Last Week’s Workouts

Our weekend started off strong with an escape room adventure with our small group on Friday night! We split up into 2 groups (too many for one room) and tackled two rooms at Escape Room Live in Alexandria. Mike and I were in the Poe-raenormal Room (Edgar Allen Poe-themed, if you hadn’t guessed) and we juust got out with two minutes to spare! I loved the theming and decorations at this location – they did a great job setting the mood for each puzzle.
We grabbed ice cream afterwards at the new Old Town location of Nice Cream – it had opened that day! Still our favorite ice cream; the pistachio flavor was amazing.

Saturday was spin, spin, spin at Cyclebar – we liked the studio so much that we added two more classes to our intro class pack. I really appreciate the great and friendly customer service we’ve experienced at this studio.
After cleaning up and taking care of the usual chores, we hung out at home for a while before I started getting ready to go out for a baby shower for one of our small group women. I was in charge of the cake – the one I picked out from Buzz Bakery was a big hit :)

Unfortunately I came down with a small case of food poisoning that night – I think it was some old yogurt I ate earlier in the day – so I was out of commission on Sunday. I managed to clean up our file cabinet, but didn’t do much else all day. Thankfully, I’m feeling much better today and got in a good workout this morning.

I realized pretty early on this week that I needed a bit of a cut-back in effort, so I substituted one tough workout (probably would have been bootcamp) for a yoga class on Sunday. As a result, I don’t feel so sore going into this week and I’m ready to push a little harder again. I really believe in taking cutback weeks and even entire rest weeks when my body starts to feel a little run down – a little recovery can prevent future injury and illness. Listen to your body :)

Mon – short run (2.5 miles) and 15 min elliptical – I tried to test out my Achilles again, but it just wasn’t having it.

Tues – rest day

Weds – boxing class at UFC – I paced myself much better than last week and didn’t feel like dying the next day ;)

Thurs – 45 min elliptical and 10 min row – for the row, I did 3 – 500 meter rows with rest in between, and then repeated 10 forceful strokes with 30 seconds recovery row till I hit 10 minutes.  Short but effective.

Fri – 40 min elliptical

Sat – spin class at Cyclebar! Loved the sprint repeats at the end of class – we did 20 sec on, 10 sec rest repeated 8 times.  My quads were on fire.

Sun – short yoga video

Friday Faves

TGIF friends! I have a pretty easy day today – teleworking from home, and then we’re meeting our small group tonight for escape room adventures.  Should be fun :) I’ve got some Friday faves below.

I recently decided to learn some basic Spanish to help me communicate with the people we’ve been serving during volunteer activities, like the food distribution event I went to last weekend.  I was looking for a audio-only learning program I could do during my commute, and ended up buying Pimsleur‘s Level 1 package of classes.  It’s been awesome! It’s just a 30 minute lesson each day, and there’s lots of repetition to help you remember the words.  I’ve only been doing it for a week, and already have several useful phrases under my belt (e.g., “I am an American and don’t speak Spanish” lol).  It also makes my evening commute go by so much faster.

After making our way through lots of bad TV, I’ve decided to just go ahead and re-watch my favorites – so I’ve been re-watching West Wing in the evenings.  Just as good the second time around.

Homemade almond butter – I go in and out of food phases, and I’m all about the almond butter right now.  I’ve been buying the roasted, salted almonds from Trader Joe’s and making (and eating) a jar a week.  Sometimes I’ll go plain, and sometimes I’ll add in a little honey and unsweetened coconut.

If you’re looking for a pair of comfortable and cute sneakers, I highly recommend Allbirds. Mike’s brother and sister-in-law turned us onto them, and they’re amazing.  Made of wool, they’re machine-washable, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and comfortable enough to wear without socks! I got a ton of compliments on my mint green pair the first weekend I wore them out.

I’ve been on a huge pancake kick lately (see my breakfast above) – I’ve made buttermilk pancakes, sour cream pancakes, and ricotta pancakes in the last couple of weeks to use up random dairy products left over from recipes.  And you know what? Ricotta pancakes are THE BEST – so fluffy with a luxurious creamy center.

Arrow Endure water resistant mascara – I got this as a Birchbox sample and wasn’t expecting much, but it works so well! It’s the first mascara in a while that actually helps me look like I have lashes ;)Britt Marie Was Here – I’ve loved all the books I’ve read by Fredrik Backman so far (including A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry), but I think this one is my favorite! I love the way he transforms his characters through interactions with other people – like softening wax with a flame.

I’m making this warm kale salad with dates, bacon, and other goodness for lunch next week.  Make it with me!

What’s one thing you’re looking forward to this weekend?

Last Week’s Workouts: Boxing!

