After reading Katy’s post yesterday, I was inspired to add a bit more on the RW Half today. Blogging has brought me some amazing opportunities and I don’t take them for granted. When I started this blog over 2 years, I had no idea it would be become such a big part of my life. I didn’t know that it would inspire me to do better and be better. But it has.
In addition to those non-tangible personal benefits, I’ve been able to try out new products, take trips and have access to people I never would have before. I have traveled to the West Coast twice this year with this blog and the most recent trip, to the Runner’s World Half-Marathon, was another amazing experience — and I loved every second of this weekend.
I have to thank Runner’s World for choosing me to be a part of their beautiful weekend — the weekend they “bring Runner’s World to life,” as Editor-in-Chief David Willey told us.
They truly did! The best place to be as a runner is around other runners — because you know we can talk about marathons and half-marathons literally for hours. We all have our own little stories upon stories of this race and that. We value how running makes us FEEL, how it makes us gracious, inspired, determined and just overall better people.
Boy did I feel that this weekend! I felt surrounded by welcome and friendship. I also felt like RW chose the absolute best, quality products they could have for this event. I only give honest reviews here (if I don’t like that is given to me for review, I usually just don’t review it.) So I want to makes sure I give you the details on some of the fabulous things I got to try this weekend.
- Runner’s World Weekend Part I
- Runner’s World Weekend Part II
- Half-Marathon, 10k & 5k Recaps
- Lots of fun photos to see on Instagram as well!
Yoga Lovin’ Lotus Products
— Lotus Yoga Mat
— Lotus Yoga Tote
— Lotus Grip Block
— Xfinity Fitness Band
Altra Shoes
Running Skirts
These ladies were all over the course and I totally loved their enthusiasm, not to mention the tons of awesome designs they have for running skirts of all kinds. We got complimentary skirts and compression socks — hooray! You know you look cooler when you wear compression socks 🙂
And did ya see this sweet Skirtlympics video? Can you spot me in here?
Too much fun — don’t miss RW’s Bart Yasso modeling his skirt at the end!
Runner’s World Cookbook
I cannot say enough good things on this one. We had two full meals catered and they were both amazing. One was entirely made up of food from the RW cookbook and the other included my favorite thing of the entire weekend — Turkey Feta Meatballs. Soooo good!
Icon Fitness “Boston Treadmill”
As you know, I won one of these! But… it is currently at my Momma’s house. We still got a crazy cool demo and it made me want to plop it right in my living room even though there is no space and my downstairs neighbors would most likely murder me for all the pounding. Someday…
Colleen from Icon was amazingly kind and answered all of our questions. She has been with Icon for 17 years and knows her stuff. It was clear she is passionate about their products and that translated well. I’m looking forward to more with Icon in the future.
Major love to these companies, who were the goodies inside the goody bag we got upon arrival as well:
- Pro-Compression (Love!)
- Ortho-Lite (Super comfortable!)
- Bondi Band (Cute designs!)
- Wild Planet Tuna (Yum!)
- Deer Park Water (Always!)
- Run Donna Marathon (Anytime!)
- The Stick! (SO necessary!!)
- SPIBelt (Perfect & cute!)
- Injinji (Hat for winter running!)
Sweaty Bands
I love Sweaty Bands — they are really the only headband that I use, or that has worked well for me. They have an endless variety of patterns, colors, thicknesses to choose from and I would like to own about 50 of them to be honest (1 for every outfit!). Luckily, they let me pick out a free clearance band when I was at the expo so I got that one in addition to a spiffy new purple one you can see below!
Lara Bars
These weren’t really part of our package but major props to the new flavors coming out at Lara Bars. I didn’t used to be a huge fan but their new flavors — like Sticky Bun, Roasted Nut Roll & Bananas Foster — are amazing. These things are definitely up my alley and I will be buying them from now on. They sponsored the race so they were handing them out afterwards and at the Expo.
