How to stick to your fitness routine

Hello Hello!

Last week, my company wrapped up our 60-Day fitness challenge.  The event was a success!  We had over 50 employees stay committed during the entire challenge and some of our employees saw amazing results (I’m talking over 8% body fat loss and several inches off their waist and hips).

The question that now burns deeply in all of our minds is… now what?  Well, we have a major product release and user conference coming up in less than a month, so our kFit program is taking a breather so people don’t feel overwhelmed.

The answer: get into a routine as quickly as possible.

Staying active, staying motivated and staying in great shape is all about routine and consistency.  For some, the kFit 60 Day Challenge was the first consistent program they had followed in several years.  All I gotta say is DON’T BREAK THE HABIT!  Here are some helpful tips on how to maintain an active lifestyle.

1.  Join. Join. Join. Join.

Join a gym, box, running club, studio, or league.  Join something that is going to help you stay consistent a couple days out of the week.  Currently, I belong to a gym, play on a coed soccer team Monday nights and joined the ClassPass program so I can find out what types of fitness studios I really enjoy.  I love love love HIIT conditioning and using heavy weights to build my strength.  I was so happy to find that by joining ClassPass I was able to find a HIIT studio winner … more on that later.

2.  Mark your calendar.

Nothing holds me as accountable as creating a calendar of my weekly workouts and posting it somewhere public.  If I come home early and Brian see’s that I have a 5 mile run written down, he won’t let me sit on the couch and blow it off.

3.  Find a buddy!

One of my favorite things about our 60-Day challenge was the fact that it was group training.  We all supported each other, did the same damn bear crawls together and we were engaged and excited to be there.  If you can find a friend, spouse, significant other who wants to be just as committed to an active lifestyle as you, it will make your fitness routine that much more fun!  Hell, maybe you will find someone through joining a studio or league.  Cough cough. Do it.

4.  Measure yourself.

When you take your hip, waist and body fat measurements and re-evaluate yourself every month, it really shows how much effort and commitment you are putting into your routine.  The body fat % scale does not lie, folks…

5.  Make it fun!

Don’t run every day if you freaking hate running!  Do activities that you truly enjoy and will make you go back and do it again.  I can’t tell you how awesome it is to try out new fitness classes (spin, barre, conditioning, strength, pilates, yoga, CrossFit) and find something you truly become passionate about.

Now that I’ve given my little rant, let’s hold myself accountable – shall we?

This weeks workouts:

Sunday – 60 minute spin class/body pump at GO Cycle.

Monday – Soccer.  (I got a stomach bug this night and only played half a game, but it’s better than nothing!)

Tuesday – 3.2 mile run.

Wednesday – 60 minute conditioning class at my new favorite… DHF Lakeview! (Again, more on that later).

Today – 4 mile run.

Friday – Rest.

Saturday – 45 minute spin class at Go Cycle

Now go out there and get. it. done.

Beer, Workout, Eat, Repeat.

Hi, friends!

This weekend was an interesting one to say the least… and as I type up this post the Bears are off to a piss poor start, so let’s hope that changes by the time I’m done here.

Friday after work, a group of friends and I had tickets to go to the ‘Lions, Tigers and Brews’ beer festival at the Lincoln Park Zoo.  If you live in Chicago, then you know Friday was just an awful, awful day to be outside.  It was 55 degrees, windy and rainy.  Yuck.  I had a sweater and leather jacket on, but that really was not enough to block the piercing wind while holding a cold beer.  Needless to say, the “festival” was very short lived for me and my crew.  We managed to snag about 3 or 4 beers (the lines were outrageous considering the weather), and visited the lions.

He was the best part of the fest.

The low-key Friday was okay by me because we had ANOTHER beer festival to go to on Saturday, and luckily this one was indoors 🙂

The Chicago Beer Festival was held on Saturday in the Great Hall at Union Station.  There were two sessions you could attend and my friends and I choose the 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. time slot.  Day drinking at it’s finest.

The Great Hall is huge and there were at least 50 different breweries at the event.  Including:

• Lagunitas Brewing
• 3 Sheeps Brewing Co.
• Summit Brewing Co.
• Dark Horse Brewing Co.
• Off Color Brewing
• Finch’s Beer Co.
• Atlas Brewing Company
• Penrose Brewing Company
• Founders Brewing
• Rogue
• Transient Artisan Ales
• Local Option
• Bell’s
• Upland Brewing Co.

