Good morning! I hope you all had an amazing weekend (and if you’re lucky, are still relishing it for one more day!).

Yesterday was awesome. It was my very first blogger event, held in New York City! I was so excited to make the trip out to the city. The last time I went, I was 16 years old. Matty came along to keep me company and roam the city while I was at the event. He picked me up bright and early at 6:30 a.m., and we drove to the bus station to catch our ride to the the Big Apple.

Breakfast

Since I knew we would be sitting on a bus for 4 hours, I pre-packed a bunch of goodies the night before. On the menu for breakfast was a slice of pumpkin spice loaf from Wildflour and a gigantic sandwich bag filled with green grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. The strawberries were definitely the last of the season. I’m going to miss the summer fruits!

The 4-hour bus ride went by so fast! I was studying (and tweeting ;-)) the entire time. Matty, a.k.a Speed Reader, brought a few books along. Over the course of our bus rides to and from the city, he finished one book and only had 30 pages of his second book left to read! Showoff.

Revitalizing Events 2011

The event, Revitalizing Events 2011, was held at Dancesport Studios in Manhattan, and was sponsored by G Series FIT and Popchips. The host of the event was the lovely Dana Walsh, founder of Fit Celeb, the E! News blog of celebrity fitness. I interned for Dana about 4 years ago as a guest blogger but we had never met in person. It was so great to finally meet her after years of being virtual pen pals!

I was about 20 minutes early and the first to arrive. Everyone was hustling and bustling around the studio, prepping for the bloggers that would be attending. The woman to the right (the blurry one) is Lacey Stone, one of the top fitness trainers in NYC. I definitely got some serious butterflies when I saw her!  I so admire people (especially women) who pave a road for themselves with their passion, and Lacey is no exception to that.

After about 10 minutes of waiting and people watching, bloggers started to pile in. I saw someone sitting by herself in the corner and went over to introduce myself. It was Lauren of Here to Eat! We got to chatting and I came to find out that she is also from Massachusetts. What a small world! We totally bonded and could have talked about food and fitness (and boys of course! :-p) for hours. I feel like I’ve made a friend for life.

G Series FIT

Lauren and I eventually peeled ourselves off of our chairs and walked around the studio, scoping out the vendors with the other bloggers. First up was G Series FIT.

Gatorade recently launched a new line of products that focuses on the 3 phases of proper fueling: PRIME (before), PERFORM (during), and RECOVER (after) your workout. The PRIME phase features energy bites, the PERFORM phase features a sports drink containing electrolytes (to replenish what you lose during your workout), and the RECOVER phase features a protein shake.

Both the PRIME energy bites and the RECOVER protein shake contain milk ingredients. Unfortunately, I neglected to ask whether the energy bites were vegan until after trying one. After 4 years of veganism, you’d think I’d have remembered. But I’m human and these things happen. I felt kind of queasy after learning that but chalked it up to another learning experience. I gladly, however, sipped the PERFORM mango-pineapple during my workout with Lacey. It was tasty and definitely kept me hydrated.

BOOTCAMP with Lacey

A half-hour into the event, Lacey called us into the studio for a 30-minute complementary bootcamp session with her. Lacey is an amazing trainer. Her energy is contagious and she really inspires you and pushes you to your limit. We warmed up about 5 minutes of cardio before breaking up into teams and going through a series of bootcamp-inspired drills. My team won one of the challenges!

At the end of the bootcamp, we had an individual push-up challenge. Everyone did push-ups for as long as they could and the last one left won a huge duffle bag. Guess who won?…

ME! That’s right! I was so proud of myself. I was cranking them out for 2 minutes straight. Needless to say, my shoulders and back muscles are FEELING it today. Whew! I had an amazing time and left feeling schweaty and strong.

Dinner & Jamba Juice

After the event, Lauren and I sat on some chairs outside near Broadway and proceeded to chat away for another hour while I waited for Matty to meet up with me. He was down at the Financial District filming the Occupy Wall Street protests.

When Matty arrived, I said goodbye to Lauren and we headed out in search of a restaurant. We were sooo hungry! Along the way, we saw a pilot of some sort writing a message in the air with their plane. The beginning of their message had faded so we had no idea what they were trying to say, but it was still really cool!

After striking out at our first restaurant destination (it was closed), we ventured to Terri, an organic, vegetarian take-out restaurant. I ordered a spinach salad with hearts of palm, jicama, avocado, red onion, and a yummy cilantro dressing. Because I was ravenous, I also ordered a side of roasted sweet potatoes. Both were inhaled.

During our walk to Terri, we passed a Jamba Juice.  I mentioned to Matty that I had never tried the phenomenon and since we had a few more hours to kill, we decided to stop in for a treat! I ordered a Strawberry Nirvana with apple, banana, strawberry, and soy milk and Matty ordered a Chocolate Moo’d. The verdict? Yum. Totally hit the spot. Especially because it was incredibly hot yesterday!

After enjoying our frozen treats, we literally didn’t want to move.  It was an awesome day, but we were so exhausted after all of the walking in the heat (my boot camp class didn’t hurt either). We went next door to roam around the Chelsea area Whole Foods before calling it a day, and walked back to Penn Station to wait for our bus.

Side note: cuddling on stone steps doesn’t work very well.

Stay lovely,
Heather

Question of the Day: Have you been to New York City? What is your favorite part?

While we didn’t get to do any of it, I’m a fan of the shopping. Seeing all of the high fashions shops (cough Chole and Giuseppe Zanotti) and gigantic H&Ms got me really excited! I also love how diverse it is. I’m a huge love of people watching and NYC is perfect for that!