Official 2018 Star Wars Dark Side Weekend

For what it's worth, here are my rankings of all Star Wars race weekend medals I have earned or could earn at Dark Side race weekend. To date, the only Star Wars races I have not run was the Inaugural Dark Side race weekend and all 5K races. With one exception, I at least like all of the medals. Some I really love. The 2018 medals could grow on me as well when I see them in person. At the very least, I do like them and have no regrets.

1. 2017 Kessel Run medal. Quite possibly the most iconic Star Wars ship ever. And 2017 was the 40th anniversary of Star Wars.
2. 2015 Inaugural Star Wars Half Disneyland. Based off the Medal of Bravery that Leia gives Luke and Han at the end of the original film. The ribbon for this medal was Chewbacca inspired, so in a sense he finally received his medal. In my wildest dreams, this would have been the Rebel Challenge medal, so the fact that they made it period excited me.
3. 2017 Dark Side Challenge Death Star medal. It's a Star Wars icon. And in the 40th anniversary of the film where it debuted. I was very happy.
4. 2015 Inaugural Rebel Challenge medal. Yoda and Darth Vader spinner. Quite possibly now the only Star Wars race medal with both the dark side and the light. The ribbon is Yoda themed on one side and Darth Vader themed on the other side.
5. 2017 Star Wars 10K - The Light Side. BB-8. The spinner ball on this medal made it even better.
6. 2016 Star Wars Rebel Challenge. R2-D2 and the Rebel Alliance starbird spinner.
7. 2016 Star Wars 10K - The Light Side. X-Wing. Another iconic Star Wars ship.
8. 2017 Star Wars Half - The Light Side. Medal of Bravery with Han Solo and Princess Leia spinner. This took on more fan meaning when Carrie Fisher passed away weeks before the race. It was nice to have a Star Wars medal with Leia on it, especially for the 40th anniversary year.
9. 2016 Star Wars Half - The Light Side. Same design as 2015 but with a Luke Skywalker Rebel pilot ribbon. I liked the character inspired ribbons.
10. 2018 Star Wars Virtual Half Marathon. I really like the flying X-Wing on the one side.
11. 2018 Star Wars First Order Challenge. Nice detail on Kylo Ren's helmet. Even before The Force Awakens, I liked the look of this helmet.
12. 2018 Star Wars 10K - The Dark Side. I find the design aesthetic on the Praetorian Guards interesting. I hope this will look even better in person.
13. 2018 Star Wars 5K - The Dark Side. Yet another stormtrooper medal. But I like the side profile of this one.
14. 2018 Star Wars Half - The Dark Side. Again with a stormtrooper medal. It's a well done medal. I'm just tired of stormtrooper medals.
15. 2015 Star Wars 10K Disneyland. The first stormtrooper medal. A pretty cool medal. I also like the stormtrooper inspired ribbon.
16. 2017 Star Wars Half - The Dark Side. I like this medal just fine. But the ones for 2018 are better, especially the Kylo Ren one.
17. 2017 Star Wars 10K - The Dark Side. A fine medal in and of itself. But it's another stormtrooper medal.

18. 2017 Star Wars Rebel Challenge. The only medal that legitimately disappoints me. RunDisney usually does a good job on the medals. Even if I don't like a particular medal or the race itself doesn't appeal to me, I can see what the reasoning behind the medal. But this medal has very little detail on it. For so little detail to show up on any medal, let alone a challenge medal is just disappointing.
 
The Dark Side 2017 was our first really big race. We had considered Princess this year but missed the registration opening. After looking at the Princess Half course, I'm SOO glad we did. I much prefer Dark Side course (assuming it says similar to last year) to an out and back on World Drive from EPCOT to MK. THAT course has a lot of road!

I'm also having to rethink my 10k outfit now that I've seen the medal. I'd pretty much decided Gray/Silver but I think I'll have to add in some red now!
 
The Dark Side 2017 was our first really big race. We had considered Princess this year but missed the registration opening. After looking at the Princess Half course, I'm SOO glad we did. I much prefer Dark Side course (assuming it says similar to last year)............

I really hope they keep the course the same as last year. The first year was awful. I remember running through a HUGE chunk of the AK parking lot and just wanting to give up. I was seriously looking for someone so I could just ask to be taken away on a bus. And then having to wait in line to board a bus to get back to my car..... I was miserable!!! But last year was such an improvement!!! They better keep the same course....... :snooty:
 
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I really hope they keep the course the same as last year. The first year was awful. I remember running through a HUGE chunk of the AK parking lot and just wanting to give up. I was seriously looking for someone so I could just ask to be taken away on a bus. And then having to wait in line to board a bus to get back to my car..... I was miserable!!! But last year was such an improvement!!! They better keep the same course....... :snooty:
Oh boy do I remember this — AWFUL!! We didn’t do it last year, though — glad to hear it was a lot better. :)
 


I hate to disagree with anyone using the handle “poutine” :love:, but... this strikes me as overthinking medals. :duck:

I’m a huge SW fan (OT more than anything), but for a race medal I guess I just enjoy something unique and cool-looking. :)
They are also ALL helmets...just helmets. Where is the thought and creativity?

