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NWHM Weekend

 

#DCimComing  

The long awaited Nike Women’s Half Marathon weekend has already come and gone - way too quickly! Every aspect of NWHM was awesome and I already cannot wait for next year. Here is my recap of the before, during, and after. As the hashtags state: #werunDC and #weranDC

For once in my life I was actually packed and ready to go the night before traveling (only because I wanted to blog about our plans pre-travel).

Now that we’re post-race, it’s funny to see what I thought we would do vs. what we actually did.

We planned on leaving by 7:30 but I underestimated the distance from Newark to Dover, so I was a little late picking Heather up. This actually worked out because she had time to do a Dunkin’ Donuts run for us. We started our donut ritual when we went to Florida and it’s still going strong and we have many more races lined up to do together!

Getting there was pretty seamless, Heather is great at navigating and I am pretty okay with driving in DC, which is good because I do want to live there eventually.

We found the National Harbour, parked quite easily considering the volume of people at the event, and were on our way to the Expotique and packet pick-up!

When you enter the expo your name appears on the wall!

#Expotique

The Expotique is unlike the typical expo that runners are accustomed to. Instead of having various brands with booths or tents set up, the Expotique has things like a Nuun sampling area, a Paul Mitchell Braid Bar, a place to design and print posters with LunaBar, a Fleet Feet Sports race essentials shopping area, as well as gait analysis by Nike and a wall for runners to sign. For once in my life I resisted the urge to buy things and exercised my patience. We picked up our packets and race shirt before even considering any purchases. As soon as we picked up our packets I knew my shirt size was wrong. We walked to the next tent over and received our shirts and were informed that we could exchange our shirts at Nike Georgetown between 6-9 pm, phew. Once we had the necessary things in hand, we headed back into the expotique and discovered that we were able to make appointments for Paul Mitchell, very exciting news. We made appointments for 4 pm and headed out to check out merchandise at Nike Georgetown, right up the block.

Signing the wall, which was moved to the race course.

#NikeGeorgetown

Over Spring Break I checked out the Nike Georgetown store and was in awe of their displays. When we arrived at the store this time, you can imagine my excitement when I saw NWHM and #werundc had taken over the store, in addition to a DJ playing some of my favorite Jay-Z songs (I resisted the urge to say every single lyric). It was the Princess Half Marathon Official Merchandise tent frenzy all over again. Well somehow I kept myself in line; I kept hearing my mom’s voice in the back of my mind telling me “you have bills to pay.” Oh to be a poor college student. After much debate I decided on the white NWHM hat and the turquoise technical shirt with the Nike Goddess on the front. I had to exhibit some major self-control to walk past the sneakers and not “accidentally” buy them. I succeeded, but I’m kinda sad about it. Once we rounded up our gear and checked out, we headed back to the National Harbour for lunch at Sequoia.

#NWHMbloggerbrunch

The NWHM Blogger Brunch was on our agenda thanks to Heather for getting us in last minute. I found the event via the runDisney facebook group, then Heather contacted Stephanie from Cat Lady Runs, who was able to squeeze us in when they changed the location from Founding Farmers to Sequoia. Stephanie (Cat Lady Runs) and Roane (Love Life Logistics) hosted an awesome brunch for about 20 bloggers, some new like me and some very well established. It was really exciting to meet the women behind the blogs that I follow, especially because they were all so sweet and encouraging. We introduced ourselves around the table and I was slightly unsure of my blog title at that point in time but I think I’ve found new confidence in it because of its quirkiness (FYI, I am a hardcore Jay-Z fan if you didn’t already pick that up.)

Side note: I loved that some bloggers had business cards for their blogs. I knew this was a thing because of being a long time reader of a few professional bloggers, but I never actually received one before. It’s safe to say that I will definitely be investing in a set of my own, they’re just too cute not to!  

Amidst all of the conversation, I ended up discussing way more than just running and I was given some pretty great advice when I found myself saying, “I am trying to volunteer on a local campaign.” I was instantly corrected and was told to repeat my statement with “going to” instead of “trying to.” At first I didn’t know what to think and I was somewhat embarrassed, but then I realized that the woman was actually reaching out to me and trying to help me have more confidence in my plans for the future.

This blogger meet up was a great experience and I think it gave me a great deal of encouragement to not only continue with blogging but to keep moving forward with my education and future. I took a lot away from this experience.

Not only did I get to meet an awesome group of bloggers, but I also received a bag full of stuff to try out along with a few products I chose from the raffle! I will be reviewing and even giving away a few products so stay posted!

I still have a lot more to say about NWHM but I wanted to finally get a post out about the beginning! Please stay tuned :) 

Run Happy, 
Ali