Marathon Weekend 2019 Part 1: The Expo

Will and I headed out bright and early Friday morning to drive to Orlando to start off Marathon Weekend. Our first stop was the runDisney expo to pick up our bibs and check out the merchandise. We got there pretty early which was great because it got busy around lunch time and I was so glad that we were mostly done by then.

Our first stop was to the official runDisney merchandise area, since that tends to be the area that sells out of stuff regularly. Even though the expo had been opened since Wednesday, there was still a ton of merchandise! I was so excited that the color for the half marathon merchandise was green. It's my favorite color. (No green on the medal though...)

Then we headed over to pick up our bibs and then popped over to the vendor area to get shirts and do some more shopping. I love the vendor area because there is always so much fun running stuff to check out. I ended up being pretty good at the expo. I picked up an I did it magnet and the mini medal replica pin. I doubt I'll pick up a mini medal pin for every race I do (that would get expensive!) but I did want to get one for my first half. I'm going to hang it on my Christmas tree as an ornament to remember this weekend. I also added a red and a yellow Sparkle Athletics skirt to my collection.

And we might have stopped by the runDisney booth and booked Wine and Dine weekend hotel and two course challenge with the Disney Travel Company.....

After the expo, we headed over to the Art of Animation resort to see if we could check into our hotel room early. Mickey worked some Disney magic for us because they upgraded us to a suit for free! We got to stay in the beautiful Lion King area. Our room was sooo beautiful!!! The theming was perfect and it really made our trip just that much better. I'm pretty sure this is my new favorite Disney resort.

I was getting hungry so we popped over to Epcot for some lunch. I love all of the food options at Epcot and we were headed over to a meet up at the Boardwalk later in the afternoon so it was a no brainer to got to Epcot. We ate at the Sunshine Seasons, which has to be the most under rated place to eat at Epcot. They have delicious, healthy options from a variety of cuisines. I ended up getting the tuna noodle bowl. I also really like the power salad but it was prerace carb day. :)

We still had some time to kill, so we did a photo shoot in the American pavilion. I'll be sharing those photos soon. Finally, it was time for the meet up. More to come in Part 2!

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WDW Marathon Weekend 2019

Part 1: The Expo - You are here.
Part 2: Joyful Miles Meet Up 
Part 3: Half Marathon Race Recap
Part 4: Marathon Spectating
Part 5: Park and Photo Day