We had a fun weekend with gorgeous weather here in DC!  We took full advantage, starting with a cherry blossom viewing party at night with our Friday small group.  The cherry blossoms surprisingly survived the sudden cold snap, some snow, and very windy days over the last two weeks, so we made a trip to the Tidal Basin around the Jefferson and FDR memorials to see them at night.

On Saturday, I was up nice and early for a short treadmill run followed by volunteering at a food distribution event, hosted by ALIVE!, a local organization focusing on assisting those in need in the Alexandria community. I have a lot of time on my hands right now, so I’ve been looking for more ways to get involved in serving – being Jesus’s hands and feet in the world, especially in the current political climate. The food distribution event takes place the last Saturday of every month, and although it was scheduled to go from 8:30-12, we ended an hour early because apparently fewer and fewer immigrant families have been coming due to fear of deportation. We actually had to pack up leftover goods and store them because there weren’t enough people to take them all. Trump, that’s what’s sad.

We got some chores done the rest of the day and then headed out in the evening for a fun date at Komi! I really wanted to treat Mike to a nice dinner for being so supportive of new work schedule – earlier alarms, longer hours, more trips – and he had heard great things about the creative Greek-inspired cuisine at this upscale restaurant, so we decided to give it a shot. One of Komi’s interesting policies was no pictures of the food so they can keep it a surprise for others, so you’ll have to take my word for it that the food was amazing.

We did get a course list afterwards of everything we ate, and one of my favorite dishes was actually super simple – oven roasted dates stuffed with mascarpone topped with some sea salt.  Very few ingredients, but they all went so well together, and we loved the crispy skin on the dates.  We’ll be re-creating these for a fancy appetizer at home.  (we didn’t actually celebrate my birthday there, but it isn’t too far off so when they asked if we were celebrating a special event, that’s what I went with)

Sunday was church and teaching Sunday School, and we tried out a new Vietnamese place afterwards.  This vermicelli from Super Pho didn’t disappoint – nice clean flavors with tender shrimp and pork.

Last Week’s Workouts

I mentioned last week that I’ve started taking classes at my UFC gym. You might be wondering why I joined UFC and the answer is no, I’m not planning to enter the ring ;) I actually joined when I started my new job because I was looking for gyms near my workplace (which is 40 min from home), and UFC had the best deal at the time. They have two treadmills and some other basic fitness equipment, so I figured I could do some running and maybe take a class or two in the future. Since I haven’t been running all that much, I’ve started checking out the classes – first Daily Ultimate Training (DUT) last week, which was basically boot camp, and boxing this week. It’s been fun to do such functional workouts and challenge my body in a new way. Here’s how last week went:

Mon – OTF – I broke 200 watts for the first time on the rower! The rower is definitely where I’ve noticed most progress for me – when I first started OTF a few months ago, I was maxing out at 130 watts or so, but that number has been increasing a little each week. I felt so strong when I saw 215 pop up on the meter, even if just for a few seconds. Can’t wait to see where I am in a few more months.
Tues – boxing class at UFC – holy smokes, I was so sore when I woke up the next morning. Apparently 60 minutes with the heavy bag will do that to ya ;) I actually loved this class, but definitely need to learn to wrap my hands better and pace myself with the punches instead of going all out in the first 5 minutes lol.
Weds – rest day.  Definitely rest day.
Thurs – Daily Ultimate Training (DUT) class at gym – just as good as last week! The killer station in the circuit for me was definitely the eight minutes of battle rope. My arms were dead after first three minutes.
Fri – 4 miles on T/M (10:13 pace)
Sat – 4 miles on T/M (10:30 pace)
Sun – rest day (achilles was bothering me)

I think I do need to take a few weeks off from running entirely to let my achilles heal (heel? haha), because it’s starting to feel aggravated even on my short easy runs.  I’ll probably move to the elliptical and rower for my 3-4 cardio days each week.  I’m hoping it heals up in time for me to get in some spring weather running…

Friday Faves

Happy Friday friends! Any good plans for the weekend? I’m volunteering at a food distribution center tomorrow morning, and then we’re heading into the city for a date night :)

About the fake plant on my desk above – I wanted a plant for my office, but I don’t have any windows so I figured it would be a challenge to keep a real plant alive.  But then I remembered this interesting article about the soothing effect of artificial plants (in prison) so I picked one up from TJ Maxx.  I think it’s working :)

I listened to this audiobook on a business trip to Raleigh a few weeks ago and LOVED it.  Jim Gaffigan might be my new favorite comedian.

This jacket for spring.  I tried it on in the store a few weeks ago, and ended up buying it at half the price on Poshmark.

GoT coasters – I got them from Etsy as a surprise for Mike! I’m House Greyjoy all the way – who doesn’t want a kraken as their house symbol?

