It's great to hear all these updates from everyone. I had a great weekend too! I really enjoyed the 10K course, although with the heat and humidity it was the most uncomfortable race I've run. But the awesome entertainment, characters, etc. more then made up for it.
As I was running the 10K course and taking it all in I honestly felt like either runDisney was trying to go out in a big way because some/all of the 2018
Disneyland races will be cancelled, or what I'm hoping is more likely, runDisney was trying to "prove" to Disneyland/Team Disney Anaheim that they can have an extremely well organized and successful race on the west coast. This was my my 5th race at Disneyland and I felt like it was the most organized with the best entertainment out of any of them. (keep in mind I've enjoyed them all, but some are handled better then others.) The number of characters, the specific art work, projections, music, bands, etc. was amazing. (Also did you notice how the announcers even said some of the characters that would be on the course.) The smaller corrals really helped with the altered course. I have NEVER seen so many runDisney team members around (the ones in the runDisney polos and race credentials). Because of the often poor communication and late notice for runDisney things I always imagined their team was way small, like just a few people driving the ship, but there were lots of official runDisney employees throughout the course and you could tell that they were paying attention to various details like the water stations, entertainment, etc. The security was handled very well, it wasn't a problem at all for me, and the fact that all three days Downtown Disney could be open without any major congestion and the parks could open without having to delay paying customers Magic Morning/Extra Magic Hours was also an improvement.
For some of the recent Disneyland races there had been some dumb things that have happened that seem to expand and get worse via social media, and I'm sure some people instead of complaining to runDisney would complain to Disneyland... But I feel like runDisney should be proud of themselves. Lastly as I was walking to breakfast at Steakhouse 55 this morning and passing all the runners I think Disneyland and runDisney would be crazy to cut any races. SO MANY PEOPLE spending money on food, hotels, the parks all because of the races.