When I started planning our trip to WDW for marathon weekend, I made sure that we were all settled in and ready to go by the opening day of Walt Disney World Marathon Health and Fitness Expo. Even though registration and expo are open for three days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), I wanted to avoid the rush and get there right when the doors opened. And boy am I glad we did!
Thursday morning, before heading over to ESPN, the husband and I made our way to O’Hana for one of our favorite breakfasts! When you plan your next WDW trip, make sure that O’Hana is on your list of places to eat.
Some love during breakfast at O’Hana
Breakfast at O’Hana
After breakfast we hopped on the expo bus outside the Polly (10:30am). The bus was pretty empty and traffic was nonexistent. We made our way there in no time.
Off to expo
And we arrive!
Off to get our bibs!
Once inside the pavilion, we made our way to the Goofy registration pick-up section (which is located in a different area than the half and full registration pick-up).
Best part about running Goofy… the lines are shorter!
WAIT?!? Why am I in corral G?
After picking up our bibs, we headed over to expo to get our race shirts. The area in expo that seemed to have the most congestion was the New Balance booth… this could be why! We had arrived early enough to get our hands on just the right sizes. My Minnie shoes were the last ones in my size and it was only 11:oo am!
The official runDisney New Balance Shoes!
After grabbing our race shirts, we headed to the runDisney section to pick-up the cutest vinylmation Disney has. This bad boy will be living on my desk at Columbia, hopefully no colleagues take him hostage!
So excited to put the medals around Mickey’s neck!
Once we had done a little shopping, shirt swapping, and browsing we headed back to the bus. But not before we got some pictures with our bibs in-front of oversize medal backdrops.
This is my first marathon medal! I couldn’t think of one better!
Why not go Goofy? Ready for some insane mileage!
When we got back to the Grand Floridian we unloaded our runDisney bags to take a look at our new race shirts and pins.
I’m disappointed in the colors this year. Wish Goofy was white again.
The official runDisney pins are so awesome!
We took the rest of the day to explore the parks and have some fun. While mingling with other runners I realized that I should have tried to get a earlier corral because of my previous half marathon times. I decided that the next morning I would go back to expo and get my bib changed. I am so happy we had done all our shopping and waiting in line the day before, because when we got to registration and expo the lines to get in to expo actually went around the field!
That’s better!
Now to conquer the 39.3 miles that comes with that Goofy bib!
What are your thoughts on the new runDisney shoes?
I love the shoes! they were gone by time I got there but hoping to get some at princess!
Heather recently posted..runDisney 20th Anniversary Marathon Weekend Meet Up
I wish I would have known, I would have picked you up some! I am always at expo first thing, I’m a little OCD like that.
I really wanted the men’s shoe but the smallest size was already gone by 11:00am.
P.S. I REALLY WISH I WAS DOING PRINCESS!! Missed registration because of hesitation for signing up.
I got moved up from corral F to D – so happy I did that!
PS – O’Hana is one of our favorites too!!
That is actually one of the things I thought when I crossed the finish line, “Thank God I had an earlier corral.” I don’t know if I would have made it with the heat. And O’Hana… the best!
Those shoes are adorable!
Nicole recently posted..Friday Round-Up
Some of my favorites! I am afraid to wear my minnies because I want them to stay perfect