Sharing my experience of the Dopey Challenge The Pluto 5k. Updated 3/26/2026.
We picked up race packets on Wednesday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex located on Disney property. We had 2 sets of bibs, 1 for the 5k and 10k and the 2nd for the half and full marathon. You could tell who had signed up what challenge based on the picture on their bibs. Ours all had Dopey on them.
For the Pluto 5k, we woke up Thursday morning at 3:30am, and the race started at 6:00am. We didn’t bother getting our spouses up to go to the race because they wouldn’t be able to see us running.
Side Note: I started fertility injections Wednesday, and had to take my fertility drugs with me to the race each day. That included giving myself injections each and every morning. So Celise and Shelly got to help me every morning at around 5:00am. P.S. **The RE told me I could run while being on injections, the cut off date for stopping high intensity exercise was set for 1/15/2016.
There were 20,000 people who signed up to run the 5k, or participate in the Dopey Challenge (which includes the 5k).
Before the race bathroom selfie – tired, but ready to rock it!
5k is the blue line, and 10k is in the red
We had to be in our corral around 5:30am (we didn’t get into our corral until 5:45 and were towards the back of our corral). It also was a 20 minute drive from where we stayed at – which meant we were up extra early.
There were lots of places for us to take pictures. We got this one in this same spot every day with our cute new outfits.
Tron like characters
All 4 Dopey Challenge races started and finished at Epcot. Thankfully, we never had any issues with parking aside from me getting us lost trying to find the parking lot for the 5k. The GPS was taking me to actual Epcot instead of the parking lots for Epcot.
Lots of port-a-potties
It was about 50-60 degrees outside. It was great running weather, seriously the best.
All 4 of us were not in it for race times we were there to have fun, take pictures, and complete the challenge in one piece (no injuries or accidents).
We dressed up as super hero’s (Shelly didn’t get the memo that Super Man is in the DC universe not Marvel, thank you Chase for keeping us straight ;). We had Flash, Captain America, Iron Man, and Super Man/Woman.
We were in corral B, and we started about 15-30 minutes after the first corral started. They started each corral with fireworks. I dig that!
That guy’s hat was pretty cool (can you see it?)
Selfies while waiting in our corral
Fireworks at the beginning of corral B
Massive amounts of people in each corral
Cute lady dressed up as Cruella with her little Dalmations
The first characters we saw while running were Chip and Dale. I could tell it was them running up to them with their theme music playing.
We were picky on which characters we stopped for and decided to not stop for one with them.
Running around Epcot
Disney World still had the majority of their Christmas decorations up which was fun!
They had amazing Volunteer’s – who cheered us on the entire time! And TONS of tables with water and Powerade
A volunteer took a picture for us, then we ran into Timon from The Lion King. It was too bad Simba or Pumba weren’t there…
At this point we were running through Epcot Park (around the world part), which was pretty cool since we hadn’t spent a day in that park yet.
Me and Timon
Our Group with Timon
Posing with Spaceship Earth
Celise snuck in a lovely selfie bomb – hope she doesn’t kill me for sharing this haha
Dan and I on the other side of Spaceship Earth
The Dopey Team
Next we saw Marie (I think) from The AristoCats, and we didn’t want to stop.
Then we saw Stitch and stopped and took a picture, at that point we were almost done the race.
Waiting in line for Stitch – most Character lines took about 5-10 minutes, but averaged 5 minutes.
Me with Stitch
And a group photo
We ran around Spaceship Earth, which was all lit up and pretty.
Spaceship Earth before the sunrise
Mile 3 selfie
Pluto 5k Finish
We finished the 5k (my watch said 3.41 miles) in 1:01:52. That was the longest 5k I have ever run before. We also needed to take it easy for the next 3 days of racing.
Celise, Shelly, Me, Dan
Pros: 2 water stations. We got to run around Epcot. The weather was great! Great organized finish and start, and lots of photo pass photographers. They handed out full water bottles and Powerade at the finish, and we got a medal for completing the 5k. I had never done corrals before and it was great for crowd control.
Cons: Wall to wall people, which can be a pro and a con sometimes. It took at least 15 minutes or more for each corral to get to the starting line. It was still somewhat dark when we got finished, and I wish the photo pass photographers had switched with the water/Powerade bottles that were handed out, so we didn’t have to set our stuff down to get a good finish picture as a group. I also wished there had been a “RunDisney” sign to get to Epcot for those out-of-towners.
P.S. Be sure to check out my other Dopey Challenge Races, Minnie 10K, Donald Half Marathon, Mickey Marathon.
P.P.S. Be sure to check out my shop!
