Brief 2018 WDW Marathon Weekend Expo Recap

I ran my first marathon, at Disney World, on January 7, 2018. It was one of the four races in the Dopey Challenge. The marathon was the 25th running and it was the 5th year of Dopey. Anniversary years mean special medals, and the bling from this series is indeed awesome.

The first part of any race weekend at Disney is attending the expo to pick up essentials (bib(s) and shirt(s)) and other goodies like souvenirs, running gear, and race nutrition. I attended the expo on the first day, Wednesday. The expo opened at 12PM; I arrived around 11:30AM. Most of my time was spent in lines. It was crazy busy!

First there was a line to pick up bibs.


Then there was an even longer line to get into the merchandise hall.


There were some photo ops along the way.




And special merchandise included runDisney themed Mickey Mouse cupcakes (it was delicious).


I got my bibs (2 for Dopey and one for the Castaway Cay Challenge) and my shirts (6 (!!) for Dopey and one for the CCC). In the official merchandise area I stood in another long line to check out. In the expo hall I got some gels for the half and full, and picked up some freebies too (including obligatory GoGoSqueezes).

I survived! Next up: 4x crazy early, crazy cold race mornings -- so Dopey!

Comments

Be the first to comment

Comments with links or HTML will be deleted. Your comment will be published pending approval.
Your email address will not be published

runDisney Race Recap: Princess Enchanted 10K 2022

I'll admit I'm not too into princesses, and Disney's Princess Half Marathon Weekend is my least favorite of all the runDisney themes. But. It's always at the end of February, and so is my birthday. I last ran Princess in 2017, when it was close to...

Race Recap: Star Wars Rival Run 10K 2019

Yay, it's 10K day during Star Wars race weekend! You can read my previous Dark Side 10K reports here: 2017 Dark Side 10K; 2018 Dark Side 10K. I missed running the inaugural 10K (and challenge) and that's a big regret. I wonder what my bib will...

Race Report: Pro Bowl 5K 2017

This season's NLF Pro Bowl is taking place in Orlando and part of the week's festivities were centered around the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World. One of the accompanying events was the first ever Pro Bowl 5K Run through Epcot, which took...

Race Report: 2018 WDW Half Marathon (Dopey 3/4)

The 2018 Dopey Challenge day three run would be 13.1 magical miles in somewhat warmer temperatures. I had signed up for the WDW Half Marathon in 2017, which was officially cancelled due to stormy weather but was unofficially run by probably hundreds of runners on Disney propety and elsewhere,...