For the better part of a year, runners and fans have been waiting for the much anticipated general registration to open up for the annual
Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend - The Light Side held each January in Anaheim, CA. Today, runDisney announced that because of current and future construction plans, they would be putting any and all future running events on hiatus starting in 2018. No time table was given for when they would resume race events at Disneyland Resort.
Past participants were sent an email link in late January of this year, just after the 2017 race weekend was complete inviting them to sign up for the 2018 event and pre-order all of the exclusive race merchandise which many took advantage of. In an email to those runners, runDisney confirmed that they would be sending out refunds to everyone.
This is unfortunate for many reasons, but maybe most importantly, it means that the coveted Kessel Run Challenge & Coast To Coast Challenge medals will be unavailable until they decide to resume racing on both coasts again. With only the
Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend - The Dark Side scheduled now for The Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL next April, the required Light Side Challenge & Dark Side (now First Order) Challenge can't be complete which is how one obtains the beautiful Kessel Run Challenge medal.
If you were hoping to participate in the Light Side Weekend in 2018, I would encourage you to consider the Dark Side Weekend which is
still open for registration at this time. The
Star Wars Kids Races,
Star Wars Darkside 5K,
Star Wars First Order Challenge (10K & Half Marathon) and the
Star Wars Half Marathon are all still available. With news of the Light Side Weekend being cancelled, the Dark Side Weekend could sell out much quicker now, so don't delay.