2017 Skirt Sports Ambassador Weekend

As a reminder, I am a Skirt Sports Ambassador. As such, I get to represent this AMAZING company. As a captain, I get a teeny bit of compensation in the form of a discount (for me and a code to share) and a gift certificate each year. I was not obligated to go to this retreat and totally not required to write about it, either. Buuuut, it was awesome, and I live an hour southeast of it, so clearly, I did/am doing both.

Part of the perk of being a Skirt Sports Ambassador every year is getting to attend the retreat/weekend that Nicole and company put on in Boulder at HQ every year. I've gone every year they've had it and the ladies keep outdoing themselves every year. The weekend culminates with a race on Sunday - which will get its own separate post.

The weekend kicked off with a cocktail reception at the store on Friday night. We got to meet new ambassadors, say hi to old friends, shop for more Skirt (if that's even possible!), drink, eat some great food, and hear about Skirt. We also got a sneak preview of the upcoming Fall/Winter 2017-18 line, but no pictures of that.


Friday night festivities.

We then met back up Saturday morning for hiking, speakers, breakout sessions, a workout, and more food.

We had a choice of hikes to go on. Since I'm training for Pikes Peak Ascent, I went on the longer one. I also learned that I need to get a lot more vert in my life ...


As our hike was the "Snot Rocket" hike, Nicole decided to put on a clinic on how to blow a snot rocket up at the top.


On the way down.

After the hikes, we met back up for a quick breakfast, and then we started the speakers.

First up was Maria Uspenski from the Tea Spot.
- She started a cold brew tea; the idea of which came because of her experiences with Ride the Rockies.
- Think about hydrating with tea - it can save your teeth, you know what you're putting into your body, you can cater to your own needs, it has antioxidants and antibacterial properties, and obviously, the caffeine is helpful.
- Self-care is non-negotiable. You have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of anyone else.

Next we had fellow ambassador Mirna Valerio read us a chapter from her upcoming book (available for pre-order), talking about fat, body image, and self-acceptance. Following Mirna was another ambassador, Mary Sutter, our resident social media expert answering some questions about that.

Somewhere in there we had a workout - either yoga or a HIIT-style bootcamp (I did the latter), but after all of that, we took a break for lunch.

While we were eating lunch, we were split into groups by regions to come up with a new idea for Skirt, Shark Tank-style. A wide range of ideas were thrown around, but I don't want to mention them here just in case they end up in the works for the company. Don't want to leak any proprietary information, after all!

After that, we had our final speaker of the day, Dr. James Rouse, whom you might remember from my post on February's Women Run the World event.
- He wanted to remind us all how good we are.
- Don't lose a sense of your true self.
- We all (want to) improve ourselves, but sometimes, we are just sick of one more book that tells us we suck.
- There's a space in between self-improvement and self-acceptance, and in that space is self-compassion, which is the secret sauce of awesome.
- It gives us an unfair advantage over the inner critic.
- There is an opportunity for an uprising in our inner dialogue.
- We just need to live life loving and well.
- Each and every morning, ask yourself, what would love do now?, and then live your day off of that answer.
- Put into place five practices - optimism, play, functional nutrition, mindfulness, and gratitude.

All in all, it was a day full of fun, amazing energy, and a little bit of sweat. And a few pictures, which I'll share now.


Taking a picture of Emily pretending to take a picture of herself with the Skirtmingos.


Catching Lisa resting.


Me hamming it up for the ever amazing Jen Allen, our official weekend Skirt photographer. This was during the workout break.

I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge all of the amazing sponsors who came together to help Skirt Sports put on this weekend for us!

- Noosa Yoghurt
- Ska Brewing
- Justin's Nut Butter
- Skoop! (Healthy Skoop)
- Golden Root
- Bhakti Chai
- Alpine Start (instant coffee)
- Noodles & Company
- The Tea Spot
- Kim and Jake's Cakes
- Mad Greens
- Skirt Sports
- 3W Races

The energy would continue on to the Skirt Sports 13er/10K/5K the next day ... which you will read about in my next post. Probably Wednesday.