I made this recipe last week and it was a HUGE hit with both of us. So easy too – I just used red curry paste and coconut milk for the base, and subbed the veggies for what I had on hand (red cabbage, frozen edamame, mushrooms, kale).

I’ve spent a few days in Raleigh over the last couple of months on business trips, and have discovered there’s a ton of great restaurants/eateries in the city! This gourmet hot dog from Tasty 8’s was everything.  I’ve been told I need to eat some BBQ next…The Sing movie soundtrack on Spotify.  We watched this months ago and I’ve been listening to the soundtrack several times a week ever since.  Fave song: “I’m Still Standing” – so good!

Speaking of movies, I watched Hidden Figures with my girlfriends a few weeks ago and it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  Such an amazing story – from the women determined to make an impact to the people in their lives and at work who supported them against the racist/sexist backdrop of the time to America’s ground-breaking achievements in space exploration.  ALL the feels.  I’m going to watch it again with Mike when it comes out on Google Play!

What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately?

Last Week’s Workouts: CycleBar

Hey friends! Hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was pretty low key – we went to a new cycle class on Saturday morning (more on that below) and then spent the rest of the day at Spaworld :) So relaxing.  We did some food shopping afterwards at Hmart, and I grabbed a few pastries from the bakery nearby for breakfast the next morning.
Sunday was church – I’ve been teaching Sunday School each week and watching the sermons during the week when I have time. My three year olds are so cute but MAN are they energetic! We grabbed dim sum afterwards with a friend, then came home to take care of chores and get ready for another week. Dinner was a Blue Apron winner – smoky cod with a roasted potato salad. I loved the butter, date, and garlic sauce on the cod and the pickled shallot on the salad. Here’s the recipe link if you want to try it!

Last Week’s Workouts

I mentioned in my last post that I haven’t been running much, thanks to an Achilles tendon injury that’s taking its time to go away. I’m confident that if I can just rest it for a couple of weeks with no long runs/ speedwork, it’ll be fine. It’s been fine with a few easy runs each week, so I’ve been alternating easy running with more intense cross training sessions in the form of Orangetheory, cycling, and classes offered at my UFC gym. And I think I might be in the best shape I’ve been in a while – I’m lifting heavy at OTF and interval classes at the gym, I’ve nearly doubled my max power output on the rower, and just a few weeks ago (when I was still able to run) I was hitting 6-7 mile pace runs at my marathon pace with little effort, despite running only 20-25 miles a week. When I start training again, cross-training is going to stick around as part of my regimen for sure.

Mon – OTF! It’s become my favorite way to start the week, because it forces me to work out first thing Monday morning, and that gets me into the habit of doing it the rest of the week.
Tues – 4 easy miles on the T/M (10:40 pace)
Weds – 2.5 easy miles (10:20 pace), and then my Achilles hurt so I incline walked for another 15-20 minutes.
Thurs – Daily Ultimate Training (DUT) class at gym – described as a high intensity boot camp. I tried it for the first time this week, and holy cow – we started off with 20 minutes of lunge variations using the TRX. My legs were DYING. Then we moved onto 9 minute blocks at three stations with two activities each, alternating 30 seconds on, 10 seconds off. One station focused on legs using squat jumps on the bosu alternating with a sled push; station 2 focused on abs alternating pikes with the TRX and abdominal holds, and station 3 was a arms/chest workout alternating a burpee/overhead press with chest flys on an exercise ball. Yea, I was sore everywhere for days.
Fri – 4 easy miles on the T/M (10:20 pace)
Sat – CycleBar endurance class (60 min)
Sun – rest

CycleBar Review

With long runs out of the picture for now, I was looking around for another activity I could do on weekends, maybe with Mike (who cycles a lot at his gym). We came across CycleBar, which is a spin studio that opened up a location in Arlington in November last year. They had an awesome intro package – 3 classes for $29, so we both signed up! I was pleasantly surprised at how it easy it was to book a class; other premium cycle studios often book up within hours of releasing their week’s schedule, but we were able to book a class the day before – maybe because the studio is still pretty new?

We walked into the gorgeous studio on Saturday morning, and it was as luxe as other premium spin studios I’ve been to, with more perks – they have the standard lockers and nice bikes, but they also give out free water bottles, towel service, free shoe rentals and the bikes come with data screens showing your gear level, RPMs, watt, and other info. The studio itself was really big, with stadium style seating and a good amount of space between bikes.

