I was invited to attend The Running Event Influencer Day as part of being a BibRave Pro (Ambassador). Check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews. If you follow me on instagram, you may have noticed that last week I got to go to one of the coolest events of all time: The Running Event.
What exactly is The Running Event?
It's an entire conference and trade show focused on one of my favorite things (that would be running). Usually, only retailers and race directors are part of this epic three-day event, but this year, through my partnership with BibRave, I (a mere mortal) got to attend some of the festivities by way of an epic influencer day.
Where is The Running Event?
In Austin! Woot! My backyard. I was so excited for my fellow BibRave pros to get to experience my city!
Ok, so tell me about this Influencer Day...
You got it!
I made my way to Downtown Austin on Thursday evening for the first event: a welcome reception sponsored by Zwift, a SUPER COOL running platform. I'll be reviewing soon, but in a nutshell Zwift allows you to create an avatar and run on virtual courses with other runners in real time. It's kind of like The Sims meets race day!
Four BibRave Pros ( Vanessa, Brenda, Chris and Lindsey) were selected to run on treadmills through the Zwift platform to show us all how it worked. The coolest part? They were all running with other BibRavers from all over the world! It was so cool to see Zwift in action and cheer them on during their run. I'll be testing Zwift out on my own treadmill and sharing more details soon!
There were drinks, there were snacks, there was running, there was orange. Orange everywhere.
And... there was swag! Epic levels of swag.
I'll be sharing more details on all the swag over the next few weeks, but allow me to give some quick shout outs to all the amazing brands that hooked us up: Addaday, Altra, Arcanum, Brooks, CEP, Handful, Incrediwear, Nuun, Vooray, Vuori and Zwift.
I loved getting to meet the BibRave team and all the other pros in person. There's nothing like getting to meet your good virtual friends in real life!
The next morning, I was up and out the door super early to meet everyone for a 6:30am run through downtown Austin.
We hit the streets in our sea of BibRave orange. A quick jaunt on the Lady Bird Lake Trail took us under the South Congress Street Bridge (the bat bridge) and the South First Street Bridge, before we headed back up to street level and made our way toward the Capital.
I spent some time chatting with Stephanie from the BibRave team and Jen, and of course, we took some epic, orange-filled photos (all courtesy of the awesome Larry Castillo).
Afterwards, we had a little time to freshen up. Instead of a shower, I opted to grab breakfast. Because... food > fashion. A few minutes later, I made my way to the convention center for a whirlwind tour of the trade show. Andy from BibRave took the A Team (A for Andy and Awesome and for All-Around Badasses) around.
We met with all the brands that gave us swag. And some even gave us more swag! I loved learning about how each brand got started and what they have planned for 2019 (lots of new product launches!). I'll be getting into more detail about each brand soon, but here are a few sneak peeks.
After our whirlwind tour, we had a little time to explore the trade show on our own. Kim, Meredith and I wandered around scooping up a few more free samples, but before long it was time for all the BibRavers to part ways. I told everyone they should move to Austin, but no one took me up on it. I mean... I guess I understand having to get back to your families and whatever, but seriously, you all should move here so we can do epic orange runs all the time. I have a spare bedroom. First come, first serve!
I'm so so so grateful to BibRave for giving me this amazing experience! Until next year (cause we'll be doing this again right? RIGHT!).
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Let's Chat:
Which piece of swag are you most excited to learn about?
