On the Road Again!

As a bona fide Shred flunkie, I wasn’t about to miss a chance to meet Jillian Michaels, so yesterday Sarah and Melissa and I drove to Trenton and met up with Sarah and her friend Tara, and we all hopped a train to NYC where we attended an event promoting Jillian’s new workout video game, Fitness Ultimatum 2010, for the Wii and DS.  The credit for this event goes to the fabulous Beth Feldman of Role Mommy and BeyondPR.

We arrived in Penn Station and cabbed it to an AMAZING sports center at Pier 60 where about 50 bloggers and social media types were gathering.   As always, part of the fun of these events is meeting up with other bloggers.  I immediately spotted Katja as we got out of our cab, and next we saw Jane and Audrey.  After a flurry of hugs and introductions, we all went inside where I saw Whitney, another fellow Philly blogger (it’s a shame we have to travel all the way to NYC to see each other!!) and met Isabel Kallman and Kim Orlando.

Isabel is great.  She is full of energy and so friendly.  I promised to let her know the next time I’m in NYC so we can hang out.  Okay, so we’re a little blurry.  But see?  Isn’t she adorable?

Of course the big excitement was seeing Jillian and hearing about her new video game/workout system, to be released in October.  While I’m not a gamer, I have to say that this is really an awesome tool.  She is basically your personal trainer right from the TV set.  You can choose from different workouts that she has programmed or create your own, thus cutting down on the monotony that is my biggest complaint about workout videos.  She even has a place for you to input your weight loss goals, and she will coach you through the process.  She was clearly excited about this new product and made sure to tell us that this is her baby; she has been a part of it from beginning to end, and she is very proud of it.

The whole time she was talking to us, I was admiring her amazing physique AND her fabulous shoes.  It was hard to get close to her because one person would ask a question, and she would talk for 20 minutes.  Seriously.  Girl loves to talk.  I was just hoping to get close enough to get my picture taken with her and possibly ask her where she got those shoes.

Some people managed to finagle a photo with her, but I am not one to be assertive in that sort of situation.  Finally, it appeared as if there would be no time for individual photos so we all huddled in for a group shot.  I tossed someone my camera, so I got this.

Jillian’s peeps kept trying to get her out of the crowd because she had an early plane to catch, but everyone kept trying to get just one more question in and one more photo, and Jillian kept talking, talking, talking.  I pretty much gave up on getting a photo with her, and started chatting to another blogger.

Then, the next thing I knew, I heard my name called out from the stage.  I WON THE RAFFLE!

I ran up on stage to get my gift bag, and Jillian was right there, congratulating me.  The bag contained some of her DVDs, and then they unfurled this yoga mat with a ginormous photo of her in her workout gear, her abs in their full glory.  She about died and started going on about how embarrassing that thing was.

I can’t say that I blame her.  The last thing I would ever want to see is a life-sized picture of myself on a yoga mat, or on any surface, for that matter, even if I did have her body.  And truly, she is a hundred times more gorgeous in person than she is on TV (or, needless to say, on a yoga mat).

The camera guy told us to pose, but I wasn’t about to miss my opportunity.  Instead of looking at the camera, I said to Jillian, “I just want to know where you got those SHOES!”

“They’re Fendi,” she said with a twinkle in her eye — the sign of a true shoe addict.

“Oh, yeah, well,” I responded, disappointed.  “That won’t be happening.”

“Well, they gave them to me,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially.  “People send me stuff to wear.”

Yeah, I suppose I know a little something about that.  Unfortunately Fendi hasn’t been knocking down my door.

“Do you get to keep them?” I asked.

“Well,” she laughed.  “They seem to have a way of disappearing.”

And that was it.  Before we even looked at the camera, they were whisking her away.

Well, that was it for me and Jillian.  But that was not it for our day in NYC.  After we said our good-byes (oh! I also ran into Nicole from Mom Fuse and Nirasha from Mama Niri — two of the bloggers I met in Boston at the iRobot event back in July) a group of us headed out to dinner at a nearby restaurant.  The food and wine was fabulous, to say nothing of the company.  We rounded out the meal with a hit of chocolate (do we know how to party, or what?) and then we went our separate ways.

Thank you, Beth, for once again organizing such a fun event!

Thanks, Whitney and Melissa, for letting me borrow some of your photos!