Source: Cyclebar

And the class? It was SO hard – the instructor told us which gear we should be in, so I couldn’t just “go by feel” (aka coast half the class lol) since I could see the gear on the screen. The class was a good mix of hills, speedwork, steady tempo songs, and a little bit of core work and arms using a weighted bar (hence the name). Mike and I liked all the aspects of the class, from the motivating music, use of lighting (they turn off the lights during steady tempos and turn down the lights for speedwork songs), and participant stats on the screen (you can opt out, if you want). It’s fair to say I was a sweaty mess after class :)

Speaking of stats, they send you your stats afterwards, like OTF.  We had some rock stars in the class – I pushed myself hard just to stay in the middle of the pack!
Have you tried any indoor cycling studios? Any favorites? I know the price is insane and it’s definitely a cult, but SoulCycle is my favorite.  It feels like a party on a bike.

Life Lately

I’m still alive!

I know I haven’t blogged in a while – I started a new job (my first job change since 2008!) and my commute went from 10 minutes to 1 hour. The good news is that I really love my new job, and I’ve been fine with the commute thanks to audiobooks I’ve been borrowing from the library. And surprisingly, I’ve grown to love driving – so weird, I would have done anything to avoid having to drive just a few months ago.  Anyway, here’s a few things we’ve been up to lately!

We bought a new (used) car! After tons of research and visits to multiple dealerships, we ended up with a great RAV4.  It’s the car I use to commute everyday, and I’ve come to love driving it.

Lots of delicious home-cooked food, thanks to Mike’s new obsession with sous vide cooking, which is a method that uses a water bath to cook food to a precise temperature.  It’s super time-consuming, but all the meats he’s made have come out perfectly cooked.  My favorite dish so far has been the Asian pork belly buns (top right below).

We went skiing a few weeks ago! Well, sort of – Mike’s coworkers planned a trip to Deep Creek months ago, but the weather has been so freakishly warm here that there was no snow, lol.  No matter, we went hiking instead :)

More food – we discovered UberEATS.  Boru Ramen delivered within 35 minutes to our condo.  I might never leave the house again.

And finally…more food.  We went to Bad Saint in February, a Filipino restaurant that’s gotten tons of buzz in DC.  It also doesn’t take any reservations, so we showed up at 3:30 PM on a Saturday, waited two hours and just barely got into the first seating.  Whew! How was it? Honestly, I’d describe the food as interesting, but any given weekend, I’d rather be eating the bowl of ramen above ;)

On the training front, things were going great – until I injured my left Achilles on a long run about two months ago. Wah wah. I DNSed the Rock ‘n’ Roll DC half last weekend, and I won’t be running Reston in April.  But honestly, I’ve actually been happy doing lots of cross-training, especially now that the weather has finally gotten cold around here.  I’ll talk about what I’ve been doing to stay in shape (and balance out all the eating) next week!

Reston Marathon Training Weeks 1+2

My training cycle for the Reston marathon (in early April) kicked off two weeks ago! I’m opting for a slightly shorter training cycle this time around – 16 weeks instead of the usual 18. For most of the cycle, my goal is to get in a pace run, long run, 2 cross training sessions (like OTF or barre), and 2 easy runs. Here’s how the first two weeks went!

Marathon Training Week 1 (11.5 miles)

This was not a great start to the cycle; I did get in some activity throughout the week but I skipped 2 runs and cut others short because I wasn’t sleeping well due to some job stuff going on. Still, if I was going to have an off week, I’d glad it was early on in my training schedule.

Mon: OTF
Tues: rest
Weds: 2 mile MP (marathon pace) run on T/M (9:10 pace) – This was supposed to be closer to 4-5 miles, but I was having some problems with new shoes (fixed later on using a different lacing technique)
Thurs: Lavabarre
Fri: 6 miles on the T/M (10:31 pace)
Sat: 3.5 miles on T/M (10:35 pace) – My plan was to get in my long run (12 miles) on the treadmill before heading down to Richmond, but I did not feel well and cut the run short.
Sun: rest day

Marathon Training Week 2 (26 miles)

This week went much better; I started sleeping well again and I always love running in Cali so I got all my miles in, even though we were on vacation :)

Mon: rest day
Tues: 5 mile MP on T/M (9:13 pace) – this went surprisingly well; I thought I’d have trouble holding my MP pace for that long on the treadmill, but I took super short breaks every mile or so and it didn’t feel that fast at all.
Weds: OTF
Thurs: rest day
Fri: 5 miles in Temecula (10:08 pace) – Mike ran the first 3 miles with me, and then I did another two solo. The weather was slightly chilly and felt great!
Sat: 12 miles in Temecula (10:37 pace) – This was a great long run, considering how hilly the route was (probably 8-9 hills total). All the incline training we’ve been doing at OTF has been paying off though; I was able to run all but the largest two hills without stopping.
Sun: 4 miles in Temecula (10:33 pace) – I got in a few miles in the morning before we packed up and went back up to LA!

This week, I’ll be jumping to 30 miles with a 14 mile long run on Saturday. I know I’ll be tired after getting back to DC, but if I power through this week, I’ll have a cutback week to look forward to in week 4 :)