Poutine is just the perfect food, and fun to say! :)
 
They are also ALL helmets...just helmets. Where is the thought and creativity?
After the complete lack of detail in the 2017 Rebel Challenge medal, I'm just fine with detailed helmets. I wish that C-3PO outline medal had been just his helmet with the same level of detail put into the these new medals. The outline of C-3PO and the rebel alliance logo showed serious lack of creativity.

x a milliony!!!!


Me, too. But I'm old and set in my SW ways. ;)
I like the prequels in spite of their flaws. I really love the 3 new Star Wars movies released since the Lucasfilm acquisition, but I don't know if anything will ever top the original trilogy. That's what made me a Star Wars fan.
 


I also don't love the 5K and 10K. Personally I thought last years were better but I think I'll still go. ;) I do like the half and challenge medals though!
I'm not crazy about the 5k medal, but guess which one I'm doing...the 5k. My daughter and my mom are doing it with me, and my mom has never done a race so we're doing a small one. At least I'll still be immersed in Star Wars! The 5k medal has storm troopers right???
 
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I'm not crazy about the 5k medal, but guess which one I'm doing...the 5k. My daughter and my mom are doing it with me, and my mom has never done a race so we're doing a small one. At least I'll still be immersed in Star Wars! The 5k medal has storm troopers right???
Yes, specifically the executioner Stormtrooper from The Last Jedi.
 
I was looking at the activities from other races. Is Dark Side the only WDW race without a retreat/after party of some kind?
 
Hi,

I was wondering when we should know about the 10k and 21k circuits.

Is it like before March 16th or after ?

Thanks.
PS: Sorry for the question, it's easier to organize myself in rundisney Paris
 
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Hi,

I was wondering when we should know about the 10k and 21k circuits.

Is it like before March 16th or after ?

Thanks.
PS: Sorry for the question, it's easier to organize myself in rundisney Paris
We won't have course maps until the official race guide is released, and that's usually around a month out from race weekend. I think the courses will likely be the same as last year - no guarantees, of course, though.
 
Just thought of a medal design that would (for me at least), be awesome...Han in Carbonite, it would work with the dark side...maybe Boba Fett on the other side of it.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.
I think it comes down to training and luck... I trained about as perfectly as I could for Dopey this year and got lucky with health and weather, and ran a 20-minute PR in the marathon. Other race weekend challenges I've felt strong and ready to handle the distance of the final race, even if I wasn't chasing a time goal. For me, the key to feeling good on the last day of a multi-day challenge has always been the back-to-back-to-back runs in training. That prepares my body for the cumulative fatigue. And yes I do take the short runs very easy on race weekend, which helps reduce that cumulative fatigue.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.

Running multiple days has some effect, but not as much as you might think. Taking last year's Disneyland Half Marathon weekend as an example, I ran the 5k and the challenge. The high heat and humidity during the races complicate the analysis a little, but I think the conclusions are still valid. I took the 5k pretty easy for me, coming in with a 30:03 time that was right on what I had planned to do as a warm up for the rest of the weekend. The 10k was hot and humid, but I felt good at the start and put in a PR effort with a 52:15 finish. My predicted 10k tempo pace was 8:12/mile which adjusted to an 8:32/mile with the temperature & dew point (T+D) factored in. The actual pace of 8:24/mile was a little faster than predicted. The half marathon the next day was still hot and humid at race start, with my predicted HM tempo of 8:37/mile being adjusted to 9:00/mile based on the T+D. I ended up finishing the race in 1:59:02 with a pace of 9:05/mile. Based on these numbers, you can estimate that the fatigue from an easy 5k and PR 10k effort ended up costing me around 5 seconds/mile in the half marathon or about 0:01:06 in finishing time. That's only about a 1% difference, so probably within the error of environmental conditions and chance. I think how it affects you will also depend heavily on your overall fitness. I had just come off of a pretty aggressive (I felt, at least) 5 day/week @DopeyBadger plan intended to not only prepare me for the race weekend but to get my endurance base ready to start Dopey training a couple of weeks after the races.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.

As others have said, the answer is going to depend a lot on your training and fitness, as well as your natural genetic predisposition regarding recovery. Some people just recover faster than others, training being equal. Regarding your specific question, if you're well-trained and used to running consecutive days, then running a 5K and a 10K at easy pace on the days before a half should have almost no negative effect on your half time. Lots of runners (including me) have done easy shake-out runs in the days before a big race, and still started the race with fresh legs.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.

Agree with others that it will come down to your training, the weather, and your recovery ability. For me, I put in a 5k and 10k PR effort and have found my HM is usually 0-4% off predicted. As far as strategy, I race by effort rather than any pace goal. I trust my training and intuition to know what is the right pace on any given race day. I train my effort on a daily basis to prepare for that type of strategy with blind running every once in a while as well.
 
Question... I know some may not care so much about time when doing the Challenges, but if I am running the 5k and 10k (I will go at a very easy pace), how much slower does it actually make you for the Half? Have you felt stronger fatigue when doing Challenges in the past? I am interested to hear tips about strategy for running long distances back-to-back days.

As others mentioned it's all about your training.

What I have found through trial and error for back to back days that makes me succeed the most is resting my legs. I still hit up the parks, but I take a rest in the room after the races, do easy days at the park and back to the room around 6pm to relax before heading to bed really early. It's hard not to get caught up in the excitement of being at Disney and hitting the parks, but we plan race weekends as #1 priority, the races. Second priority is the parks. We will do our 3 fast passes, get something to eat and do a little shopping and that is it.
 

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