Fans crowd Disney World for 25th WDW Marathon weekend

January 7, 2018, 7:36 PM · It's marathon weekend at Walt Disney World, which brought thousands of runners to the resort for the 25th year. The highlight was today's running of the Walt Disney World Marathon, which started before dawn in unseasonably cold temperatures.

Just over a couple of hours later, Nick Hilton became the first American winner of the race in 14 years. But for most of the 25,500 registered runners, who finished first didn't matter. The weekend is all about an excuse to get active and train, to reach a fitness goal... and to enjoy an extra vacation at Disney while doing it.

Marathon weekend effectively extends the Christmas/New Year's holiday for an extra weekend at Disney World, bringing more than 100,000 runners and their families to the resort for the weekend of races, which also included a 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon in addition to today's race. That meant big crowds at all the parks for the past several days and even a closed parking lot at Epcot, though race staging claimed many of those spaces, limiting parking availability.

Congratulations to everyone who ran this weekend.

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