… and so much more.

Upon entering the event, we received our ‘tasting’ mugs, which were actually a really decent size for tasting pours!

We took our time pretty much sampling every vendor.  I sampled all kinds of IPA’s, Saisons, Porter’s, Cider’s, etc.

My favorites from the day were:

• P.2 Pale Ale from Penrose Brewing Company
• Really Cool Waterslides IPA from 3 Sheeps Brewing
• Crooked Tree IPA from Dark Horse BRewing
• Rasberry Ale from Dark Horse Brewing
• en Seine Pearis Saison from Bucket List Brewing

So yummy!  We had an absolute blast at the event – it’s always fun to go with such a great group of people!

After our 4 hours were up, we were HUNGRY (and severely buzzed) so food was in order.  We headed over the Haymarket Brewery, because clearly we had no had enough beer yet, and ate some delicious pizza.

After that Brian and I headed home to let Bailey out and uhhhhh pass out.  🙂

I was up bright and early Sunday morning to immediately start working off all of the beer/pizza that was in my body.

First, a long morning walk with Bailey.

Then, a spin/pump class at Go Cycle courtesy of my ClassPass subscription.  The class I signed up for was called ‘Go Pump’ and was 40 minutes of cycling followed by 20 minutes of weights.  Go Cycle is not just a spin studio, they have lots of other combo classes such as:

• Go Core: 30 minutes of cycling followed by 20 minutes of core
• TRX Training
• TRX Express
• Go Yo: 40 minutes of cycling followed by 20 minutes of yoga
• Go Ripped: Alternating intervals of cycling and weights

My instructor was Sara B. and she was AWESOME!  High energy, tons of fun… she even danced during some songs!  I absolutely loved the class.  I left SUPER sweaty and my booty was on fiiirreee.  I will definitely be going back and can’t wait to try out all the other different types of classes.

Welp, the Bears still aren’t doing good, but it’s only the 2nd quarter.  Here’s hoping they big home the W!

 

 

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

Another weekend has come and gone…

This one was full of lots of activity, laughter and of course… wine 🙂

Saturday morning started with a nice 4 mile run on a blue bird sky day.

We are now entering my favorite season to go on runs and I can’t wait to get back into race mode with a few I have scheduled these next couple of months.

After I dropped Bailey off at home (oh yes, she came with me!), I headed out to the grocery store to stock up on some items for the weekend.  Specifically, items to make chili and cornbread for football Sunday!  When I got back home, I realized I forgot to pick up items to bring to the Carrie Underwood concert I was headed to that evening.  I frantically pulled whatever was in my fridge/pantry and came up with this awesome pasta salad:

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

• 1 lb. cavatappi pasta
• 1/2 cucumber, diced
• 1/4 cup kalamata olives, diced
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
• 1 cup fresh baby spinach
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper

Directions

1. First, start by making your dressing for the salad.  Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper and set aside.
2. Place a large pot of water over medium high heat and bring to a boil.  Cook your pasta according to package instructions or until just al dente.  It should be noted here, that you can use what ever fun pasta shape you have in your pantry.  However, I would not use a long linguine or spaghetti type noodle for this dish as it wouldn’t hold the dressing quite as well.
3. Once your pasta is cooked, set aside to cool.
4. Dice the cucumber, olives, sun dried tomatoes and place in a large mixing bowl.  Add the cooled pasta to the bowl and the vinaigrette.  Add the spinach and toss to coat.  I find it easier to toss the spinach once the vinaigrette has already been added.
5. Top with crumbled feta cheese and enjoy!

We enjoyed this and so many other great items at our Ravinia picnic – shout out to Kristin’s veggie “deep dish” pizza!

The concert itself was just okay.  I love Carrie Underwood, but she didn’t have an opener and only played for an hour and half so we all left a little disappointed.

Sunday morning, Brian and I headed over to Kendell College for an extravagant brunch to celebrate the graduation of our family/friend, Diane.  Diane took a year-long culinary class through the college and we were able to see all of her hard work come together as the brunch was completely hosted by the students!

We dined on so many great dishes…. (and sipped on lots and lots of prosecco!).

The favorites among our table were the grits and leek gratin.

Our weekend ended on the couch watching endless amounts of football and enjoying homemade chili and jalapeno cornbread for dinner.

Pretty successful weekend if I do say so myself!  Hope you all enjoyed yours 🙂

 

My Favorite Protein Pancakes

Howdy!

