostly roadways and residential areas there wasn’t going to be much in the form of official live entertainment but maybe I’m just spoiled with Disney and Gasparilla. Mile five was 18 mins (1:26:00). There was one more water stop before hitting mile six in 17 mins (1:43:00) 

My official time was 1:46:22 while my Garmin clocked 1:45:59 and while it is still shy of my 1:42:52 PR it was a PR since migrating from FitBit to Garmin 

Post Race there was a ‘party’ if you’d call a bunch of entangled lines a party. You got two drink tickets, one for either a Landshark Beer or Seltzer and another for a Margarita. I took the above picture between drink lines so that's why it’s just with the Landshark.

We sat for a while in the lobby post race before heading back toward the car. As we were walking we watched as some of the final half runners were making their way towards the finish. 

While this may not be an annual event due to timing I would definitely do it again

Run The Year:

1596/2026

 Upcoming races

• Hot Chocolate 10K Dec 13th

• Gasparilla Stella Infusion Challenge Feb 20-21

• Princess 5K Feb 26th

• Springtime 5K/10K April 9-10

PRs

• 1M {15:26} 3K {30:59} 5K {42:46} 8K {1:13:59} 10K {1:42:52} 15K {2:19:09} 10M {3:01:51} HALF {3:54:55} FULL {7:08:15*} *virtual full run in increments