A Very Healthy Weekend

Thank you for all of your awesome comments on my post yesterday. That is why I keep blogging–for that feeling of community, that we’re all in this together.

After writing that post, I went on to have a very healthy day!

I started off meeting up with Leticia for brunch at Josie’s, one of my favorite healthy restaurants in the city. The nice thing about my blogger/runner friends is I know they’ll almost always be down for a good healthy restaurant.

I had plans to do the Lu-athalon (spin + run + yoga) after brunch, so I wasn’t sure what to get that would keep me full for that long workout without bothering my stomach. I wasn’t really feeling any of their entrees, so I put together a few sides: turkey sausage, scrambled eggs and fruit.

Afterwards, I walked the 30 blocks up to Lululemon to change and head over to Flywheel for part one of the Lu-athalon, one of their community events.

This was only my second time trying Flywheel, but I really wasn’t feeling the little monitor on the side that measures your torque and RPM. Mostly because I don’t spin very often, so I always had a hard time getting my RPM up to the level the instructor was asking us to. It’s funny how rarely I spin now–before I started running, that was my absolute favorite workout.

(Those screens up there, for the unfamiliar, basically rank everyone’s performance. Yesterday, they used bike numbers, not names, and the screen moved really quickly, so I couldn’t really ever find where I was. Which was fine.)

Our instructor, Danielle Devine, was high-energy and gave us a really intense workout. Thanks to her, Andy and Jess for putting this together!

After the spin class, it was time for the run. My legs were literally shaking when I got off the bike, and I thought the run was going to suck. I had every intent of just running at a leisurely pace, but I started running with one of the girls from Lululemon, and I accidentally busted out 3.66 miles (we made a few wrong turns and lost the group–we were only supposed to do a 5K) in 30:50. I’ll take it! I have no idea where that pace came from, but I felt great the entire time and we even managed to keep up conversation.

I was on such a runner’s high when I finished the run. And also exhausted.

We ended our run at the House of Jai yoga studio. The studio is absolutely gorgeous–and I really liked the class–but it’s not super-convenient to where I live, and I am lazy, so I don’t foresee myself going back there, unless I’m going with other people. Our instructor was Molly, who had a great sense of humor. I definitely giggled into my mat a few times.

But after nearly three solid hours of working out, I was DONE. The class lasted an entire hour, and by about 45 minutes in, I turned to Jess and started glaring at her and asking when it was done.

After class, I was completely spent both mentally and physically. I walked out of the studio and my brain basically stopped working, and I couldn’t think about which train would be most efficient for me to take home. So I ended up walking 3.5 miles home instead. Because that makes sense.

It was a gorgeous night, though, and I hardly ever walk down 1st Ave for any long stretch, so it wasn’t as painful as it sounds.

Oh hey UN.

And LIC.

I got home and had every intent of enjoying a lovely night on my couch with Bailey…but around 10pm, I decided to rally and join Laura out for a few drinks. I stuck to vodka sodas,

She also talked me into joining the Athleta run club with her this morning. Since we were out equally late, I had no good excuse and so I joined her–although I nearly bailed. On really tired legs, I knew I’d have a harder time slogging through alone–and I had plans to go into work this afternoon, so I also wanted a little more social time before spending the rest of the day alone.

In total small-world coincidences, I ran into one of my friends from high school at the run group and we ran together for a bit. We were on the gymnastics team together freshman year of high school (14 years ago?!), and we occasionally run into each other at races around the city and are also both doing the triathlon in our hometown in a few weeks. I’m pretty sure if you told 15-year-old us that we’d be running and doing triathlons in NYC in our late 20s, we would have laughed at you. In even weirder coincidences, our dads ended up playing golf together this morning, too. (Also unplanned.)

My legs felt exhausted almost the entire time, but I still busted out a good pace again. Hopefully these random bursts of speed will return for next weekend’s Mini 10K (2011 recap; 2010 recap) and my upcoming tri.

I wrapped up my weekend o’health with a few hours in the office catching up, some cleaning (cleaning=mental health for me) and finally restocking my kitchen after a busy few weeks. I was too tired to actually cook, so I grabbed these pre-mades from Whole Foods: a black bean burger (meh, it was kind of crumbly), sweet potato fries and steamed kale.

How were you healthy this weekend?