Baltimore Half Marathon Expo

This past Saturday I ran the Baltimore Half Marathon. Overall, Corrigan Sports put on a great race weekend that was well organized and very enjoyable. We arrived into Baltimore on Friday night and checked into our hotel (Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace) at 7 pm. Since Baltimore is about 2 hours and 15 minutes from where we live we did not want to have to worry about travel/traffic on race morning, so we got a hotel. I would highly recommend this hotel for those that run the half marathon. It is VERY close to not only the expo, but also the half marathon start line. They also let us wait until 1:30 pm to check-out, so we had time to come back to the hotel after the race and shower and we didn't have to worry about packing the car before the race.

     Bib distribution was clearly labeled by race and        bib number (which was on your pick-up card).

The expo was open until 9 pm Friday night. We walked a few blocks to the Baltimore Convention Center where the expo was held. We easily picked up our bibs upstairs, then headed downstairs where we picked up our race shirts. 

There were no lines for bib or shirt pick-up. Downstairs the shirt pick-up area was also well labeled by race and shirt size. There were plenty of volunteers on duty to help out. They had a shirt exchange area where you could switch sizes if yours didn't fit (Cam took advantage of this). The shirts are long sleeve Under Armour (a race sponsor) heat gear shirts. I'm not a huge fan of the color. In some light it looks grey and in others it looks dark green. I also find it puzzling that it's a long sleeve shirt, but it's heat gear (which is meant to be worn when it's hot out).

The next thing we came upon was the official merchandise area. They had tons of awesome stuff and a lot of it was Under Armour. Since I've lived in Maryland pretty much all my life I love the MD state flag and crabs. Needless to say, they had A LOT of merchandise with the MD flag and/or crabs on it. They had everything from pants, jackets, shirts, mugs, magnets, Camelbak water bottles, etc.

The shirt on the bottom left is the official race shirt. 

The MD Double Shirt and the Gray Quarter Zip were from the official merchandise section. 

The MD flag headband was from a vendor.

The blue t-shirt was from the Under Armour store they had set-up. It says, "Drop the Hammer."

We then headed on to visit the rest of the vendors that had set-up in the convention center. Cameron picked up some Bondi Bands to try out. They ended up working perfectly for him for the race. We stopped at a few other vendors and picked up some various things. Just as we were heading out we hit the Under Armour area they had set-up. Needless to say we spent quite awhile browsing their merchandise. 

We picked up some dinner from Noodles and Company on the way back from the expo. Ate dinner, laid out our outfits and turned in for the night. 

Check back for the half marathon recap!

That's all for now!