Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Wine & Dine Half Marathon (Splash & Dash) 2014 -The Expo

Life has been absolutely nuts with the holidays sneaking up on me so quickly and getting out of my routine.  Things are finally calming down, just in time for Christmas to make everything busy again!

About a month ago I ran rundisney's Wine and DIne Half Marathon which has been renamed the "Splash and Dash" half marathon. I'll recap that race soon, but I'll start at the beginning with this post...the EXPO!

It was so much fun to spend this weekend with my BFF from college, Andrew.  About a year ago, I convinced him that running a half marathon was an excellent idea and that we should go to Disney to do it.  Luckily for me he agreed, and we spent the better part of the last year texting each other (we live 11 hours apart) conversations like this:

K: Remember that time we're going to Disney World?
A: I know!!!

I arrived in Orlando late Thursday night and then eagerly and impatiently waited for Andrew's flight to arrive.  Finally, I saw him heading toward the Magical Express terminal, our designated meeting place!

Soon we were on our way to Saratoga Springs.  Andrew is DVC so we booked through his membership, and Saratoga was a host resort.  Having run this race last year, that was a relief for me.

After getting lost in the dark trying to find the room, we finally arrived.  One of my favorite touches is the mouse ears left by Mousekeeping!

Having never stayed at Saratoga Springs before, I took pictures of everything, including the room number!
We were in the Carousel building.
Such a pretty resort, just after sunrise.


We planned to get to the expo as soon as it opened at 10:00AM on Friday.  I absolutely require breakfast in the morning and I was so excited for some Mickey waffles.  I loved that there were three small waffles rather than one big one, everyone knows the ears are the best part!

Everything tastes better when shaped like Mickey, am I right?

After breakfast, we headed over to the bus stop and waited in the first line of our trip:
Race weekend transportation is the number one reason to stay at a host resort.

Before long, we were on our way to the expo.  Once the bus arrived, the line moved rather quickly and we arrived at Wide World of Sports just before the expo opened.



 
One thing to know about the Wine & Dine Expo is that packet pick up is in a separate location from shirt pick up, vendors and the rest of the expo.  While it initially sounds like a pain, it really helps to dissipate some of the crowding. We headed to packet pick up first. I didn't have much of a line to pick up my packet:

I'm still so proud of myself for being in Corral A!

I was very excited for the countdown...Andrew, not so much!

When we headed to the shirt pick up location, I was surprised that it wasn't that crowded.  Bonus points for having women's sizes this year...my shirt actually fits me! It was then that I realized where all the crowds were: at the official merchandise booth!  What a zoo!  I fought through the crowds and decided to tempt fate by buying the I Did It! shirt.  Yes, I was one of those souls that bought the shirt with the backwards arrows...not going to lie, it makes me love it that much more!

Finally we left the expo because we had Fastpass reservations at Disney's Animal Kingdom to be getting to.  But not before taking a quick picture:
I loved these backdrops!  Thanks for taking the picture kind stranger!

If you're here, thanks for reading this long post!  More recaps of this trip will be coming your way soon!