The past few days I’ve been in New York City for the SIA Summer Snowdown media event, and to do a ski clinic for the YMCA kids in Brooklyn. And NYC is NUTS. Seriously, I’ve never felt more hemmed in by buildings and people. Turns out big city life isn’t my usual style, but it was really cool to see all the big sights!
I think the hotel we stayed at the first night was basically a cross between Gossip Girl and Sex in the City. I could feel the bass from the music cranked out by the DJ downstairs coming up through the floor and reverberating in the bed frame. There were a lot of FABULOUS people living GLAMOROUS lives, but looking utterly bored about the whole cocktail affair behind their oversized sunglasses – which were worn indoors, of course, when they weren’t lounging by the pool sipping martinis. Also, the pool deck with these fabulous individuals was literally 2 feet from the window/door of my room, so when I walked in I got quite a suprise and then faced the dilemma of whether I should immediately pull the curtains or put on a swimsuit and join them. I’ll let you decide on what I actually did.
So…the Snowdown! This event was basically a trade show where all the big ski companies (like Dakine, Dale of Norway, Spyder, ect.) and winter clothing companies bring their newest, nicest stuff for the upcoming year and then people from the media check it out and take notes for stories to write and things to include in upcoming issues of magazines. Some of the people that showed up were from Shape, CBS News, Oprah Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Outside TV….all over the board!
So I was there as a spokesperson for Winter Trails, linked HERE. I was there to hopefully get Nordic in the news more…we’ll have to see how that goes!
After we left the Snowdown to move to a new hotel, we got outside and realized that there was a massive thunderstorm in progress and there was a couple inches of water rushing down the street. It was also crazy because it was 80 degrees, pouring sheets of rain with thunder and lightning, but also somehow hailing at the same time. My first thought was “Wow, this doesn’t happen every day!” and my second thought was “Oh my gosh! The bums sleeping on the benches! What are they going to DO?”….followed by “sooo….I guess that rooftop swimming pool at the hotel isn’t going to work out today”. Clearly, city life got to me after only a day! But Marina (from T2 Foundation) and I just started running up the street, pulling our bags till we got a taxi. Not going to lie, it was pretty exciting.
Then Newell drove down and we did a kids clinic at the Brooklyn YMCA, which was this huge facility in the Park Armory, with an indoor track, basketball courts and multiple classrooms.
Over 2 clinics, we got to meet over 140 kids, many of whom hadn’t ever experienced Cross-Country Skiing before. But they had great energy and enthusiasm, especially when they got to try using the poles. Or, as they called them, “the POINTY STICKS!!!” (for the record, and also so I don’t get in trouble, nobody got hurt by said pointed sticks. That I know of, anyways.)
Katie Osgood took some great photos of the event! I especially loved the thank-you gifts we got from the kids…those handmade sparkly medals were pretty sweet.