ashleyd /

BlogHer ‘12

This weekend I spent my time between two places: an air conditioned hotel and Mexican restaurants. My BlogHer weekend started with a wonderful workout with Fitfluential friends at Physique 57 thanks to Well+Good NYC followed by a four hour long dinner with fellow bloggers at Agave. It was hands down the best part of the entire weekend and conference. I swear I learn more from my peers than I could ever learn in a conference alone. I loved getting to know Gina and Erika, new to me area bloggers, who were just as beautiful as their blogs!

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This weekend inspired me to think about how I want to take this blog to the next level. How do I want to meet my readers needs better than I have for the past few months. While my work schedule has been a bit crazy lately, that’s no reason to lose sight of my passion and all this blog has done for me over the past few years. The sessions I experienced on the Professional Track at BlogHer left me with a lot of information to think about and process. For now, the only thing I’d say you can expect can be summed up in one nice, clean bullet point:

  • In order to improve interaction with my readers, I will be more focused on comment response, Twitter and Instagram interaction, and sharing information via Facebook. 

Thanks to the ladies of Fitfluential and this weekend’s Video session, I thought that sharing my BlogHer thoughts via video would be more fun than a long, detailed post. I’m learning my way through video editing so they can only get better from here.

If you have specific BlogHer questions about the network or conference, feel free to email me or leave a comment!

Question: If you could hear from any living female during a keynote speech, who would it be? Why?

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ashleyd /

Key to A Good Night’s Sleep

Wake up at 4:15 for a 14 mile run 12.5 mile run through the streets of New York City just as the city is going to sleep and waking up at the same time, depending the neighborhood. IMG_3782 IMG_3783 Get ready for a customer meeting in 25 minutes flat, all while your body refuses to stop sweating thanks to the August humidity. Don’t forget to dash to grab a protein filled breakfast since protein oats just won’t do the job after a run like that.

IMG_3784Hop on the subway to finally see an event you helped plan come to fruition and say your lucky prayers for amazing brands, friends, resources, and bloggers!  IMG_3798 Spend an hour laughing and making faces with 15 other bloggers as we’re inspired to hold each move a little bit higher, a little bit longer, and use a little bit heavier weights since the co-founder, Tanya Becker, is teaching the class.

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Use some extra calories laughing since she and the other ladies are absolutely hilarious and you can’t help but smile through the burn even though your thighs hate you for doing this after a long morning run.

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Walk 1.5 miles through downtown to the West Village where chips, guacamole, cheese, and margaritas are waiting for us at Agave.

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Spend four hours hanging out with amazing new and old friends alike talking about everything from vibrators (yes they are being given out at #Blogher12) to relationships and things we’ve each experienced during our years of blogging. fosim.jpg

Walk a very long mile home at midnight sticky from the evening’s sweat and exhausted from the day.

Crawl into bed, forgetting to brush your teeth or even remove your makeup, wishing that you could sleep more than just seven hours.

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ashleyd /

A Blogging Journey

Almost two years ago, I attended my first blog conferences. I had no idea what to expect and I barely knew anyone in the blogging world. In case you’re new let me give you a brief blogging history.

  • May 2009: Meet Melissa who then convinces me to start blogging about balancing life in NYC while planning a wedding, starting a new job, making new friends, and trying to learn a new city.
  • July 2009: Get way too overwhelmed with blogging and wedding planning. Therefore I unfortunately take a blogging break.
  • January 2010: Decide that the honeymoon is over and it’s time to get back in shape and focused. Figure that starting to blog again will be a great positive influence.
  • January 2010-July 2010: Blog casually, 3-4 times per week, while starting to participate in more blogger meet ups in NYC.

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  • August 2010: Attend BlogHer 2010 in New York City and Healthy Living Summit in Chicago.  My life as a blogger changes overnight after spending a long lunch talking with Kath, Sabrina and Tina.  Realize that my blog will never grow if I don’t put into it what I want to get out of it. The group convinces me to start blogging daily. Also am amazed that these three women spend the entire lunch talking with me, a stranger, and sharing so many great ideas and insights.
  • September 2010- Current: I do my best to balance my career and blogging, aiming to blog daily and share my life with my friends, family and readers.

I’ve had amazing opportunities along the way to not only meet other bloggers but to work with some wonderful organizations like Fitfluential, partner with brands that I believe in and love such as New Balance or REFUEL Chocolate Milk, participate in a 32 hour relay race with a blogging team, and more.

But, at the end of the day, it’s the friendships that have kept me blogging. Maybe it’s the shared interests or the accessibility, but many of my blogger friends have evolved into my closest friends over the past year. I can’t imagine my life in New York City without Theodora or Melissa. Both friends I met through blogging, they’ve truly been my rocks. Meghann on the other hand, though over a thousand miles away, has become one of my biggest motivators, a running role model, ski friend, and soon a bride whose side I’ll happily stand by in January!  Even the larger group of bloggers from across the US with whom I’ve bonded have enjoyed girls weekends away, supported each other after a tough race or emotional post, pinged back and forth on Google Chat with questions and ideas, and served as each other’s moral support on a daily basis. Making our lives an open book is a decision that we made years ago when we started blogging but that doesn’t always mean it’s easy.

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I am so thankful that I attended both BlogHer and Healthy Living Summit back in 2010. Each conference, valuable in different ways, prompted me to take blogging more seriously and evolve it into more than just a casual hobby. Since tonight marks the beginning of Healthy Living Summit and I have the honor to be speaking on a panel again this year, let me take a minute to share with you my Top 3 reasons why I would recommend attending HLS to any blogger or reader.

  1. You will go home with at least one new friend with whom you will develop a close relationship. It’s inevitable. For the most part, people who attend these conferences are looking to develop new connections and therefore it’s like one long weekend blogger/reader dating game. You have the opportunity to put names with faces, interact in stress free, casual settings, and experience an awesome city all at the same time. My first year I had the chance to get to know Meghann and Jes quite well. Last year my roommates Anne, Theodora, and Gretchen fill my memories including our late night chat sessions and early mornings.
  2. It is the perfect place to learn. Whether you want to take better pictures, conquer marathon training fears, enjoy a new workout class, learn more about a brand, or take your blogging to the next level you’ll have the opportunity to do these things and more at Healthy Living Summit.
  3. There is no better way to discover a city than with bloggers! When you explore a city with bloggers, you are promised to have your adventures captured on film and blogs so your memories last forever. The Friday night cocktail party is often in a great location that allows you to party it up in style while enjoying delicious food and cocktails.  There is no better way to get to known people than jammed in a photo booth posting for silly pictures. And last but not least,  this year, like last year, I will be helping organize an early morning run/walk which allows you to explore the streets of Boston in great company.

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So there you have it! I’m always a comment or email away if you have questions about Healthy Living Summit or BlogHer! I look forward to seeing all 199 of y’all in August!

*Note: I should also mention that my blog was hacked in February 2011 and therefore I eventually have to manually repost posts from before then back on my blog from Wellsphere where they were all saved. It is a long arduous process and therefore I’ve only done top posts thus far including restaurant reviews, travel, marathon training, and race recaps.

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