Health & Fitness Expo – Philly Half

It has been another crazy whirlwind weekend in my life. I can’t remember the last time a weekend WASN’T crazy to be honest with you. My parents were in town and we were doing wedding reception site shopping and I had 2 friends in town for the race, so it was seriously insane. I took close to 300 pictures this weekend and easily have a good 6 posts and 2 giveaways backlogged, so please bear with me.

Friday I scrounged up some time to head downtown to the Convention Center to go to the Health & Fitness Expo to pick up my bib and race packet for the Philadelphia Half Marathon that I ran yesterday (stay tuned for a recap!) The only thing I have to say about the Expo which sucked was that I had to pay $11 to park to go inside to get my race packet. That was really annoying. For the Broad Street Run, the expo was at Lincoln Financial Field and parking was free. I was annoyed I had to pay to park to get my bib on top of the fee I paid to get into the race.

There were lots of cute stands with lots of running gear being sold. I totally wanted to pick up this little number for the baby I am not planning on having anytime soon, but one day. How cute is this?!?

Another highlight of the expo was that I got to meet Bart Yasso. He was there signing copies of his book and taking pictures. He even was at the start of the race yesterday announcing the waves of runners to start. It was so cool to meet him!

I obviously had to get a signed copy of his book – My Life On The Run. It has been on my to-read shelf for a while now (I forget which blogger had recently read it and said it was good!), so it was nice to get an official signed copy! I can’t wait to read it.

 

He wrote me a nice little love note which says: “Leslie, Never Limit Where Running Can Take You.  Bart Yasso

Philly 1/2 Marathon 2009!”

I love his wise words!

  

The packet was sort of awesome. I loved the long sleeved performance shirts (I wore it all day today~! Yay!) I also really appreciated how they separated the 3 races that were going on that weekend. There were different shirts, bibs and medals for the marathon, half marathon and 8K.

The back of the shirt showed the half marathon route, which I thought was super cool. I love my shirt, did I mention that yet?

Here is all the goods that we got in this massive backpack: the shirt, gloves (with the marathon logo) some bars, lots of coupons, chapstick, the geico thing is a wrist strap which would hold money or cash or keys, some tea and my bib.

I was really impressed that they personalized the bib. I felt so official!

There was also tons of literature in the packet and being handed out throughout the expo. Lots of these cards even have coupons for upcoming races all over the place. I’ll probably give some shout outs on twitter the codes I am not using. Stay tuned!

I love going to expos because I always pick up some running gear at great prices! I picked up this sweet pink Gracie’s Gear tank which I plan to wear in Disney! I also got some socks. I love me some socks.

   

They were also giving out these awesome posters. I really loved the “Running Means…” theme this year. Everyone has a different reason they run and it was nice for that to be a general focus. I also loved how they highlighted the various Philly landmarks we ran by. I would like to frame this but I don’t know where to put it~!

 

All in all (minus the parking) it was a nice expo. I love going and checking out (and buying) new things. It’s fun when I am surrounded by other runners!

Stay tuned for my race recap!