Featured Fit: Ladies Night Out at the Running Room

By Cool J in Minneapolis

Last night, I attended Women's Running/Ladies' Night Out at the Uptown Running Room.

This was a free event held primarily to promote the Women's Half Marathon in Bloomington. Pre-registration for the event was required, as it was capped at 100 people. I actually heard about the event on Monica's blog (Run, Eat, Repeat) and I spread the word to some of my favorite running friends to join me.

We arrived at the event at 6 pm and were greeted with SWAG bags, a coffee/gelato bar, free chair massages, and a DJ spinning some tunes.

Signing in and picking up our SWAG bags

Salted caramel gelato and a cappuccino

DJ rocking the jams...

The event officially began with an introduction by a woman from the Women's Half Marathon in Bloomington.  This half marathon will be held Sunday, June 16. (I registered- how about you?)

Next up, was a representative from Brooks.  I'm a loyal Brooks fan. I love their apparel, and I have been wearing Brooks Adrenaline shoes for nearly eight years. Recently, my physical therapist at Accelerated Sports advised me that I don't actually need all the stability of the Brooks Adrenaline. She suggested that I try out the Brooks Ravenna. According to Brooks, the Ravenna "perfectly bridges the gap between neutral and support, hitting the sweet sport for a large number of runners."

Attendees at last night's event received 15% all merchandise, so I decided to take advantage of the discount and pick up a pair of Ravennas to rotate into my routine.

Love the bright colored Ravennas!

The representative from Brooks talked about picking the correct shoe for your foot shape. She asked for volunteers with high arches and flat feet to come up, so my friend Kelly modeled a high arch:

Next, a woman from Moving Comfort gave a very funny, yet very informative talk about sports bras. She reminded us all how to pick the correct sports bra, and how to care for your sports bra.

• Did you know your sports bra should never celebrate a birthday?
• Did you know that Moving Comfort was the first company to sell women's specific running shorts? Prior to Moving Comfort entering the market, female runners had to wear men's shorts!

Representative from Moving Comfort

After her talk about bras, she took a quick break to offer personal bra fittings. Unfortunately, the wait for a fitting was pretty long, so a few other employees started doing the measurements to help out.Though I appreciated the effort, I'm not sure if those fittings were very accurate- 31G? 38A? But with 100 attendees, I understand that there wouldn't be enough time for everyone to get measured. For a free event, I really couldn't complain!

The last speaker was a yoga instructor from Corepower Yoga. 

 She gave some information about Corepower's free week offer for new students, and talked about how important it is to cross train and mix in other workouts than just running. She explained how yoga is important for core strength, stretching, and equanimity- balancing out your body. The importance of equanimity definitely rang true for me. My IT band problems are partially caused by unequal strength in my body, so I definitely need to incorporate more yoga into my routine to obtain this equanimity.

My friend Meggan (of the Yoga Garage) was at the event too, and afterwards she mentioned some things she might have done differently for a yoga chat for runners. She said she would have brought a yoga mat, and focused more on trying to make yoga a little less intimidating for non-yogis and first-timers. There were a lot of people at the event who said they had never tried yoga before, and I agree that there could have been a little more demonstration at this portion of the night. Even so, it was still an enjoyable mix of presentations for the evening. Great job Running Room!

After the yoga chat, there were several drawings for some really great prizes- free entries to the Women's Half Marathon in Bloomington, an entire Running Room brand running outfit, and then an ENTIRE Brooks running outfit- top, pants, and shoes! Unforutunately, I didn't win anything, but I still went home with lots of great SWAG- Nuun samples, GU's, Women's Running Magazine, a free Blowout at Gusto, a stopwatch...

....and a cute pink women's running hat!

And did I mention the event was dog-friendly? Darla was a perfect guest at the Ladies' Night.