#fitblognyc and friends!

This has been a whirlwind 48 hours. Since the last time I’ve blogged, I have:

I’m sort of glad I didn’t blog immediately after I got home last night so that I could think about what I wanted to say about yesterday.

My buddy Tina put it the best during her panel yesterday. Kelly asked the panelists (Tina, Julie and Carla) what was the best thing that had come to them from blogging. Julie said that hearing that Jessica Simpson had read her blog once, but Tina said that it was, hands-down, the friends she’d made, and this sap in the third row teared up a little bit.

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I know I’ve said this a million times–I didn’t start my blog to make friends, but I am so lucky to have met all the wonderful people I have through it and to have connected with so many other people. Just because I overshare on the Internet.

Yesterday was awesome because of my friends.

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[photo via Tina]

We started off with my favorite boot camp class before the Meet and Tweet.

The Meet and Tweet was a one-day conference hosted by Fitness magazine and some awesome sponsors at the Metropolitan Pavilion, where a lot of the NYRR race expos are.

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Give me blog friends…and coffee.

I walked into the conference space and was immediately overwhelmed. I think there were probably close to 200 people there, and I knew or recognized a lot of those people, but I was still a little anxious. Or maybe that was the caffeine and endorphins.

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The first speaker was AJ Jacobs, the author who wrote The Year of Living Biblically and Drop Dead Healthy. The latter is the one he was there to talk to us about. For this book, he took two years to take all the health advice he could find. Spoiler alert: there’s no lack of health advice out there. He was basically a health guinea pig and did everything from writing the book on a treadmill to trying pole dancing. We got his book in our swag bag, and it sounds like an interesting read.

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After that, we heard from Fitness nutrition editor Juno DeMelo and nutritionists Tanya Zuckerbrot and Keri Gans. (I’ve been following Keri on Twitter for awhile, so it was interesting to see her speak.)

They were talking about carbs, cleanses and caffeine. Two of them were okay by the nutritionists: take a guess which ones.

They talked about some of the common misconceptions about the above, such as that carbs make you fat. (Too many carbs do, but carbs themselves don’t.) Cleanses were another hot topic; obviously they weren’t a fan of cleanses. “If you go on a cleanse, all you learn to do is take food out of your diet,” says Keri. They said a cleanse for a day or two wasn’t that dangerous, but cleanses aren’t effective for weight loss.

After their session, I ended up gabbing with friends and catching up.

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Oh, and taking smoothie shots with Gia.

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And I <3 running pics.

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OH HEY ALI. Remember when we used to hang out outside of our blogs’ comment sections?

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Me, Sarah, Ashley, Julie, Courtney and Tina.

I didn’t take a ton more pictures, but I caught up with so many others and got lots of warm hugs from people I don’t see nearly enough.

Dear everyone: please move to NYC.

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Lunch was healthy, of course. That faro salad in the back was AMAZING, and I could have just had that and been really happy. It had arugula and hazelnut oil in it, and I am going to try to recreate it. And then eat it daily.

After lunch, there was a fun fitness and fashion panel. I think there’s a lot of really cute fitness clothes now, but I’m going to keep my workout clothes to working out and my non-working out clothes to not working out. Except for maybe pretending yoga pants are leggings. That is something I can get behind.

After that panel was my favorite panel of the day–and not just because I love all the panelists.

They were discussing blogging and the business of blogging. As someone who works professionally in social media and who makes some money off of this blog, I was very curious to hear what all of these successful women had to say. They all talked a lot about being proactive and going after the opportunities that you want, and not sitting and waiting for them to come to you. Carla said she spends at least an hour each day just pitching herself. Julie does a lot of freelance writing and was saying that it’s key to start locally. A national magazine is not going to give you your big break on your first pitch.

