Tokyo Marathon Expo

The Tokyo Marathon Expo is being held at Tokyo Big Sight. Tokyo Big Sight is a ginormous convention center located in the south east area of Tokyo. This is an area of Tokyo we have not had the opportunity to visit yet. Here was our route on the train.

The fun part of the trip was going on the blue section or the Yurikamome Line. It goes over “Rainbow Bridge.” On the map, the green area is called “Aqua City” and we could see shopping and an amusement park. This will be an area worth exploring in the future.

The expo is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The marathon is on Sunday. We decided to go to the expo on Thursday night because heard it only gets more crowded as the race day approaches. Plus, it isn’t really close to where we will be staying in Tokyo during marathon weekend.

I’m truly glad we went when we did. I can’t imagine the crowds! 36,000 runners all have to pick up their number, wrist band, tshirts and timing chip. Yes, we have to wear a wrist band until we finish the marathon. It was put on by security and verified it matched my bib number. The band will also be screened at the start to allow me to enter and ensure I didn’t give away my number.

Finding the expo once we were off the train was easy. There were workers pointing the way.

Big Sight Tokyo was definitely big and a sight! There was a light up display with audio.

First stop, number pick up. They had a special section for foreign runners. That’s us!

Like I said, I’m so glad we came early. There were no lines! And my timing chip is good to go!

How cute is this, they had a board with everyone’s name, organized by number. Dave found our names!

From here, we entered the expo part of the expo and had plenty of photo opportunities, give aways and demonstrations.

I forgot to mention they gave us a free beer, too!

So much to see!

It was undeniably the largest expo we have ever experienced. Two entire floors and a food court.

The only disappointing part was the lack of Tokyo Marathon 2017 swag. There were a lot of tshirts and zip ups but, not things like pint glasses or beer coasters!