RunDisney Coast to Coast Challenge 2025 Completed: What’s Next?!

In 2024, I completed my very first RunDisney Coast to Coast Challenge, and I can honestly say I had no plans of doing it in 2025. 

But, plans change. And sometimes they change BIG!

I decided with a friend in March to run the 2026 Disney World Marathon (so, early spoiler alert for what’s next…) and getting one done so early in the year (January) it felt… easy??? To get the Coast to Coast for 2026. 

If we were going to get it in 2024, and in 2026, why on earth would we skip 2025 since we had already done the Princess Weekend in February?!

This is Disney Girl math at its finest. The problem is that the only other chance to run it is the Halloween Half, the exact same race not too long ago we did and DID NOT LOVE AT ALL. You can read the WHOLE shebang here.

But the medal was really pretty…..

Unfortunately, the race had been sold out for a while, so we started hunting a charity bib to run for! We chose Team Force! We were able to get on a waitlist, and it wasn’t long until we were IN! Coast to Coast 2025 here we come!

East Coast: Princess Half Weekend Re-cap

This was the first RunDisney event for my 8 year old, and she kind of got the raw end of the race deal, in my opinion. It was FRIGID for the 5K morning. We layered her up as much as possible, but even as we made the turn around Spaceship Earth, she was frozen from the brutal wind. She finished, but we weren’t able to hang around after to enjoy any of the post-race fun.

My mom joined back in for 10K since she finished her “last half marathon” when she turned 60 in 2022. She says last, but I just have this feeling she will be back… The weather was cold, but significantly warmer than the morning before!

The half morning was chilly again, and we had already added sleeves to our outfits, but by half way, we were shedding those layers in the bathroom! The weekend was as fabulous as ever, and having our generations there running with us was really something else!

Half of the 2025 Coast to Coast—DONE!

West Coast: Halloween Half Challenge Recap

Now, I do really hope you went back to read last year's East vs. West Coast run recap. It’s kind of long, but you could skip down to the end to get the final take on how we felt about it. (Spoiler: It was great the first 5 miles in the park, and the WHOLE back portion was off property and it was AWFUL… no characters, no music, just roads… no magic!!!)

This year we came in mentally PREPARED for the suck. We learned the HARD WAY about no magic on the back half. Only to be pleasantly surprised when we found out at our DVC Pasta and Pals Event that due to construction around the Anaheim area they had worked to weave MORE MILES in the parks—HALLELUJAH! 

Side note: About a week before we were to fly out, we actually figured out that we had signed up for the Challenge instead of JUST the half, like we had prepared for. This left us scrambling for a last-minute costume, but it was a great little shake-out. The 10K *might* just be my favorite race—long enough to be worth the hassle, but not so long that you want to cut your legs off… 

In the 10K, we stopped for EVERY character we wanted. It was part of our deal from the 2024 miscues (where we stopped for NO ONE to try to beat the heat…). That also gave us a little more “freedom” to skip over some dupes during the half marathon.

Last year we stayed in the Pixar Hotel, which I loveddddd, but this year because we were just going out to run and go home, we chose a "regular" hotel on the other side of the parks this year, which put us almost a mile and half closer to the race start, so we actually slept in a little bit more!

On race morning, we did our thing, and of course, hit up the bathroom line during the national anthem. As Corral F, you get significantly more time to sit in your corral than the fast folks, so might as well make the best of it. 

Well, this one almost bit us. We were in line to get into our corral, but it was full. So we thought we would just wait in this line to get in until they started walking forward. But, I saw people turning members away, and making them go on to the next corral. UM, NO WAY. So I yanked my friend Lizzie and we started walking the other way. There was a part of the street our corral had to cross that we were able to merge into. So. Stressful. There’s no real way to know how the volunteers will react to this situation, so you gotta fight for your place the best (and most respectful) way you can!