Well this week started with a bang, I have so much to get done before our road trip to West Virginia it’s unreal.

The good thing is that I had a nice and relaxing weekend to get all geared up for an ultra productive week.

Friday, my coworkers and I enjoyed some adult beverages after work.

This delicious New Glarus Wisconsin Ale brewed with Cherries.  Yum.

… and the Southern Tier Brewing Pumking at home.

(no, I didn’t buy the whole case unfortunately).

You might be thinking… Lindsay… it’s just way to early for such fall type drinks.  Well you are wrong, my friend.  This girl right here lives in the Midwest for a reason.

In keeping with the shotgun fall cuisine, I woke up Saturday morning craving my favorite protein pancakes:

The Best Protein Pancakes Ever

Serves: 2

Ingredients: 

• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 2 scoops vanilla protein powder
• 6 egg whites
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tbsp. almond milk
• Chocolate chips
• Banana slices (garnish)
• Almond butter (garnish)
• Pure maple syrup (non of that fake shit)

Directions:

1. Mash the banana in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk together.
3. Cook like regular pancakes… add some chocolate chips if your heart so desires
4. Top pancakes with some fresh banana slices, a dollop of almond butter and a drizzle of pure maple syrup.  bada bing bada boom.

These pancakes helped fuel our morning workouts at the gym.  I opted to do one of the Spartan WOD’s:

3 vertical jumps (max effort).  Fully recover after each set.  Repeat 3 sets of 3 jumps.

Split Squat Iso Hold.  Accumulate 60 seconds per leg.  Fully recover.  Repeat 3 sets

Accumulate 60 seconds in High Pull-Up Hold then accumulate 20 push-ups.  Fully recover.  Repeat 3 times.

Run 30 minutes – zone 1.  (aka – slower pace)

I was super sweaty after this one.  I typically sweat a lot, but the gym was humid and hot from the weather outside so it just tripled everything.  My running partner, Lindsay, probably would have been embarrassed if she was with me 🙂

Saturday evening, Brian and I attended the 40th birthday of one of our good friends.  I was so busy eating the delicious appetizers and tasting the signature cocktails that I forgot to take pictures of this wonderful event.  After 5 or 6 cocktails… it was a Liiitttllee hard to get up in the morning.

We had big plans to visit the suburbs, however, so there was no time to waste.  It was the PERFECT day to spend outside by the pool.  Bailey thoroughly enjoyed rolling around in the mud pits that have accumulated from all of the rain we have been getting.

She was pissed when we had to give her a cold hose bath.  Basically, she participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

P.s. I saw this on insta this weekend and couldn’t stop laughing…

I can’t even.

 

Strength Moves I’m Loving Lately

Lately, I have really been loving the workouts the Spartan Race series sends it’s participants every morning.  They are always a combination of strength and cardio and a lot of the moves are ones that I would never have incorporated into my regular routine.  These same moves have also been introduced to me through my work’s kFit wellness program.  Our trainer, Sam, gives us personal attention to make sure we are performing at our best and to make sure our technique is correct.  The great news for people like you who might not get daily emails or daily training is that a lot of the moves they use can be found online! (slash, you should totally sign up for a spartan sprint.  It will challenge you in a new way and your body will thank you for it).

Here are some workout moves I have been LOVING lately:

Split Squat ISO Holds

This is a great move for beginners in strength training… don’t be timid if you find yourself having a hard time balancing at first.  Start on the ground and elevate yourself a couple inches until you can get to the full position.  This move workouts your glutes, hamstrings, quads and engages your core.  A full body win.

Hindu Squats

Another great squat variation that helps build lower back strength, endurance and speed.

Hindu Push-Ups

These push ups are so much more than a shoulder workout.  They increase mobility and work on your arms, back, chest and legs.

Bird Dog

This stability exercise engages your glutes and entire core.

Burpees

I love to hate them, but notice a major difference in my body when I incorporate these daily.  I feel stronger on my runs and actually feel like I could go for longer.

You can use these workouts to build your own circuit at the gym, outside or in your home!

Yesterday morning I was up bright and early to catch the bus and make it downtown to our 6AM kFit Bootcamp class.  It’s been a little stormy here lately, but we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the class outside!

