Congratulations! So happy that everything is working out for you
We're trying a few of the Rock 'n Roll races as an excuse to take some trips, but otherwise keeping things mostly local...should be interesting.
Ah, Wine and Dine. So generally, it just wasn't enjoyable (my sister, the absolute disney apologist, was even more disappointed in that it wasn't really "Disney" the way she expected -- the music throughout the expo/races was the usual dance garbage you hear everywhere, there weren't that many characters out (and those that were had HUGE lines), and there wasn't so much time going through the parks)...it didn't really feel special given the amount of money we paid -- it felt like any race we could have done closer to home. Actually, some of the ones at home seemed nicer -- not having to be up before dawn, more support along the course, etc.
More specifically, we got rather bitter during the 10k; we were maybe 15-30 seconds behind the balloon ladies at the 3 mile mark and got cut off by the bus (there was literally a bus-width (not length!) distance between us and them, and the bus pulled in). The course folks/volunteers at this point were a bit harsh as well. It was all such a let down. On the plus side, it helped us make an important decision: since we were already out the challenge medal, and my foot was in really bad shape, we decided to take a stab at the half, but not really push for it. We were probably going to be picked up again anyway, so why risk being able to enjoy the parks afterward? So we took the half slowly and got picked up again at 3 miles (the first ones cut off again). The course folks/volunteers here were much nicer about the whole thing, too -- one girl was crying, and they were being very encouraging and supportive of her efforts.
In all, we met some nice people during the races (what burned us even more about the 10k is we were talking with a girl in our corral for the half who had been behind us, but somehow let into Epcot (the 3 mile mark) and still allowed to finish). And I suppose the medals are pretty nice...my sister is claiming that we totally earned them, since we ended up doing the mileage in the parks afterward anyway
We didn't wear them at the after party or for any photos or anything, but they'll go into the pile of others we've got at home.
We were probably too ambitious with the races, especially since we still wanted to do the parks as usual (we were on vacation at Disney, after all). And my foot was in way worse shape than I wanted to admit to myself (getting it fixed now, though!). But for the money paid, we could have done double the races closer to home, for a pretty similar experience (our sum Wine and Dine experience was 6 total miles of highway). And yes, getting picked up was on us, but even if we had made it into the parks, we probably would have had the same feelings about the races.
So we learned a couple of things: we're probably not going to do another RunDisney event (a 5k if anything), and we're total Moderate/Deluxe snobs
(this was our first, and probably last, time at a Value). And taking it easy for the races meant we didn't hit the parks as hard as we might otherwise, but actually allowed us to explore a couple of things we'd never done before, so that was pretty sweet.
So the races were disappointing, but the overall trip was pretty great...but it also helped that World Series game 7 was our first night there, and we actually got to see the Cubs parade in the Magic Kingdom! Life = made.
But we've got a couple of virtual runs and 5k races coming up to keep motivated 
