Expo Day – WDW Marathon Weekend 2017

Hi all!

Hope you have been settling into the new year nicely and that you are kicking off your self-improvement goals. I’m still working out what my “New Years Resolution” will be (as I’ve said before I like setting goals through out the year but the New Year is a great time to realign) and in the meantime I went and ran some miles at Walt Disney World 🙂

So let’s get to it!

Details to get that out of the way:

• My name is Katherine and this will be my 4th Dopey Challenge
• Traveling with boyfriend, Dad, and 2 Friends, Jenny was running with me!
• Stayed at Pop Century for 5 nights
• Got to see so many friends and enjoy so many magical miles

We took an overnight flight… on Frontier. For those of you who don’t know, Fronteir has a less than stellar record of, well, actually taking off when they say they will. We flew to SF for Christmas and were delayed 6 hours. So our flight was suppose to take off at 11:55 and land at 5:30-ish, we didn’t take off until 2am and we landed around 6:50am EST. Woof.

We hopped on Magical Express and made it to Pop Century close to 9. We opted to handle our own luggage which is why we were a bit later than expected. We were hoping our room would be ready early, but no such luck so instead we decided to freshen up in the bathroom and then head to the Magic Kingdom to meet up with our friends. It’s time to go go go!

This was turning into a long and magical day, first stop was food and caffeine and when my boyfriend said sugar I knew just where to go! First stop Gaston’s Tavern for a cinnamon roll and coffee (we also split the ham breakfast sandwich they had to get something of a bit more substance into us.

We spent the morning trying to manage the crowds (SO MANY PEOPLE) and around 2 we decided it was time to hit the expo to grab our Dopey Bibs! I say ours because my friend Jenny was running Dopey for the first time (also her first marathon!).

We walked over to Contemporary to grab their expo transfer and we arrived around 2:30. I was bracing myself for the crowds since I had been seeing recent pics of VERY long lines but we definitely were on the back-side of that rush! Woots!

I went over grabbed my bib and ALL the shirts and we were on our way! I love that I don’t have to pack many tops for Dopey weekend because I just end up wearing the shirts for most of the time.

We then wandered up to the pre-order pickup and official merchandise area. I was pleasantly surprised that they had so much merchandise there. The only thing they didn’t have was the “I Did It” shirts which was the only thing I was really looking to buy. Jenny got her pre-orders and then we were off to see chaos of the main expo floor (check out the vendors in the official event guide).

To get into the main expo probably an hour before there was a line that wrapped around outside, however by the time we got there the line was short and moving quickly. Woo hoo!

Once inside it was the normal level of busy. I needed to grab my pre-order from RawThreads and then go check out the Official Merchandise. This was definitely our longest lines. First the line to get into the area (maybe 15 min) and then the line to check out (5-10 min). RunDisney/Disney always does a great job at staffing properly to keep everyone moving. I got an “I Did It” shirt (quickly to be tucked away in a drawer) and was on my way.

I then went to the outdoor area and grabbed my 2 new Sparkle Athletic skirts (seriously love the pre-order option!) and was set. Overall, the expo just isn’t my cup of tea. I like to get in and get out, I don’t enjoy browsing in there because there are just too many people and I get overstimulated in those kind of scenarios. There were a couple vendors I was hoping to come back to visit (like On Running!) but more on that later.

Definitely never going at expo open like last year, this was definitely a better way to game plan the expo!

My 5k recap will be coming soon!