32 Hours in NYC

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of spending the day in NYC with Brooks and my fellow Run Happy blogger ambassadors. How does your day start when traveling with a running brand? With a run, of course. :)

A big group of Brooks staff, a couple ladies from their PR team, and the bloggers and I all met in the hotel lobby that morning, ready to go.

It was a gorgeous morning to be out running!

We ran north along the Hudson River, enjoying the views as we went.

Some of the group did a 5k, and the rest of us continued on to get in a longer run. My group ended up running 7.26 miles, and by the last couple miles we were doing sub 8 minute miles. It felt great to stretch my legs! How fun is this action shot one of the Brooks guys got of me running behind him? Rocking my run happy shirt, of course!

My watch didn’t get the satellites until about a mile in, so I took a picture of one of the other girl’s watches. Awesome run!

After cleaning up, all of us headed over to Central Park South for brunch at a place called Sarabeth’s.

Brunch was delicious. Our table shared some awesome muffins (the bran and pumpkin were my favorite), and then I enjoyed some fruit and the scrambled eggs with spinach and tomato on toast. Yum.

After brunch, we had some free time to play! Janae had plans to explore NYC on foot with her local friend Cait, and they invited me to join them for the adventures. It had been ages since I’d been in NYC with time to explore, and we had a blast!

Obviously, we started at FAO Schwartz. :)

How awesome is this giant piano?!

I was also rather impressed by these giant statues made entirely of Legos. Crazy, right?

Photos via Janae!

Next stop: Dylan’s Candy Bar! This place is insane. I’d never seen so much candy in my life.

From there, we enjoyed strolling around the Upper East Side over to Central Park, chatting like crazy. I had such a good time hanging out and getting to know these sweet ladies better! It started sprinkling a little but we didn’t mind. :)

Photo via HungerRunnerGirl on Instagram

The area around Central Park is so beautiful right now with the fall colors!

We also saw signs up for the marathon route! Matt and I are actually coming back up to NYC next weekend to cheer on friends in the marathon – can’t wait!  

After our walking adventures and a little relaxing at the hotel, the run happy blogger ambassadors and I all headed to a media event Brooks was hosting that night. Book ending the photo below are Ashley & Toni from Black Girls Run, then from left we have Jenn from Fit Bottomed Girls, Jesica from rUnladylike, me!, Janae from Hungry Runner Girl, and Jess from Race Pace Jess. What a cool group of ladies – it was a pleasure to spend the evening with them.

The media event was island themed and was a way for Brooks to unveil/feature some of their new fall line and their upcoming winter/spring lines.

I love the PureProject Apparel coming out in January – everything was really cute and soft. The type of stuff you could wear to run or just to hang out in for the rest of the day! I love how workout clothing is getting so fashionable nowadays.

Here are some of the next generations of the PureProject shoes. Love all the bright colors. I have the Pure Connect 2 and love them for short runs – the new colors that are coming out in the next version are awesome.

And speaking of new colors, here are the next generations of the Ravenna 4s, which are my fave running shoe that I wear for all my long training runs. I learned a fun fact about these from the Brooks team – they are named after a neighborhood in Seattle, where Brooks is headquartered! Love the new colors, especially the gray/pink.

I was sent this cute pink jacket, the Infiniti Anorak, from their new line earlier this month – I love it for running, but it’s cute enough to wear out and about, too! It’s hard to tell in the photo but there’s ruffling in front and the neckline snaps into a cowl neck. LOVE it.

After checking out the new gear, the ladies and I enjoyed some cocktails, snacks, and conversation. And the photo booth!

Around 9, we all headed to a restaurant near our hotel for a late snack/dinner, and ended up spending 3 hours talking. Again – such a pleasure to spend the day with such smart, interesting, and fun women. A big thank you to the Brooks team for having us and covering all our expenses for the trip!

Stay tuned – I’ll be back on Monday with a recap of the 22 mile run that I did this morning (!!) – a new PDR and our last long run before the Richmond Marathon in 3 weeks! And speaking of marathons – any of you running the Marine Corps Marathon here in DC tomorrow? I’ll be out cheering! :)