HI Bill! First, congratulations on completing the 2011 Marathon! That is a great accomplishment, and I know it was a fun race. I am very impressed that you are all running the Goofy. What an awesome family activity! I hope to do that with my husband and two sons one day!
I was a little stumped on your question, because I had never heard that before. So, I took the question to the other Disney experts here on the panel. A lot of them have participated in many runDisney events as well. Basically, the runner's discount is a discounted rate on the resorts and packages and cheaper than just booking it independently. From time to time,
Disney does offer special rates that could possibly be a better deal for a vacation than you would get with the runner discounted rate. If you had already booked your resort, Disney is very accommodating at allowing you to add the better discount at a later date. There have been several instances in the past when I had already booked a trip and then a discount was later announced and they gave me the better rate.
The only person that had actually been able to get a better rate for race weekends than the runner's rate was one of our panelists whose husband is in the military. She was able to book using the military rate (well-deserved) and it was less expensive.
I hope this helps answer your questions! Please let me know if you have any others leading up to your family's Goofy Adventure!