Par for the course, I am the last of the Sweathogs to post my tale from the Health and Fitness Blogger Conference I attended this past weekend in Boulder. Let's just pretend we're saving the best for last....truth be told, I pulled a intercostal rib muscle sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and I am pretty much flat on my back with a ice pack strapped on (more on that later). Totally sucks and the worthless muscle relaxer isn't doing it's job other than to make me nauseous. Writing coherent sentences has been the last thing on my mind the past couple days. Not that coherent writing has ever been my forte...
The conference was an overwhelming wealth of knowledge. We heard from presenters on branding yourself, sponsorships, becoming a brand ambassador, working with PR firms, using publishers versus self-publishing if you want to write a book, stats and why they're important (if you want them to be), blog A-listers, social media, dietary myths, the Presidential Challenge, search engine optimization and a billion other things.
I walked away on the first day with one single thought: My Blog SUCKS!
Truly! I left feeling like I have been blogging in the stoneages and every time a new presenter got up to give us more info to clog my brain, I'd turn to Jason with a puzzled look and hear him say, "I already do that."
Yeah, whatever Mr. Social Media Networking man - at least I live in Colorado!!! We're too busy in Colorado enjoying being the fittest state in the nation to worry about how many points we have on Klout!
Teasing aside, I definitely do need to make some changes to the blog, but I'm not sure where to even start, so I'll let this stuff absorb some and then start flooding Jason's inbox with countless questions...since, you know, he's the already done it guy. When I started my blog 2 1/2 years ago, it was solely for the purpose of my then-trainer and I to dissect my thoughts and peel back the layers to my fitness. Later, when the trainer was long gone, people started finding my blog and it became a place where I just wanted to share my running journey with everyone...and make some great friendships and laugh along the way. I still want that, but now I think I need to implement some changes. Hopefully for the better. Fingers crossed I don't go manic.
But aside from all the info at the conference, I was able to meet up with some awesome bloggers, who I now consider all friends. ...or as Jason calls us, the Sweathogs - I'll try to sum up the best part of the weekend in bullets, and pictures:
- Friday morning, I picked up Jason at his hotel and having a couple hours to kill before we met the rest of the group, we headed up Boulder Canyon and walked a bit to Boulder Falls.
We then met up with the infamous SUAR; my misery-loves-company injury buddy, MissZippy; and a new blogger I had never met, Clair, who was simply awesome. We all met in downtown Boulder for a little Cajun lunch.
- Friday afternoon was filled with blogging topics Jill knew nothing about!
- All that learning, a well-deserved a trip to the hotel bar was in order....
- Saturday was more blogging topics Jill knows nothing about.
- The best part of the day was lunch, of course.
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| Sweathogs doing what we do best: eating and laughing |
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| Clair loves her Med pizza |
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| And Beth loves her wine |
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| And a quick good-bye pic of Amanda (misszippy) and I Y'all knew it was gray and white day, didn't you? |
All in all, it was an excellent weekend (well, aside from my intercostal muscle tear - which, if you've ever had one you know how much agony I'm currently in...the heel has nothing on this sucker)! I learned a lot and formed some amazing friendships with lasting memories.
In the meantime,
Why do YOU blog? Or are you in need of some changes, any changes? Do you care about your stat numbers and traffic? I'd love to hear what your blog means to you.
Until later....run strong, friends! Me, I'll be icing my back for the next few days so run a few miles for me.
