Every runDisney race weekend begins with a Health and Fitness Expo. This time around, I didn’t hit up the Expo on day 1. I decided to forgo the urge to spend lots of money on runDisney race merchandise. To top it off, two of my running friends were hosting the We Run Social Meet Up on Friday. So, I waited.

Expo day began with doing laundry. I know….the rock star life! Since the Expo didn’t open until noon and I had no intentions of buying anything at the Expo, leaving after lunch seemed like a good idea. Traffic to Disneyland was just plain awful. I hate the days it takes me an hour and a half to drive down. Ugh! Anyways, after the loooooong drive, I finally made it and got parked in the Mickey and Friends Parking Structure.

The walk from the parking structure to the Disneyland Hotel feels way too long as I’m always too excited to get there!

My usual practice for a runDisney Expo is to find the line for the official merchandise first. Not so this time. I did it the way runDisney wants us to do the expo.

I headed down the red carpet to the lower level packet pick-up area.

Wen you arrive on day 2 of the expo in the mid afternoon, the crowds to pick up your bib are extremely light. I had 1 person to wait behind to get my bib. From what I observed, the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge runners must have arrived on day 1. The lines for the Half Marathon and 10K races were longer than the challenge lines. Not that any of them were very long.

Once I had my bib, it was time to turn around and get my picture taken for the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge. In years past, you’d simply get a wrist band at the end of the first race of the challenge that would be cut off at the end of the second race. Through modern technology, they take your picture. After the second race, you’ll go to someone who has a computer who can look you up to make sure you finished the 10K the day before and your face matches your picture.

After the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge picture, I headed back upstairs to the official looking entrance to the Expo.

On the way in, I couldn’t resist the selfie with Captain America. I was racing in his race the next day after all.

There were several other Avengers you could get a quick picture with on the way in. However, Cap was the only one that interested me.

Time to head inside!

Once inside, I headed right to the tables for my race shirts. Again, there was really no wait. I had one lady in front of me who actually already had her shirts and was chatting with the volunteer. As soon as she realized someone was behind her, she apologized and let me up to the front. There was no need for an apology. But, it was nice.

As I explored the Expo floor, I came to the free Instagram photo. The sly folks at runDisney found a way to get you to come back to the Expo each day by offering a different picture each day.

It’s a pretty simple process. You show the worker at the booth that you are following runDisney on Instagram and you get the free pic. If you aren’t following runDisney yet, just download it in front of the worker and you’re set. Thor was the picture for Friday. (Sadly, I didn’t make it back on Saturday for the pic with Cap.)

After the free Instagram pic, I ran into my friend Ivie (who was one of the hosts for the We Run Social Meet Up). After chatting with her for a few minutes and AJ, I went off to the official runDisney merchandise area to see what was left over. I didn’t expect to buy anything. However, I came across this jacket and it was in my size! They only had 1 in my size, so I grabbed it.

Since I had some success, I went over to the “I Did It” shirts area to see what was available. The Infinity Gauntlet Challenge shirt was pretty cool.

The 5K “I Did It!” shirt was alright as well. However, I didn’t actually run the Avengers 5K.

I asked the cast member if they had my size in the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon “I Did It!” shirt. Much to my surprise, they did! So, I had to get one. This shirt is seriously cool!

Here’s the ladies version of the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon “I Did It!” shirt.

I was a little surprised how much race merchandise was still left. A lot of it was for the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge.

None of the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge shirts were too tempting for me.

This one was kind of cool, though.

This had was the hardest item for me to pass on. I already have two black running hats. So, I ended up passing.

The magnets were also hard to pass on. However, I have so many at this point, I don’t know what to do with new ones.

No matter what race you were running, there was a magnet for you.

After making my purchase, I walked around the floor. Over at the New Balance booth, I was surprised to see new signage. I think they’ve had pretty much the same signage at all the runDisney events I’ve attended. So, it was cool to see something different.

Sad to say, there was no Avengers themed runDisney New Balance shoe. Oh well, I didn’t really need to buy new shoes anyways.

There’s always a fun backdrop to get your picture with. After grabbing this picture, I went over to sign up for runner tracking.

On the way out of the Expo, I finally got to see the runDisney medals on display. There was no runDisney booth at the Expo like you’d usually see. Usually, it’s right next to Jeff Galloway’s booth. Not so this time. Apparently, someone stole a Walt Disney World Marathon medal at the NYC Marathon Expo. So, the days of being able to pose with the new runDisney medals is a thing of the past.

I was really happy to see these medals, though! The Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend – Light Side of the Force medals were on display. Sadly for me, the only medal that did not change was the half marathon medal. It’s an alright medal. However, I don’t really need two of them. I LOVE the Star Wars 10K medal!

After the Expo, I wandered around to see what was already set up. This is the best finish line picture I will get!

Everything was all set up for the Avengers 5K. It’s kind of fun to walk down the finish area without the pressure of loosing time to stop for some pictures!

The last thing to get to in my Expo day was the We Run Social meet-up. This was the whole reason I chose to come on Friday for the Expo when I cold have gone on Thursday. I wanted to get to meet some more runners who are part of the We Run Social crew. These meet ups always feature new people to meet and are always fun. This meet-up was no different. If you aren’t following yet, you should. We Run Social is on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Since I’ve talked about this group before, I won’t go over it all again.

All in all, this Expo day was fun as usual. The lesson from this Expo was that you don’t necessarily arrive on day 1 of the Expo to find decent official merchandise to purchase. I still think to have the maximum choice of official merchandise, you need to arrive before noon on day 1. However, if you can’t, I learned that you might still be able to get some cool official merchandise.

Tomorrow, I’ll have my recap of the Inaugural Captain America 10K. See you tomorrow!