WDW Marathon Expo

So after a less than magical arrival to the happiest place on earth, I was ready to get up bright and early Thursday morning and hit the Marathon Expo.  The other runners in our group had been singing the praises of this expo since we first started training together and I couldn't wait to get there, check it out and shop!

We grabbed the event bus from our hotel over to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex where the Expo was being held.  The first thing I noticed were all the strollers parked outside!  It was crazy.  They didn't allow strollers inside because it was just too crowded but as a parent it would have sucked big time to lug little kids through that whole place without having them strapped into something!

We went into the first building to get our race packages.  I started at the 5k and while the line was moving pretty slow, eventually got my bag.  It was pretty typical, cotton t-shirt, race bib and a clear plastic bag we could use for bag check if we wanted.

After that it was off to the Goofy lineups to get the real goods.  Although it turns out at first we just got our race bibs and then had to go into another building for the bag and t-shirts etc.  A few of us in our group wanted to change their corral placement so I jumped into line with them because I wanted to do it too.  I was originally placed in the very last corral but I wanted to try and get ahead so I could start with Cori.  I panicked because I forgot my printed proof of finish time in the hotel but thankfully they had computers set up right there so you could look up your results.  Easy peasy and I was moved up to corral C.  Awesome!

We then tried to find our way over to the other building to get the rest of our Goofy packages.  Unfortunately this wasn't marked very well and we kind of wandered around a little bit before figuring out exactly which building we were supposed to be in.  We got inside and holy crap!  This was a big expo!

We actually had to go down onto the expo floor to get our stuff and the first thing we passed before hitting the Goofy desk was this cool mural that had the names of all the participants on it...

It only took a minute and I found my name...

After finally getting our packages we headed out onto the floor to shop.  I took a quick peruse through the official merchandise but I'm not big on wearing gear that is splashed with race names and logos.  They had lots to choose from but I was kind of hoping for more items that were a bit sleeker designed or a little less splashy.

I ended up visiting a bunch of vendors I was excited to see.  I checked out the CW-X booth and finally decided to try a pair of their Stabilyx capris (otherwise known as the magic pants by many of my friends).  I also did a return and exchange at Team Sparkle and the ladies there were awesome about it and made things so easy.  Since the heat was so crazy I decided to pick up a new white visor by Mizuno and of course, got myself some of those funny, flashing LED rings that everyone had.  Oh yeah, I also took the plunge and bought a set of Yurbuds since my trusty Apple earbuds were starting to make my ears sore.  I also saw this shirt which I just loved because it is sooooo true...

It was really a great expo and after finally meeting up with the rest of our group we headed outside to rest and have some lunch.  We compared purchases and before you know it, I was headed back in with one of my friends.  He convinced me I "needed" something from the official Disney stuff so I managed to find a cool "I did it!" 39.3 t-shirt that I thought looked pretty good.

On the bus back to the hotel a nice girl moved back from the front of the bus and started chatting with us.  She said she thought we looked like fun so she wanted to come sit near us.  We chatted about the expo and about the race and just general runner stuff before she casually mentioned that she'd done 52 half marathons in 52 weeks.  Say what?  We couldn't believe it!

She explained that a year ago she decided she wanted to do something big and decided to run 52 halves in the next year and the Donal Duck Half would be #52!  She told us a bit more of her story and we just couldn't believe how awesome it all was.  I thought I was pretty cool for doing 9 this year but wow, 52!  Her name is Aurora and she's been keeping a blog through her whole journey...

It was a great first full day in Orlando and we ended it off with a trip to Downtown Disney for some dinner and shopping.  Next up: the Disney Family 5k race report!