Can’t Believe I’m Missing Fitbloggin

I’m in this one…but I won’t be in the next one. 😦

Before I attended Fitbloggin’ last year, I didn’t follow any fitness blogs except for Ronisweigh.com.  I had for a while followed a very few weight loss blogs, and that was actually the initial reason I was reading Roni’s blog….it started out as a weight loss blog, not a fitness blog.  In fact, fitness came after she’d lost most of the weight she’d set out to lose.

When she posted on her website about the chance to get a free ticket to Fitbloggin’ in exchange for an hour or two of live blogging, I knew I wanted to go.  It honestly made no sense, when I think of it now.  I didn’t follow any other blogs, knew no one else attending, and the only real attempts at fitness I was engaged in at the time was running.  I did enjoy that, at least, but didn’t really do much in the way of reading about it or training in any formal way other than the 3.99 app on my phone.  But Baltimore was driving distance, the kids would be in school, and I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone and learn more about the online weight loss/fitness community.

Fitbloggin’ opened my eyes to a whole new world.  Not only did I meet so many wonderful bloggers, but they were engaged in so many different elements that I found interesting.  Yes, there were weight loss bloggers.  There were also fitness bloggers, food bloggers.  There were classes and types of exercises I’d never tried before.  There was food I’d never tried before.

I really felt for the first time that the journey that I was on wasn’t filled with failure.  Just because I’d lost weight and regained it didn’t mean I still wasn’t healthier than I had been.  Just because I ran slowly didn’t mean I wasn’t a runner.  Just because I’d never tried CrossFit or Zumba before didn’t mean that I couldn’t.  I could do new things.  I could hang out with people I always thought would judge me for my looks or my body size.  I discovered that while I always worried about people making assumptions about me, it was really because I was terribly busy making assumptions about them (she’s so skinny she won’t talk to me, she’s such a fast runner she must think I’m an idiot, she’s so well put together that she can’t possibly have anything in common with me).   It really was an amazing thing to discover that if I stopped judging people in my head, I would be open to so many more experiences and people that I might be closing myself off from.

I was crushed when, at the end of the blogging conference that I enjoyed so much, it was announced that the next one would be in Portland, OR in June, 2013.  I knew there was no way I could get there.  It was so far away, it was during my husband’s busy time at work, it was when the kids weren’t in school.    All of these great people that would never all be in the same place at the same time…..all of that fun we had together, all of that camaraderie that I was leaving with….I wouldn’t get it back.

In the months since, I’ve faithfully followed so many of the bloggers I met at Fitbloggin’.  I’ve taken on new challenges and pushed myself to become more active, more fit.  I haven’t lost a huge amount of weight, but I have gained a lot more confidence and security in myself.  I put together our town’s 5K since Fitbloggin’.  I started bootcamp classes that I’d always shied away from.  I’ve finally committed to a training program to improve my speed in running.  I’m doing the RWRunStreak and actually enjoying it.

So when all of those people converge on Portland in ten days, I won’t be one of them.  I’ll be sitting at home, watching those Twitter feeds scroll by and looking at all of the photos posted to Facebook.  I’m not going to lie, I’m really sad about it.  But I’m going to try, really try, to rather than just embark on a path of insane jealousy of anyone lucky enough to go, to really soak up all that I can from afar.  I’ll try to remember that the best thing I took away from Fitbloggin wasn’t the swag (although that was honestly pretty damn awesome), it wasn’t the classes, it wasn’t the workshops, it was the sense of being connected to a community of like minded people that was so much larger than myself.  And that connection won’t stop just because I can’t hop on a plane in ten days.  It’ll still be there.   And I’ll still get to be a part of that community online, even if I can’t be there in person.