I always initially come to this class tired and crabby.  It takes everything in my power to get me out of bed at 4:45 a.m. and I have never been a ‘natural’ morning person.  Within 10 minutes of our workout, I was feeling great and in the zone.  Funny how that happens, right?  Yesterday’s circuit focused a lot on Push-Ups – killer – and Squat Cleans with medicine balls.  By the end of the workout we had done close to 100 pushups and 80 squat cleans and I was feeeellinng it.  In a good way!  After the class, my coworker and I DIVVY over to our local gym a couple blocks away so we can shower and get ready for work.  I could barely lift my arms to shampoo my hair I was so tired, haha.

Work went by quickly which was great and even more great because I knew my workout for the day was over and I could do WHATEVER I wanted when I got home.  My extra time was spent taking Bailey on a nice long walk around the neighborhood and stopping to smell the flowers.

True story: she ate a flower just before I took this picture.  Silly.

Our dinners have been spot on lately.  Fully embracing the summer produce.  My favorite thus far has been the local pan seared trout:

We picked up these beauties from Whole Foods on Monday and boy were they delicious.

Nothing better.

Ta Ta for now!

 

Cooking, Cleaning & Running Fools

Hello, hello!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

My weekend kicked off right after work on Friday with my birthday present from Brian… a cooking class!  I’ve been talking about us going for a while now and was thrilled when I saw what he got me!

The class we took was called ‘Street Food’ and was themed around various snacks and bites that you may find sold on the street in different countries.

Here was our menu:

Beer battered fish tacos

Beef kefta kabobs

Lemongrass chicken banh mi

Cheese and bean pupusas

The class was held at the Merchandise Mart Chopping Block location, so it was super simple to get there directly after work.  Brian brought a bottle of pinot noir, we tied on our aprons and got to work.  In most classes, you work with another couple or group to prepare your various dishes.  Our class was completely full, so we were able to partner up with two other people and boy did we have so much fun!

I love cooking, I cook almost every night, but all of these items are ones I never would have just come up with on my own.

Our favorites were definitely the Beer battered fish tacos which we made with Two Brother’s Cane and Abel.  The second runner up was the Lemongrass chicken banh mi’s.  So juicy and tender, plus the crusty french bread really makes the entire sandwich.  We left completely full and happy!

I was up bright and early Saturday morning to meet my workout buddy, Lindsay at our gym.  We warmed up on the treadmill for 25 minutes alternating between a steady jog, uphill walk and sprinting.  Once we were nice in warm we completed the following workout:

Loved it!  It was so nice being at the gym so early because we didn’t have to fight for space to complete this circuit.

Saturday was such a busy day.  Immediately after our workout, I showered, grabbed a few things from Whole Foods across the street, my two of my best friends for brunch at Toast, came home and cleaned for 4 hours and then hosted a group of my closest friends for cocktails and appetizers!

Phew.  The whole day was awesome.  Even though it was jam packed, I had so much fun seeing all my different groups of friends and my workout really carried my energy level throughout the entire day.  Win!

Sunday was no less chaotic.  My parents and our family friends were over at my apartment at 10:00 a.m. ready to watch the Air and Water show (thank god my apartment was already clean).

We grabbed some sandwiches and salads from Pastoral and headed over to the lake around noon.  Unfortunately, Chicago decided to be cool and cloudy yesterday so the Air and Water show didn’t really happen, but our fun little picnic did!

I was a great way to round out the weekend… and let me tell you I slept like a BABY last night.  Fun times.

Sprint Your Heart Out

These past two days have been full of non-stop fun and excitement!!!!

Kidding.

The workouts and cooking have been fun, but if you are one of those people who thinks that cleaning and doing laundry is fun… I am just not there with you.

Tuesday after work, I had a few major errands to run before heading to the gym at night.  I have recently received feedback from our personal trainer at work that I should start incorporating more sprinting in my workouts so I decided to come up with something fun to do on the treadmill.  Although I really hate the treadmill during the winter months, I have really enjoyed going back in a couple times per week.  I missed seeing my usual suspects after work 🙂

I tell you this workout is a major sweat inducer and really gets your heart rate up.  As always, you can modify the speed based on your fitness level, but always make sure you are pushing yourself and breaking outside of your comfort zone.

Side note… I totally wore gray capris that day and needless to say with all the sweat that was dripping off my body, I looked like I peed my pants.  Funny.

After my workout, I had a quick protein shake at the gym and then headed back home to cook dinner.

On the menu:  Skirt Steak and Steamed Broccoli

Brian and I didn’t stay up real late that evening because I had a strength-focused kFit workout downtown in the loop at 6:00 a.m.  We used a lot of medicine balls to perform squats, overhead presses, lunges, etc.

