I CANNOT BELIEVE only I just noticed this but: runDisney changed a longstanding design element of their long sleeve race shirts!!! … several years ago.
runDISNEY CONFESSION: I SELL MY RACE SHIRTS
All right, first I need to explain something. Confession time: I frequently sell my race shirts on Poshmark. Both runDisney shirts and shirts for other races, although the runDisney shirts are much more likely to get picked up.
Some of you might be aghast at this admission. How can I sell my runDisney race shirts??? Don’t I value the memories??????
I do! I absolutely do! And I store them in my head, as well as in photographs. Earlier in my runDisney career I was more precious about the merch, but as my tenure has lengthened I have found I have, well, too many shirts. One shirt per race plus challenges and then I run MORE races and get MORE shirts and at a certain point I start to run out of drawer space, you know?
Now, if you LOVE your race shirts and would never DREAM of parting with them – don’t! This is definitely one of those value is subjective moments, and if you highly value your race shirts, keep them for sure. I’m not making sweeping moral generalizations; this is something that works for me but won’t for everybody. I don’t sell all of them and they don’t all sell.
But if you too feel you have too many race shirts and you don’t want one of those patchwork race shirt quilts, selling your shirts is a great way to send them on to a loving new home without creating waste.
SURE, BUT WHAT’S THIS ABOUT A DESIGN CHANGE?
I recently – finally – got around to listing my WDW Marathon Weekend and Princess Half Weekend shirts for sale. As a rule, these shirts don’t require a super detailed description or a billion photos; the people buying them know what they’re about. However, I do try to capture the front, back, and any graphics.
I was arranging the 2025 Walt Disney World Marathon race shirt for its listing photos when suddenly I stopped. Something was different. Here’s a picture of the 2015 WDW Marathon shirt next to the 2025 version for comparison. See if you can spot it.
Hint: it’s the sleeve.
THE PARK ICON SLEEVES ARE OH-SO-MISSING
For years – literal years – runDisney printed the park icons on one sleeve of their long sleeve race tech shirts for WDW Marathon Weekend. I think this detail was exclusive to Marathon Weekend, as this is the only race weekend with a race that goes through all four parks.
The sleeve of each race was formerly adorned with the park icon of the park(s) that race course traversed. The 5K (once that transitioned from a cotton tee to a tech tee) and 10K had only Spaceship Earth; the half had Spaceship Earth and Cinderella Castle; and the full marathon added the Tower of Terror and Tree of Life.
This was true up until 2020. The 2021 WDW Marathon Weekend was famously cancelled. And then upon its return in 2022, the sleeve park icons vanished.
The 2022 and 2023 shirts did feature a WDW50 logo, which you could argue at the time was a temporary replacement:
Unfortunately, when 2024 rolled around we were down to a runDisney logo only. Ditto 2025:
… AND SOMEHOW THE runDISNEY COMMUNITY DIDN’T NOTICE?
Okay, I’m sure that’s not true. Somebody must have noticed. It’s noticeable once you (don’t) see it. I can’t be the first to clock this change. You may have noticed immediately, and am now silently judging me for my blindness.
And yet a Google search of “runDisney park icons gone from sleeve” yielded… nothing. No discourse at all. In fact, AI tried to gaslight me!
Oh, gone is totally different from discontinued, is it, Generative AI? Nobody asked you to be here, dummy; GO AWAY (P.S. You suck and I hate you).
DOES IT MATTER?
I suppose, while I whip up this tempest in an Alice-branded teapot, I should pause and ask myself: does it matter? And I must admit, as far as runDisney losses go, this was doesn’t sting overmuch. How mad can I be if I’m unloading the shirts anyway?
But I don’t know; it still kinda makes me a little sad. My guess is that it makes life easier for runDisney if they don’t have to customize the sleeves, which in turn cuts down on costs. Fair enough. I just thought it was a neat detail. At least neat enough to warrant notice.
So here’s my little cyber tribute to the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend race shirt sleeve park icons. I will forever revere them as a relic of runDisney days past.
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!