FitBloggin recap - part 2!

Day 1 of the actual conference started bright and early for me with a lovely 6 mile run...

There are plenty of trails along the river and I just stuck to those passing across 2 bridges to make a great lil’ loop on either side of the river, then cutting up through historic downtown for a little early morning urban sightseeing!

I skipped the first session so I could shower and change but I was ready to get stuck into many of the awesome sessions on offer. I grabbed my breakfast and whilst making my choices from the fab buffet table I spied a golden cowbell. I'd read online prior to the event the DietsinReview were organizing a G+ Hangout live chat with Dolvett - the sexy trainer from Biggest Loser and if you found a golden cowbell it was winning you a free seat in that chat!! WooHoo! I got me a cowbell and I can swoon over Dolvett (but I probably need to find something interesting and witty to ask him aswell!) Anyway back to the sessions, first up was Motivating your Community to choose healthy lifestyles, followed by a session on tackling the taboo of therapy. Most sessions were 1½ or 2 hours and there was usually a ½ hour break between them which gave us plenty of time to switch rooms or grab a snack (and adjust clothing depending on the AC setting!). Lunchtime many of the sponsors had collaborated on a mini fashion as we enjoyed our lunch. It was served buffet style and you went into the ballroom and found yourself an empty seat at a table – all the tables had ‘theme’s – and you picked what theme fitted you – we went with the ‘really hungry’ table – which was amusing since for the first few minutes we barely spoke to each other – seriously hungry people here! (we got a little more social as our plates emptied!)

Hanging with the Laughing Cow at the vendor expo and me and my golden cowbell!

My afternoon sessions included a discussion on clean eating, Optimizing your post-workout recovery and turning your blog into a business. I generally preferred the sessions on blog techniques and the business side of growing your blog - typically these sessions were more presenter led rather than discussion and for me personally I got way more out of it that way as you can spend more time listening to your presenter and their expertise. Friday evening were the Ignite presentations – around 15 I think – Ignite follows a standard format – 1 presenter, 5 minutes, 20 Powerpoint slides auto-advancing every 20 seconds – it’s an awesome format I’d not seen before but very engaging and great to hear from so many different presenters about a wide variety of topics – many were fun, some had a more educational component to them (the best you can do with 5 minutes!) – I loved the presentation on adrenal fatigue by our new friend (and room neighbor!) Susan. I also loved the presentations that spoke of peoples stories and journeys to health, weight loss and/or fitness – I am always a sucker for these – they are so inspiring! The evening reception also included a delicious Parfait bar sponsored by Attune Foods and Driscolls Berries – there were tonnes of fresh berries, granola, seeds, shredded coconut, chocolate and you were left to ‘build your own’ – mine may have featured a large dose of chocolate (which was really awesome actually – broken pieces of this pro biotic chocolate)

Saturday morning was another bright start – 6am Yoga session with SweatPink. Given the early time it was a popular class and I really enjoyed it. I had time to grab my delicious breakfast (fresh fruit, bacon, pastries – all the things I love!) before heading off to a Discussion session on ‘How to set health & fitness goals’ with Erin. I was LiveBlogging this session – in fact volunteering for this role was the reason I was at FitBloggin’13 since I received a complimentary conference ticket in exchange for volunteering. It was a busy and popular workshop with a tonne of information – great for the participants (and me!) but crazy busy for me as I tried to capture everything. Live Blogging is an awesome way to get the information from the conference ‘out there’ for those that weren’t able to make it – and I’ve enjoyed reading up on some of the sessions I wasn’t able to attend, and I thoroughly recommend checking out the write-ups on the blog.

I had a tough time with my choices of sessions on Saturday. In the end I went along to a Crossfit WOD (awesome - never done it before, now keen to try a full class as this was a mini demo class), How to Create a Media Kit and a workshop on Google Analytics (and kinda, managed to duck into the first half of a session on Improving your blog through SEO) As a pretty low-key blogger here at ‘What Happened Next…’ these tended to be more applicable to those with bigger and more pro blogs but since I help Chris with the behind-the-scenes stuff for InSpiral Coaching’s blog it’s fanatsic information as we work to grow his business in the future – there’s so much to learn, and the presenters were fantastic.

Sadly the conference was drawing to a close and Saturday night was a reception hosted by those fabulous people at Nutrilite – yet more goodies from them, mini iPads and Tiffany necklaces as door prizes (not for me sadly) and some delicious hors d’oeuvres doing the rounds by the waiters. There was some karaoke and some dancing, plenty of margarita drinking and time with new friends. At the end of the night I headed back to my room exhausted and happy.

This was the amazing swag we got from the sponsors - Reebok shoes, sports bags, t-shirt, sweat towels, months worth of supplements, protein bars, cereals, nuts, an awesome water bottle and so much more!!

FitBloggin was an awesome experience - just the right mix of workout classes, blogging technique workshops and health and fitness workshops. Many attendees have been on amazing weight loss journeys and so there were a number of classes on that topic, so those weren't so applicable to me so much. I concentrated mostly on the blogging classes and was blown away at what a big business this is. Whilst I may not be growing this little blog much I'm keen to help over at InSpiral Coaching and my hope is that we can build that into something bigger with time (and knowledge & skills - exactly the kind of skills I was learning about at FitBloggin!) I'm keen to return next year!

Happy Friday! I''m linking up to Jill's Fitness Friday again this week.