Although it’s a pain in the ass to wake up at 4:30 a.m., in order to make a bus at 5:00 a.m., so that I can be downtown in time for this class… it is always worth it.  The trainer can whoop my ass like no one else can and I’m much more motivated throughout the day to eat healthy/make good choices when he gives me advice first thing in the morning.

Speaking of making good choices, each week my company commissions this start-up company, Fooda, to bring local restaurants onsite for us to buy lunch.  Yesterday’s choice was Farmer’s Fridge and all of their choices were amazing!  Have you heard of them?  They have a couple kiosks around the loop which have fun salads in a jar type options as well as wraps and little snacks.

I went with the Chicken Kale Cesar Wrap which had a whole wheat tortilla, sweet potato, pomegranate seeds, pumpkin seeds, Parmesan, kale, chia seeds, and a vegan Caesar dressing all wrapped together.

It was so fresh and filling, plus it was only $7.00 which for a loop lunch spot is very affordable.  It’s really hard to find a lot of healthy and fresh lunch options in the Chicago loop.  My usual repertoire is a mixture of the local cafeteria salad bar, Pret A Manger, Protein Bar and basically packing my own lunch.  It’s nice to have a new option added… I highly recommend you check them out.

Garlic & Herb Shrimp Skewers

It’s weekends like these that have me convinced I live in the most beautiful city.

Brian, Bailey and I took full advantage of the gorgeous weather and spent 90% of our weekend outside. I did all sorts if great outdoors activities from playing tennis with my dad and sister…

To swimming in my parents pool.

Early morning runs and a great strength workout with my buddy, Lindsay.

Long walks along the lakeshore path, taking in all the views.

And refreshing cocktails on the back porch (yes, this counts as an outdoor activity!).

What truly wrapped up the entire weekend was a fresh Sunday Dinner. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but cooking Sunday Dinner is one of my favorite traditions. Growing up, this often included homemade meatballs, homemade pasta sauce and fresh spaghetti. Today, it’s heavily revolved around what’s seasonal and fresh. Thus, Garlic and Herbed Shrimp Skewers was born.

Garlic & Herb Shrimp Skewers

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/4 cup minced fresh basil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 tbs. Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup good olive oil, I used a herb-infused olive oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Soak your skewers in water for 1 hour before beginning to prep your meal.

2.  Mince the garlic

3. … And the Basil

4. Combine all of the ingredients above with the shrimp and let them marinate for 1 hour.

5. Skewer the shrimp.

5. Grill the shrimp for only 1 – 2 minutes on each side.

Enjoy!

Liebster Award

Hi friends!

Genevieve, over at Broke Girl Fitness, nominated me for a Liebster award!  This award is given from bloggers to bloggers that have smaller followers to help promote their blog and get their names out there!

Once you are nominated, you have to meet the following criteria:

• Answer the 10 Liebster questions give to you by the blogger who nominated you
• Select 10 blogs with a small following to nominate for the award
• Create 10 questions for your nominees
• Link back to your nominator
• Inform each of your nominees of your nomination

Simple as that!  Thanks, Genevieve for the nomination.  Be sure to check out her awesome fitness tips over at Broke Girl Fitness and see the answers to her questions below!

 

1.  You are going to be stranded on a deserted island for a year and you are allowed to bring 3 pieces of exercise equipment.  What would you bring?

• Yoga mat – To stay off the hot sand and use as a possible flotation device to get off the island.  Do they float?  Oh and to practice yoga, of course 🙂
• FitBit – To see if being by an ocean really does improve sleep.  And to track all my awesome steps since I’m stranded on an island
• Soccer Ball – I would have plenty of time to practice my sweet moves and also so I could have a friend. WILSON!!!!!!!!!!

2.  What is your summer cocktail?

• Anything with Gin in it.  You all know I’m rocking the Watermelon Gin Fizz right now!

3.  What time did you get up this morning?

• 5:30 a.m. – yaawwwnnn.

4.  Where would you retire?

• Tough question.  Since I plan on being rich one day, I want to have multiple homes.  But I believe my home base will be in Hilton Head Island, SC.  It’s one of my favorite places in the world and I would eat fresh shrimp daily.

5.  Sweet or salty?

•  Salty.

