Fitness Magazine Blogger Meet & Tweet #FitBlogNYC – Afternoon recap

 

Last week I was lucky enough to be an attendee of the Fitness Magazine Blogger Meet & Tweet event, #FitBlogNYC. In case you missed it, you can read my recap from yesterday about the inspirational speakers we listened to throughout the morning.

During the afternoon, we had the opportunity to visit and chat with all the amazing sponsors of the event, meet and hang out with fellow bloggers, as well as being treated to a delicious, healthy lunch. We ended the day with our choice of three workouts – running, yoga, or dance. Surprise, surprise, guess who didn’t pick running?? Yup, I actually chose the yoga workout option, since I had the Brooklyn Half Marathon to run on Saturday, so i didn’t want to run hard when I was supposed to be tapering.

The sponsors were awesome and so generous to us! Thank you to ALL of them for being so generous! Athleta, Camelbak, Crystal Light, Ford/Fiesta Movement, Marmot, Reebok, Saucony, Smart Balance, Tonalin, and Vichy were all represented at the event.

Talk about an incredible surprise – Saucony gave every attendee a pair of their Kinvara4’s and Reebok gave us each a pair of their SubLite Train shoes, as well as a cute yoga top!

I loved speaking with Paige Classon, an athlete representing Marmot. Paige is just about to embark on a 12 month journey called Lead Now, rock climbing in 12 different countries and raising money for a different charity in each place. I already warned her I will be blogging more about Lead Now in future – I found her incredibly inspiring.

When I stopped by the Vichy Laboratories booth, I had the pleasure of finally meeting Violet Zaki! Violet is the fitness ambassador for Vichy. She and I overlapped working for Equinox Fitness (she is still teaching group fitness classes for Equinox) and we have a mutual friend who was always raving about how wonderful she is to me, so it’s kind of funny I’d never met her before. She is also a fellow Aussie – it’s always fun to run into another Australian in the city.

Reebok and Athleta were both doing fun Instagram promotions, where we hashtagged our photos from their booths. Athleta has some cute workout gear – last time I checked them out, the patterns weren’t super appealing to me, but I loved their new summer line they had on display for us to check out.

Of course, I also had the opportunity to meet so many other bloggers attending #FitBlogNYC, which was awesome! I had a real ‘fangirl’ moment with Christine from Love Life Surf – I basically accosted her to tell her how much I enjoy reading her blog! She’s a fellow Brooklyn blogger and we actually live in the same neighborhood. It’s odd to think we’ve probably passed each other on the street a bunch of times!

I also met Katie from Hungry Runner and Gabby from Marathons and Macarons. Katie and I are both ACSM certified personal trainers and we talked about how we approach writing about fitness from a personal training angle. Gabby was telling us about working as a leader for Girls on the Run, which sounds like an amazing organization.

Michelle from Healthy Beauty was there from North Carolina and I enjoyed talking with her about her trip to NYC with her daughter! I know Michelle from Twitter and blog comments, so it’s always great to meet an internet friend in person!

After we met with the sponsors and had lunch, we split up into three groups to work out. We had the option of a group run led by Dorothy of Mile Posts, a Cardio Dance class sponsored by Athleta, or an outdoor yoga class taught by Tara Stiles, founder of Strala Yoga. By this time, the weather had warmed up a lot and I was deciding whether or not to take part, since I was developing a major headache (I figured out later that I hadn’t had any coffee that day. I’m usually a 2-cup a day girl, so I think it was caffeine withdrawal!). I decided to go ahead and do it, because,

A) How often do you get the chance to take a yoga class with a celebrity yogi?

and

B) I just recently wrote about a Fit Mama, Emily, who works out despite chronic migraines. I thought to myself, if she can do it, so can I!

Despite the heat and our soon-to-be burning hot yoga mats, it was a lot of fun. It was totally different to any yoga class I’d ever taken before. Tara is upbeat and fun and happy. Her mantra is “Who Made the Rules?”, meaning, if it feels good and it feels right, then go ahead and work out or do yoga any way you want! Like any yogi, she still focuses on form and was adjusting as we went, or helping people into handstands, but she is all about listening to your body and knowing how you want to move and what feels right for you. I loved that. To my surprise, I was able to get into and hold Crow pose for the second time ever (okay, I only held it for about 5 seconds, but it counts!). Several other participants also successfully held Crow during our class and I wonder how much of that was due to the low-pressure, fun environment Tara fostered during our practice.

It was such an amazing day – thank you so much to Fitness Magazine for organizing such a great event. When we made our way out, we were all presented with what might be the mother of all swag bags – seriously, I felt so lucky and grateful.

I’m already looking forward to next year!