We got some amazing photos as we began! We still made a deal that we didn’t want to feel like we were missing anything, because we knew the fun in the parks would end eventually. Then we hit the “Pain and Panic” line, and the way they were getting people to run up and wait for them to walk to their photo was taking a LOT longer than we wanted. After that, we decided to give ourselves some space from the ever-encroaching balloon ladies, and ran without stopping for characters for a while.

We were luckily enough to finally get a good castle shot! This can be a real challenge in Disney World races because it’s so crowded through the castle and everyone starts acting insane and jumping and can easily cover you up.

The back half of the race came, and you know what? I feel like RunDisney read my blog from last year… I saw RunDisney represented music, signage, and more water stops. We saw dedicated port-a-potties, and it just generally felt like they didn’t just open the gates of Disneyland and say “good luck out there!” this year. I was pleasantly surprised at the changes made just from last year to this year. 

We also strategized about our finish line photos, and it worked to our advantage! The Disneyland photo pass people are all on the ground, and are well past the actual finish line so you have to “hold” your finish line pose or whatever for a LOT longer than you think in order to get a good finish line photo!

We did it! Coast to coast 2025, complete!

We spent at least an hour waiting in line for our castle photos, and then taking our own as well, but if you don't take them, then what is even the point?! I waited so long to post this because I really hoped to take some with Cinderella Castle during Fall break, but I had my whole family with me and it never happened! One day, I'm going to get my coast to coast medals with that castle too!

What’s Next: Two Marathons?! And two 2026 RunDisney Race Weekends!

A month and a half ago, I finished running my first marathon in Scottsdale, AZ. In hindsight, the race went by so quickly in comparison to the training. It was definitely not EASY, but I know my training prepared me well looking back. After just 4 days, I was not sore and went back to my first workout!

This was always a part of my plan, to run a “first” marathon for my best time, and let the Disney Marathon be my “reward” however sick you think that might be. I really don’t like to make Disney Races PRs—though I know of someone who is using it to try to qualify for Boston! Do. Not. Recommend. 

My friend Lizzie is running with me, and we had a couple of “goals” that we already aren’t sure about completing after talking to a RunDisney Legend Alan! He is a PERFECT DISNEY MARATHONER. He gave us a few tips, and one of those was to not risk getting swept because of getting on rides, like Everest… which was one was of our goals. SO… we will see! It’s very far into the race, and if we sit down we might not get back up. 

Just 2.5 weeks after my second marathon, and Lizzie’s first, we are headed to the West Coast to complete our 2026 Coast to Coast Challenge—and this time, we are going all out with 5K, 10K, Half! It should seem like nothing after the Marathon, right?!

We take a short RunDisney break and will return back to Walt Disney World as a family + Oma for our FIRST Springtime Surprise race weekend, and I could not be more excited!

The End of the Coast to Coast Challenge: Get in while you can!

On April 22, 2025, here’s the announcement from runDisney:

• Update: runDisney at the Disneyland Resort

• Due to upcoming construction impacts, runDisney races at the Disneyland Resort will be placed on hiatus in 2026 after the conclusion of the 2026 Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend presented by HONDA.

• We will continue to offer races at Walt Disney World Resort, as well as virtual offerings.

We heard it first-hand from California RunDisney workers while we were at our DVC dinner, that they were being placed on “indefinite paid leave”. 

The last chance to get your Coast-to-Coast medal is the Disneyland Half Marathon—but it’s sold out. 

I happen to know of THREE ways you can get in:

1. Join Team HopeStory! We are running our Marathon in WDW with Team HopeStory after not being able to snag a spot on registration day, and they have already sent us a sweet swag box! Excited to meet up with some other team members in just over a month! 

2. Join TeamForce! As mentioned before, we hadn’t planned on running the 2025 Disneyland Halloween Half and they were able to accomodate us! 

3. Join Telegram and try to snag a spot that Disney releases. This is a huge risk, because when they go out, the spots GO FAST. You have to basically have lightning fast fingers and be staring at you phone 24/7, but it is possible. 

Let me know if you are going to be completing your last chance (until who knows when) Coast to Coast challenge, or if you’re going to be doing the Springtime Challenge!