As always, my favorite part of a blog conference is the people. I had a blast seeing old friends and meeting new ones this past weekend at the Healthy Living Summit in Boston!
On Friday, after the photo walking tour, my roomies (Theodora, Ashley, Gretchen) and I, plus Tina, all enjoyed dinner in the hotel before heading to the official HLS kickoff event — the cocktail party!
I was rocking a new dress I picked up at the beach from a random boardwalk shop — only $25! Total win. My friend Hilary bought the same one because we both loved it so much!
photo via Gretchen
The hotel restaurant was actually awesome — we ate outside with pretty views and the waiter was nice enough to oblige our numerous requests for photo shoots, too. 😉
Plus, the food was amazing! A bunch of us ordered the lobster cobb salad and it was deeeelicious.
After dinner, it was off to the cocktail party!
In addition to mingling with friends both new and old, a bunch of us rocked the photo booth and corresponding props.
It was a mini Reach the Beach Relay team reunion! 7 out of the 12 of us that ran it together were at HLS. 🙂
And here I am with my friend Meghann, one of the conference’s fearless organizers! It was great to see her again, too — I think the last time we saw each other was when we were in Vegas together last December for the Rock n Roll Half Marathon!
All of us were exhausted by the time the cocktail party was over at 10 so we decided to be lame go ahead to bed. Besides, we had to get up early to run! Theodora and Ashley are training for marathons and were up at 4:30 a.m. to run 15 miles; I got up at a slightly more respectable 5:30 a.m. to meet a group of fellow conference attendees that had signed up as interested in running 4 to 6 miles together.‘
We had a great group — I love going to healthy blogging conferences because there’s always someone willing to run with you! I’d never met any of the ladies on the run before but everyone was really nice and we all became quick friends.
There were 6 of us total and we ended up running 6 miles at around a 9 minute mile pace, chatting away the whole time. We ran along the Charles River and the views were beautiful!
I was so glad I dragged myself out of bed for it. Plus, the weather was actually cool — I’d forgotten how much easier and more awesome running is when it’s not 95 degrees out!
One of the main highlights of the conference this year was the food — all the meals provided (breakfast both Saturday and Sunday and lunch Saturday) were really awesome — lots of healthy options and variety. I was impressed. Saturday’s breakfast was sponsored by Wild Harvest, and they did a fabulous job. Conference attendees had submitted recipes using Wild Harvest ingredients and the winning recipes were showcased, along with a lot of fruit, some yogurt parfaits, etc. I wish I’d gotten a photo! My favorite was a delicious egg frittata with a lot of veggies.
Breakfast was followed by a welcome and some icebreaker exercises, and then a quick Crossfit workout with Reebok!
Reebok sent a ton of their Crossfit coaches to lead us all in a short 5 minute WOD (workout of the day) to give us a taste of Crossfit for those who hadn’t tried it yet. I loved the back of the coach’s shirts! #getafterit 🙂
After an intro on proper air squatting form, we got right into the workout, which was as follows:
- Repeat the following until 5 minutes is up!
- 7 air squats
- 15 jumps
It was fast and fun. 🙂
After a quick change to normal clothes, it was time for the real conference sessions to begin! Stay tuned for more in part 2, including a recap of the panel I was on about working with brands as a blogger.
