2013 Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend Expo

Even though my “racecation” week began on Monday prior to the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend, I’m going to begin my recap with the Disneyland Half Marathon Expo and go from there…stick with me, I have lots of fun things to share!

Friday, August 30, 2o13 – Disneyland Half Marathon Expo

Words could not describe how happy I was to see Friday morning’s race weekend ticker on runDisney’s website.

Finally….at long last!

Our plans for Friday morning began early – start at California Adventure for Extra Magic Hours at 8 a.m., then meet up with friends for the Expo at 9 a.m. Per Twitter, I read that the line for the Expo was growing long, and it was only 8:30 a.m. I sent out a tweet to my group of friends who were supposed to meet up (Lisa, Lisa, & Jen) to see what they wanted to do…we then decided to change plans and meet up in line at the Expo instead. Since Lisa was from Canada and unable to receive tweets, Jason and I decided to swing by the meeting spot on our way out of California Adventure. Sure enough, Lisa was there waiting…and as I approached, said hi, shared hugs, the usual…she said, “I just saw Joey Fatone and Sean Astin walk by!”

Ummm…rewind…ok….what?!

We began walking and sure enough, she was right! It WAS Joey Fatone and Sean Astin!

I couldn’t miss my opportunity, so I walked right up and asked if I could take a picture with him! (I’m a huge NSYNC nerd, what can I say?)

Lisa was also happy because she stopped Sean for a picture! GREAT way to begin a runDisney weekend if I do say so myself!

As we approached the Disneyland Hotel we couldn’t help but notice the GIANT crowd of people lining the sidewalk outside the resort. We were told there were two lines – one to get into the expo itself (merchandise area) and one to get race numbers. I tweeted my other friends a few times but was unable to locate them because of the massive amounts of people around. Instead, we jumped in the Expo merch line and waited. At exactly 10 a.m., the doors to the Expo opened and the merchandise area was flooded with people. I didn’t have time to take pictures because we were busy grabbing anything and everything we liked in our size. Shirts were flying, people were all over the place…needless to say, it was quite the event.

My husband was such a good sport. He helped us decide which items to buy, then he held all of our merchandise and stayed in line so we could look through the floor items again to make sure we didn’t miss anything!

Thankfully, our wait in line to purchase our merchandise was not as long as others…I heard reports of some waiting in line for 2+ hours to check out! I also heard that they closed the merchandise area for 1 hour to let the line die down . I’m glad we were out of there by that point! One thing I did mention to my husband – Disney is a master at forming lines. After the merchandise line wound out of the designated area and into the hallway, a CM came by with tape and marked out an additional line, which then wound through the hallway, the staging area, and out into the corridor.

This is only one portion of the line. Cray cray.

After making our purchases, we took a few pictures and said our goodbyes.

Lisa helped make a crazy experience much more enjoyable and I really had fun hanging out with her! She was a huge help in deciding what to buy, too. Yay for new twitter friends!

Hello Dumbo! :0)

Thankfully, the Expo floor was not near as crowded as the runDisney merchandise area.

While walking through the Expo area, I heard my name and as I looked up, I saw the lovely ladies of We Run Disney!!

I’m excited I was able to meet them! They even had a birthday gift for me…so sweet!

I saw that they were talking to someone in the KT Tape line and realized that I knew her too….

Jen!! We were texting several times throughout the day and weren’t able to meet up in prior to the Expo – so glad I ran into her there!

As we were talking, someone else came up and said that they wanted us to know they read our blogs and really enjoyed following us! It was so nice of her to say, but I’m sad I never got her name! If you are reading this, let me know who you are…and thanks for saying hi! That was really sweet of you! :0)

I ran into so many others at the Expo…Heather (who’s husband was stuck in a super long line for merchandise), Fred, Crystal & Jaclyn (two Disney Bride friends), Emily (who I continued running into over and over again that day)…I saw so many faces, I’m sorry if I left you out!

After saying our goodbyes, Jason and I headed over to the packet pickup area. Thankfully, my race bib line wasn’t long…yay!

 

Once I received my race bib, I had to go back into the Expo floor to pick up my race shirts/bag.

Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to sizing and I ordered a Medium (unisex). Whoops. Ah well…lesson learned!  However, I heard a rumor that women’s fit will be offered at upcoming races. We’ll see if that’s really true!

After wandering around the Expo, I stopped by the New Balance booth to try my chances on snagging a pair of runDisney Women’s New Balance shoes. Of course, I knew my chances were slim as it was in my original plan to stop by this booth first – but after seeing the madhouse on the runDisney Merchandise floor, I decided to forego my original plan as you saw above.

Guess what? I was in luck! At 12:30 (the expo opened at 10 a.m.), New Balance still had a pair of Women’s size 8.5 runDisney shoes! Not only did I get to meet Joey Fatone earlier that morning, I also snagged a pair of runDisney shoes, too! It was my lucky day!

We stayed at the Expo until 1 p.m. and decided it was time to go back to the parks for lunch. After leaving, we dropped off our goodies in our room, then made a bee-line for California Adventure!

…but not before taking a picture of my new gear, first!

Sportin my knew kicks…on route 66!

So much more happened this day, but I don’t want to overwhelm this post, so I’ll save the rest for another time.

In the meantime, check out the Vlog I made of our experience at the Disneyland Half Marathon Expo and California Adventure!

What did you think? Were you at the Expo? Did you snag the gear you were hoping for?