6.  What was your dream career growing up?

• I wanted to be a professional soccer player just like Mia Hamm

7.  What is your dream job now?

• Retirement?  KIDDING. … wait, am I?

8.  What is your favorite sport to watch vs. play?

• Favorite sport to watch: Football – DAAAAAA BEARS.
• Favorite sport to play: Soccer obv. – See question 6.  Tennis is a close runner up.

9.  If you could invite three people, living or dead over for a party, who would they be?

• Brian – awwww, I know.  Whata lush I am!  But really, the kid knows how to drink and is very conversational.  I’m the awkward one in this relationship, so he needs to be there.
• Kaley Cuoco – She is funny and shares my passion for dog rescues and pitbulls.  We would have so much to talk about!
• Mindy Kaling – I like to surround myself with people who are just as awkward as me. – Yes, I realize Brian would be the only man at this party, but I don’t think he would complain 😉

10.  If someone’s underwear was showing, would you tell them?

• I guess it depends on the context of the situation.  I want to say yes, but I can definitely think of some instances I wouldn’t.  ie: If I walked by a drunk kid in Wrigleyville passed out on the grass or if it was a little child whose parents might think it was super creepy if I said something, etc.

That’s it folks!  Here are my nominations:

1. StateEats by Katharine
2. Sweet Endeavors by Erica
3. Miles for Thought by Ani
4. The Sideache by Kari
5. Forage & Bloom by Meg
6. Shh… Fit Happens by Sarah
7. The Trendy Trainer by Caroline
8. The Hungry Running Girl by Janae
9. Windy City Running Girl by Natalia
10. A Trail Runner’s Blog by Scott

My Liebster Questions:

1. If you could visit any place in the world where would it be?
2. Are you a cat or dog person? Or just not a pet person?
3. What is your daily breakfast routine?
4. What is your favorite go-to summer recipe?
5. Where do you go or what do you to do relax and de-stress?
6. What workout fad have you been itching to try?
7. What was your favorite television show as a child?
8. If you could change one thing in this world, what would it be?
9. Where/what is your favorite restaurant?
10. What’s your favorite tech gadget?

Vacay in the Burbs

It’s Monday already? Humpf.

This weekend went by way too fast, like they all do, but it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a while.

Friday night I took a much needed night off. No plans, no errands… just me my couch, a glass of wine and my two roomies. We ended up watching the movie ‘Lone Survivor’ with Marky Mark and it was a lot more intense than I had originally thought it would be. Needless to say, my dreams were verrrry interesting that night.

Saturday morning we slept in and causally made breakfast.

We’ve been on a real buying-coffee in the morning fix, so it was really nice to break out the espresso machine and have a smooth hot cup.

The only real plan on the agenda was yoga at noon, so I had plenty of time to relax and tiddy up before heading over.

It has been way too long since I’ve visited my yoga studio. My hips, calves , quads…. Basically the lower half of my body has been so tight from all of the running I’m surprised I’ve made it this long without it. The class was a standard vinyasa class but the flow moves that were incorporated into our workout were so beautiful. I really enjoyed the class, it was both challenging and peaceful.

When I got out of the class, I had a text from my friend Lauren who wanted to go out to one of the festivals that were going on in the area. I was in, so I went home to shower and make lunch before heading over.

Side note: I have been craving green crunchy grapes all day, everyday.  I can go through an entire bag in one day.

Before heading to the Fest, we enjoyed some drinks on Lauren’s roof and made our way over to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner.  In all honesty, we actually RAN to the Mexican restaurant because I giant storm cloud was chasing us.  As soon as we stepped foot through the door, the heavens opened up and it started down pouring.  When we were done with dinner, the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful summer night – perfect unintentional timing on our end.

We made it to the festival in time to see one of our favorite college bands play – Sixteen Candles – and of course enjoy a delicious glass of sangria.

 

Sunday we were up bright and early to flee the East Lakeview area before PRIDE festivities began.  I’ve lived in the Lakeview/East Lakeview area for the past four years and have had my fair share of PRIDE parade, so we decided to mix it up and “vacation” out in the suburbs.  Brian, Bailey and I met my sister and her boyfriend, Jason before noon so that we could head over to the local forest preserve and get in a nice 3 mile jog through the woods.

It was such a perfect day, and Bailey was really loving the change of scenery.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing by the pool.

I’m really going to miss this when my parents move away to North Carolina.  Lately, I’ve been traveling out to their house more and more to fit in my final memories with my childhood home.