It was another cold and rainy day in Florida for the runDisney Marathon Weekend expo.  It was held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, which was HUGE.  I had never been there before, but Kevin had been there several times while playing softball tournaments.  We left so we could be there close to noon when it opened to hopefully avoid the crowds – I apparently had a lot to learn about the runDisney expo….

We walked through the parking lot in the downpour and followed the well marked signs pointing me in the direction where to go to pick up my Dopey Challenge packet.  My parents came with us and when we saw the massive line to get in with tons of people standing in the rain they decided to wait back in the car.  Kevin stuck it out with me and the line actually moved surprisingly fast.  I am glad we got there when we did because the line just kept growing longer and longer.  When we went inside there were computers set up for you to print your waiver, but because I had printed mine ahead of time and brought it with me we were able to skip that and continue with the mass of people towards the packet pickup area.

Once I located the booth where my packet was I turned in my waiver, showed my ID, got my race bibs and was pointed in the direction where I could pick up my t-shirts.  Because I signed up for the Dopey Challenge I got 6 different shirts – one for the 5K, 10K, 1/2 marathon, full marathon, the Goofy Challenge (which is the 1/2 and the full) and the Dopey Challenge which is all 4 races.  The shirts were all long sleeve tech shirts except the 5K and they came in a clear bag that could be used if you needed to check a bag at the races.

getting my bibs!

looks like I almost drowned

There were 2 others sections for the expo – a section with only runDisney merchandise which the line was insanely long so we skipped it, and a section with regular running merchandise.  I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to buy anything because the last few months I have been getting rid of clutter and things I don’t use, but I still wanted to walk around in case anything caught my eye.  I was surprised how many things were picked over and sold out – and it was still early in the day!

We wandered around the property a bit more making sure we didn’t miss anything -taking advantage of the fact the sun came out.  After we were sure there was nothing else we needed to do we headed back to the car snapping a few pictures in front of banners for each of the races along the way.

And just like that – runDisney Marathon Weekend had started!  Was I really going to attempt the Dopey challenge and run 48.6 miles in 4 consecutive days!?!

Oh yeah…bring it on!