Welcome to TRE – My experience at TRE Influencer day

Disclaimer: I was invited to TRE Influencer Day as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews! All opinions are my own.

Hello world! It’s been a crazy few weeks lately. November was my busiest month yet. I kicked off November with a half marathon in Vegas. I raced a 10k the weekend after and then ran my last 18 miler the weekend after that. I then wrapped it up with a trip to Austin for TRE Influencer Day. Today, I want to tell you all about my TRE experience, but first…

What is TRE?

TRE stands for The Running Event. TRE is a conference and trade show for all running related things. Running specialty retailers and race directors come together for a few days and discuss strategy on how to approach certain things. They also get to walk around an expo and talk to vendors who want to showcase their latest and greatest running technology. It is currently not available to the public.

Our unofficial BibRave group run through downtown Austin (PC: Larry Castillo Photography)

What is TRE Influencer Day?

TRE Influencer Day is a day where influencers were able to walk around the expo and meet the vendors and discuss their technology and even up and coming releases they have for 2019. This is the first year that TRE has had influencers come to their expo and BibRave was a part of making that happen by having 20 of their BibRave Pro Ambassadors come and talk to these vendors and test out their products.

At the Zwift Reception where they gave us our epic swag bags

What happened as part of TRE Influencer Day?

20 BibRave Pros descended into Austin Thursday afternoon and chaos ensued. LOL. Just kidding. As part of TRE Influencer Day, BibRave Pros attended a reception hosted by Zwift. I will go into more detail into what Zwift is in a later post, but know that it’s a running tracker that you attach to your shoe during treadmill runs. At the reception, we were given an EPIC SWAG BAG. Inside the bag were products from various vendors (IncrediWear, Vooray, Handful, Brooks, Altra, CEP Compression, Addaday, Arcanum, Nuun, Zwift). Also, at the reception, we cheered on fellow BibRave Pros who tested out the Zwift platform on treadmills that were set up for the run. Friday morning, we were given a tour of the expo where we met each of the vendors that gave us items and they explained to us their company and their technology. After the tour, we were also free to explore the rest of the vendors and speak with the other brands.

Our Epic Swag Bag

Cheering on our fellow BibRave Pros as they try out the Zwift platform on a treadmill

How was my experience with TRE Influencer Day?

It’s been 3 days since I was at TRE Influencer Day and I still just cannot believe how amazing the event was. I still consider myself a noob when it comes to running technology so the entire event was such an eye opening experience for me. I learned about so many new things and I just cannot wait to share all of the little tidbits I learned about each brand in future posts (Trust me, they’re coming). I have been so blessed with this opportunity and now have such an even bigger appreciation for both those up and coming brands as well as those big name brands.

What was the best part about TRE Influencer Day?

Yes, the swag was a HUGE part of what made TRE Influencer Day great, but I genuinely had a wonderful time speaking to the CEOs and representatives of each of the brands. Everyone was so excited to talk about their product and it made me even more excited about the product.

I also got to meet BibRave Pros I’ve interacted with on social media for years, but have never met in real life. That was the icing on the cake. We greeted each other like old friends and had lunch together prior to the Zwift reception. And in true runner fashion, we scheduled a group run for Friday morning to fill downtown Austin with BibRave orange.

We all unofficially met up for lunch prior to TRE

So would I do it again? Uhh, of course! Do you even need to ask? LOL

Stay tuned for my upcoming reviews on the items I received from TRE Influencer day.

Happy things – HoneyStinger, Smashrun, and BibChats galore

Last week, in the midst of my struggles, there were moments of happiness that pushed me through the rest of the week. Let’s discuss, shall we? 🙂 The biggest news from last week hands down was getting this little email below:

I’m a HoneyStinger Ambassador!

HoneyStinger is one of my favorite energy fuels and I’m estatic that they allowed me to be a part of the #HSHive. When I trained for my first marathon, every long run started out with an organic waffle. Right before my first marathon, a fellow runner I had just met offered me their HoneyStinger Energy Chews for the caffeine. How much caffeine there actually was, we still don’t know to this day. LOL. And most recently, I tried their gel during the Holiday Half Marathon and I PRed. So really, I associate HoneyStinger with all good memories.

Another thing that brought a smile to my face last week was the discovery of SmashRun. Chelsea mentioned this in one of her blog posts. I thought it was pretty interesting and gave it a shot.

SmashRun analyzes your run from STRAVA and other running apps

This is just a screen grab from my most recent run, but essentially what SmashRun does is that it takes your data from your running apps and breaks it down for you into interesting ways. It tells you what days you run the most, the least, etc. My favorite thing about SmashRun is where it tells you how many calories you burned and what that equates to food wise. I mean, who knew that 230 calories roughly equaled to an entire pineapple. SmashRun will give you something healthy like the pineapple and it will also give you something unhealthy like a tall Starbucks chai latte (which I totally appreciate). I like this aspect of the program so much that I’ve started turning it into a game. I’ll run some amount just to see what that equates to. It’s a lot more fun than googling it up. Honest. 🙂

And my last happy thing of the week is BibRave on Twitter. BibRave.com is a place where you can review races. Think Yelp, but for runners. I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but talking to fellow runners on social media is kind of awesome. If you’re having a bad day and tweet about it, you’re going to get support from them especially if it’s running related. Every Tuesday at 6pm PST on Twitter, they have a #bibchat where they ask a series of questions during the hour and you respond to them. You can see other people’s responses and comment and sometimes, you even make friends. 🙂 And with the 6+ races I’m running this year, I’m sure I’ll run into some of them in real life. 🙂

Cheers to things that make you happy!

