2014 Tinker Bell Half Marathon general registration opens today!

(image courtesy RunDisney)

Wil and I are both annual passholders for Disneyland / Disney World, and have been for a few years now. One of the newer perks is early registration for select RunDisney events. Perfect! So we actually signed up for the 2014 Tinker Bell Half Marathon last week. Disney does things right -- they wouldn't have let the race sell out to just pass holders -- I'm sure there were X number of slots opened up for early registration, not all of them. But it was still nice to just get signed up and take care of things right away.

Because we've done the two previous races, we're pretty committed to running this race every year in the future -- even if we do stop becoming passholders at some point. This year's new twist was the addition of a 10K -- which, unfortunately, is not also part of a "challenge" like the "Dumbo Double Dare" for the Disneyland Half or the "Glass Slipper Challenge" for the Princess. (Why, RunDisney, why???) It's obvious that the challenges create extra excitement -- and get people to stay longer! But perhaps Disney is testing out the idea that more different people will sign up for the events, rather than the same people running multiple races? (Here's something odd -- though the new "Dopey Challenge" in Florida is sold out, the Goofy is not yet sold out for next year. I guess if you're Goofy enough to run a half and a full, you're Dopey enough to run a 5K and a 10K as well...)

Anyway, we looked at the race, the price, the timing -- and the lack of a challenge -- and had to think about it pretty hard. I mean, we are sad not to be running the Dumbo Double Dare this fall -- Bumbershoot trumped the race again -- but part of the draw of that challenge for THIS bling lover is the extra medal. So no extra medal -- and probably no Coast to Coast for us in 2014 -- made it less appealing.

But we knew that we would be going down to Anaheim on the Friday anyway... and, well, we've always said a 10K in the parks would be perfect... so we blinked and just signed up for the 10K, too. Gulp.

Oh, and of course, I had to order a couple of each of the comemmorative pins and a necklace. I'll add the pin to my now totally over-the-top race medal pin lanyard (yeah, I pretty much look like a jerk when I wear it...) and the pendant from the necklace to my race charm bracelet (which is slightly more subtle... but only slightly). Hooray for good merch!

The Glass Slipper Challenge in Florida sold out in one day, though the Princess Half didn't sell out for a few weeks. As I'm typing this, the RunDisney site is reporting that the Tinker Bell Half is 73% full, but they haven't posted any stats for the 10K or 5K. I'm curious to see how long before this race is sold out.

Our pal Suz signed up this morning while en route to Mackinac -- though she assures me she wasn't driving at the time. :)  We're encouraging all of our runner pals who expressed medal envy at the Tink bling to sign up today -- as I've always said, RunDisney puts on a great race, and the Tinker Bell is an ideal event for a first half marathon!