I’ve done a good amount of freelancing myself, and that is absolutely true. Freelancing involves so much rejection, but when you finally get a piece accepted, it’s so worth it. I heard on another panel once to “leapfrog.” That is, use every piece to get you to your next piece. Did you write a piece on strength training for a small magazine? Great, now pitch to a bigger magazine that you can write about strength training and have written about it at that smaller magazine. Your blog’s also an active resume (as Tina said.) Use your stronger posts as clips when you’re pitching editors. I haven’t done as much freelancing as I’ve wanted to, but that was a huge part of the reason I started this blog–as a work sample to show future employers and editors.

After their session, we did another workout–a tabura class with Reign Hudson. Tabura is a mix of African dance and kickboxing, according to Reign. And is really freakin’ hard but was really fun because it was so far outside of my only-dances-after-a-few-glasses-of-wine comfort zone. The class is part of Kiwi Sweat, which puts on pop-up fitness classes around the city.


Props to Jill for having someone take this video. (The workout starts about 3 min in, and yes, you can see just how uncoordinated I actually am.)
After workout number two of the day, we said our goodbyes and then I met up with smaller group at Tortilla Flats for dinner. I love that place–it’s so fun.

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We split a pitcher of skinny margaritas, and Anne and I split fajitas.

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My favorite.
We didn’t want the day to end, so a smaller-still group ended up at the Standard Biergarten.
After a few drinks, Anne and Tina and I decided to run at 6:30 this morning. When my alarm went off at 6 this morning, Anne and I discussed bailing but rallied and met Tina for 5 miles.

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I took them to run on my favorite path on the West Side Highway, and Anne said she felt like she was jumping into my blog.
And then I went back to work with sweet, sweet memories of an awesome few days.

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And some pretty sweet swag. These Oakleys are pretty amazing. They’re sport ones, so I’m excited to try to run or bike with them soon.

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This Sonia Kashuk bag. (We were given a “passport” upon arrival at the event and had to visit each booth to get a star to then get your bag of stuff. Well worth it.)
And a Camelbak water bottle with a filter. I’ve wanted one for a while, but with a bunch of random water bottles in my pantry always found reasons not to spend $20 on it. I’m newly obsessed with it.
Thanks again to Fitness and Fitfluential for this awesome event!
If you were there, what was your favorite part of the event? If you weren’t there…do you get overwhelmed by events like this? Or love them? (Or both.)

17 comments on “#fitblognyc and friends!

  1. Adara

    I read Tina’s Blog, Anne’s Blog, and Ashley’s. I started out reading Ashley’s and it snowballed out to all of you! However, I often forget there’s a connection and when I see a picture of all of you, for a split second I am taken back! Pretty hilarious that A. You all have become a part of my daily routine (through reading your blogs) and B. That I think I know you all and when I see you together for a photo op, I am taken aback! This blog world is a funny one!

    Reply
  2. Jess

    Every time I hang out with you ladies up in NYC I’m tempted to move their solely so I can hang out with you all on a more regular basis. New idea: How ’bout you all move to DC 🙂

    Reply
  3. Emily Semmelman

    Looks like such a great event – and that bag is ridiculously adorable, especially for a swag bag! Love the V8 Smoothie shots, of course 🙂 Hmm and everyone else is posting about you going on a date… now I’m curious!

    Reply
  4. Amanda

    Do you know what model those Oakleys are? I have been looking for some sport shades that dont make me look like an insect and those are adorable!

    Reply
  5. barbara_daisy

    wow, that looks like a lot of fun!! I’m also curious about your DATE, especially since you once “confessed” that you never had a longterm relationship. I am sooooo glad that I’m not the only 30-year-old single girl who never had a relationship that lasted more than 6 months.

    would be awesome if you would address this (highly sensitive, I know) topic someday!

    most of the time I’m ok with it, but people react quite strangely when you tell them … makes me feel really selfconscious 🙁

    i love your blog, i love running (when I’m not injured 🙁 ), new york is amazing and your job sounds really cool! just keep doing what you’re doing, you inspire me everyday!!!!

    greetings from europe
    barbara

    Reply

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