Disney Princess Half-Marathon Day 1: The Expo

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I pretty much quit blogging for a while. I just didn't have time. But now, I'm going to try to do a better job and keep this blog updated as much as possible as my journeys continue. I started this blog as a way to keep myself accountable as I trained for my first half-marathon. And as I slacked off on my blogging, my training suffered as well. I knew it would happen - and it did. However, as the race got closer, I kicked myself in the butt and tried to train as hard as I could for the final couple of weeks. And now, I can say that I did it - I'm officially a half-marathon runner. More on that later.  In true blog fashion, I'll start with the beginning of my experience.

We flew to Orlando late Wednesday with the main goal of getting to the expo early on Thursday. It's the sole reason I wanted to spend our vacation time before the race, versus after. I wanted to get to the expo. I'd read so many horror stories about past expos and continuous gripes about the merchandise being out of stock. I wanted the "I Did It Shirt" - because, well, I needed as much motivation to finish this race as I could find. And, what's more motivating than a $32 shirt that says you did something - you damn well better finish that race so you can wear that shirt.

We got to the expo about 10 a.m. and I couldn't believe the people that were heading inside. I had butterflies - I won't lie. We walked up and I felt the need to pose for a photo with the banners - I saw so many of these posed photos during my Facebook and Twitter stalking of Dopey runners, that I had to do it myself.

Yea!!! Let's hurry up and do this thing!

We went straight in and headed to bib pickup. We failed to read the signs and ended up making a lap around the top before a nice volunteer let us know where to go. I was able to walk right up and stand in a line of one person before getting my bib and my pin I forgot I had purchased at registration.  Super easy and quick - loved it. 

Holy smokes - it all became real when I had this in my hand!!!

We headed out of that building and next door to the Jostens Center where my packet - and the big Run Disney booth - was waiting for me. I was a little overwhelmed at first at all the people, but then realized that was nothing and there would probably be tons more coming the following day. I kept getting distracted and wanted to look at other things, but Mark kept pushing me ahead to the shirt/gear pick up tables so we could get things going.  Picked up my bag and shirt with no problems and walked right into the merchandise mecca. I started shopping for a brief second before realizing I needed to find the shirt - that's the whole reason we were there on Thursday. I walked up to the table and got a large in my hot little hands - I heard by Friday they were sold out of the I Did It shirts, so I was so happy we made that our first stop. I shopped around a little more and purchased a tumbler too.  We roamed the expo for a while but nothing caught our eye - except the Run Disney booth where the blings were hanging - plus the cool buttons Run Disney had laying out free helping us tout what we were celebrating. I grabbed a 1st Half-Marathon button and an I'm celebrating button and slapped them on my backpack. After about 45 minutes of wandering around, we called it a day and headed out to find some food. We ran over to Downtown Disney and enjoyed lunch at Crossroads at House of Blues. We spent some time walking around DD but decided to back to the hotel and relax.  Later found a great little pizza joint in the neighborhood for dinner and spent sometime outside our hotel on the patio furniture enjoying the beautiful night, the cool air blowing, and the peace and quiet that comes as result of leaving your children at home.  My brain wasn't hurting for the first time in years - it felt so good.

Who picked up some great goodies at the Expo???  As a rookie, I thought the Expo was laid out well and not too crazy - what did you think?