So we took a red eye on Thursday and got to NYC around 8am on Friday. We made our way into the city during rush hour and went to my friend Josh's to drop off our bags. We weren't tired so off we went! We stopped at Dunkin Donuts and got some coffee and a small breakfast and headed to Central Park. We got to see one of the kids dashes walking towards the Marathon store. Not going to lie, walking into the park and see everything set up, was super overwhelming for me. I basically felt like I could not breathe and at the same time wanted to cry. I run all the time and rarely get nervous anymore-this whole thing had my stomach in knots. Ralph could tell I was a bit overwhelmed walking towards the finish line so he tried to calm me down. I basically just walked slow and visualized how I would be feeling on Sunday. So incredible!
The kids dash we saw was adorable and even better, all of the Elites were there! We went to the marathon store where I bought my headband and Finisher jacket and ralph got a pair of gloves (not going to lie, now looking back, I wish I would have gotten the gloves) and then in the back was Kathrin Switzer! Having already been overwhelmed with everything and then to see her, crazy! I am so glad we came here to buy things because the Expo was a zoo!
We headed back to drop off our stuff that we bought and made our way over to Herald Square. Ralph had never seen the old escalators before so we went to see those and then started the walk to the Expo. We knew we were heading the right way as runners were coming back with their shirts and purchases!
The walk was about 15 minutes, which was longer than I would have liked but we finally made it!
I picked up my bib and I was told by a volunteer after telling her I was about to run my 5th marathon, "well, you never have truly run one until you run NYC". Interesting but I think my body would disagree after 3 LA Marathons, a marathon as the end of dopey and in the middle of Dopey Rebel and a PR 3 weeks before after getting in a car accident heading to the race. I got my race shirt where they were definitely not size right. I ended up going up to a Medium and I am still concerned it may shrink. The volunteers were telling everyone to size up.
Now onto the Expo! The Asics store was awesome but the line was insane! it snaked around the entire store and ended up outside in another long line. It was about 5x the size of the line I stood in while I ran Dopey. crazy! and I am so glad we went to the Marathon store that morning!
We walked the rest of the expo. Anyone and everyone was there, which was awesome! I ended up buying some more Nuun and a super cute NYC themed water bottle that came with my purchase and also a new pair of the GoMeb Speed3 NYC special edition Skechers. It is the shoe Meb ran in! I let the guy know that we were both running the LAM and super excited for Skeechers to be the title sponsor now and he gave us a discount code to use to buy shoes! I know I will want to be the special edition LA shoes so I may use them to buy a pair of GoRide3 I have been eyeing for awhile.
I also stopped by Rundisney to check out the awesome Wine and Dine and Avengers medals i would be earning. While looking at the medals, I learned that someone had stolen the marathon medal the day before! People are crazy! That is why at wine and dine the medals were back in a corner and why at Avengers they were behind a case. it really sucks that you can't touch them and really see them now because of some idiot that stole one!
One thing I really enjoyed was that every major shoe company was there and everyone had special edition shoes, which means everyone could find something. Once we got past the merchandise and shoes, it was the same as any other expo.
After that, we took an uber back uptown and grabbed lunch at Indikitch was awesome. We then went to take a nap before our adventure that night.
Overall, the expo was really amazing and I definitely loved how big it was. I did not buy much but I do love my shoes and I have been using Nuun constantly.
Are you usually a big fan of Expos?