What made you happy this week? And have you tried Smashrun? Thoughts? 

Hello 2017! I’m going to own you.

Hello 2017! 2016 was a great year so let’s make this one an even better one, okay? I decided that this year, I’d go all out and make lots of goals for myself. You never know if you can do them if you don’t try, right? That’s what 2016 taught me. Below are some of my goals for the year.

Professional goals – Like the name implies, these goals are for my work life. I’m a graduate student in my 5th year. PhDs in our program typically take around 5 – 6 years to graduate. After year 7, we lose our funding so it’s implied that you must graduate before then. My advisor and I have discussed about graduating this summer so why not make it a goal and make it more attainable? 🙂

Although it’s never stated in the guidelines, students are expected to publish 1st author papers to graduate. It’s the “Publish or Perish” mentality. I am currently working on experiments for a paper so hopefully, I get published this year.

The obvious thing to do after I graduate is to get a job. More importantly, I want to get a job that I enjoy. I’ve been holding informational interviews with various people in the biology field and hope that I will be able to find one that suits me soon. The last two goals are to help me improve my productivity. I believe that by getting to work earlier, I’ll be more productive and less stressed. I also spend more time on Facebook than I’m willing to admit so cutting down on my time spent there should also be beneficial.

Fitness goals – In the words of Elle Woods, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.” 🙂 It’s my favorite line of all time because it’s true. Exercise does make me a happier person and everyone deserves to be happy.

Last year’s goal was to just run 50 more miles than 2015. This year, I’m going to push my limits a bit more. I’m going to try and run 1000 miles. During those 1000 miles, I hope to finish my second marathon in Chicago, beat my PR in any distance, and run streak for at least 100 days. I finished the #RWRunStreak challenge on January 1st and was originally going to stop.

#RWRunSreak Challenge completed

On January 2nd, I went out for a run anyway. I didn’t feel tired. With the new year, I felt energized and decided to run streak for an additional 61 days. It will be tough, but I want to see how far I can push my limits. At 100 days, I’ll reevaluate and go from there. I do have a marathon to train for later in the year and I’ll definitely need to rest then.

My last three goals will be to strengthen my body overall. I’ve started lifting weights here and there and hope to round that out with stretching (possibly yoga) and eating healthier. Note that these goals are all miminums. If I do better than expected, then go me!

Happiness goals – I aim to be a happier version of myself and I hope the goals I’ve listed out will help me do just that. Blogging was extremely fun for me last year so I’ll continue to do it. It also helps me reorganize my thoughts and that’s always a good thing.

This year, I would like to try and give back to the community. I felt privileged growing up. I wasn’t wealthy, but my family got by just fine (with some occasional fundraising for team uniforms). I’m already scheduled to volunteer at a race later this month and I’m super excited to be the one giving out waters instead of getting them.

Last, but not least, I want to do another 100 Happy Day challenge. More often than not, we take what we have for granted and don’t appreciate the everyday things. I did this challenge a few years ago when sh*t was hitting the fan and it gave me a lot of perspective. I want to do it again sometime this year when things get too busy and I forget to just stop and enjoy what I have.

Woohoo! There you have it – my goals for 2017. What are your goals for this year? 

Reflection of 2016

New years is right around the corner! But before we get to resolutions, the end of the year is a time for reflection. Hopefully you all had a good 2016. And if you didn’t, no worries. 2017 is right around the corner and you can start fresh.

Since my year consisted mostly of running, I thought it’d be nice to look back at the progress I’ve made. One of my New Years Resolutions for 2016 was to run 50 more miles than 2015. In 2015, I ran 431 miles so in 2016, I had to run at least 481 miles. Here are my miles for 2016 assuming I meet my goals for tomorrow: 

I think it’s safe to say that I blew that one out of the park. I had a bit of a lull from March to May, but then marathon training season began and I couldn’t stop. Even after the marathon was done in November, I didn’t really want to stop. Next year? I’m shooting for 1000 miles!

2016 was a great year for me (political issues aside).

• This year, my experiments finally started working. HALLELUJAH! I’m expected to graduate next year and had they not worked, I’d be in complete meltdown mode right now.
• I picked up blogging. I got a twitter account and got more involved with instagram. Through social media, I found a community of people that love running as much as I do (more so even) and they also like to talk/write about running too! With an unpredictable schedule, it’s incredibly difficult for me to schedule run meet ups with other people; So I’m extremely grateful for social media connecting me to other runners (which my boyfriend refers to as “my people“). And really, they kind of are.
• And the obvious – completing a marathon, which was also a resolution for this year.

I had a blast 2016, but I guess we must part. 2017? Bring it on!

How was your 2016? Anything noteworthy? Are you ready for 2017?