Saturday, May 3, 2014

Nike DC Expo Re-Cap


As many of you already know, Nike gave me the AMAZING opportunity to run the Nike Women's 1/2 Marathon in Washington DC last weekend. Not only was I invited to this race by Nike, but I was able to spend the weekend with my best friend Meg!

The entire week leading up to the race was so hard! I was so busy at work, and had very little time to actually prepare myself for what was sure to be a very busy weekend!




Friday finally came, and it was only a short 2-hour flight to DC. As I made my way out off the plane and through the airport, I was filled with emotion! I was practically running…because Meg was meeting me there and taking me to our hotel! It was so amazing to see her again!!

After getting settled in our hotel room, which Meg had fully stocked with all of the very important "girl's weekend" food groups!! (She seriously rocks!), we headed down to the bar for a few drinks! I enjoyed my very first bourbon drink, a Cherry Blossom -- I thought it was fitting for the event! It was very tasty, and very strong!! I think I got a little drunk! ;)



Meg and I had so much to talk about and catch up on that falling asleep was hard… I think I finally shut my eyes at about 2am!

The next morning we headed to the Nike Expotique. We took the Uber car service and it was a great idea… we arrived very quickly and did not have to wait long until we were in the doors and picking up our bibs! Beating the crowd is always a bonus for me!





We picked up our bibs, shirts and goodie bags, and headed into the Expo. 




This is not an expo like other big races, mainly because this is a Nike race, and they don't have other companies selling merchandise at their race (do you blame them?!).






Pretty much the expo consisted of a few picture ops, gate analysis, a sneak peek of the Tiffany necklace, Nuun sampling and hair braiding. While there wasn't much to look at or buy, the venue was BEAUTIFUL!! It felt very posh and girly! I loved it!!

After walking around for awhile, Meg and I made our way to the Nike Georgetown store. This is where all of the official merchandise was sold for the race.

Before arriving at the store, we searched for our names on the giant wall of runners. Meg found her name right away, but my name was not included. Probably because of my extremely late registration!




The energy in the store was infectious, and just added to my excitement of the entire weekend!!

I seriously loved all of the merchandise, and ended up buying way more than I had planned on! My favorite purchase being the tribal-print leggings….they actually match the design on the necklace and are AMAZING!!

We had made our way through packet pick-up, the expotique and the Nike store in record time, and had some time to kill before our #Runnerslove Meet-Up at Sprinkles Cupcakes, so we headed to the Georgetown Cupcake Store. We had heard that Georgetown Cupcakes was better than Sprinkles, so we just had to have our own taste-test!! We waited in line for a good 30 minutes before getting our cupcakes.

Overall, I LOVE this expo! It really got me excited to run the race! Nike was so well organized and everything was so beautifully done, it really made me feel special! I wish I would have had more patience and had gotten my hair braided, but the time saved at the expo allowed us to visit Georgetown Cupcakes, and that was quite an experience too!









4 comments:

Jennifer K. said...

So? How were the cupcakes? We have Sprinkles here in Newport Beach. They're not my favorite lately. Something has changed and they seem less moist than they used to.

Unknown said...

Jennifer, Check out my next blog for the results!! :)

Unknown said...

I love that light up race map...the expo looks like it was a lot of fun, and totally different from a Disney expo!

Lauren said...

I LOVED this expo, especially the Paul Mitchell booth. Such a great idea to have someone there to do all the ladies' hair!

I was still shocked at the lack of restrooms though...they need to change that next year.