Goals & Weekend Update: Friends and Fitness

I had such an amazing post-Thanksgiving weekend, full of old and new friends and lots of exercise, that I want to recap it before laying out my goals for this week and how I did on last week's goals.

Weekend Update
I spent Friday being lazy and watching movies, doing some yoga, and getting dinner with a friend and seeing Lincoln. The movie was really good, but what stood out was Daniel Day Lewis (of course). His performance as Lincoln didn't seem like a performance, it just seemed like Steven Spielberg had conjured up Lincoln for his movie. There's no way it's not going to be one of the 10 Best Picture nominees next year! As for Black Friday shopping, I can't decide if it's awesome or terrible that my only Black Friday purchases were Knicks gear and exercise-related. I picked up a running water bottle from Athleta since the fountains around New York are shut off for the winter, and I'm excited to receive my first Oiselle purchase soon! I ordered the runfinity scarf and a long-sleeved run tee. I'll update with my thoughts when I get them.

On Saturday, I took a wonderful Uplifting class with friends from my firm, Lauren and Hana. It was so great to get back to Uplift Studios. It had been too long! I hadn't taken a class with Michelle in quite a while, and she did a great kickass interval-based class. Hana loved the studio and we were all exhausted by the end.

Michelle had an amazing playlist with some terrific mashups that had me searching SoundCloud for more mashups. I ended up finding a ton that I'm so excited to run with in the coming weeks.

After hanging out at Uplift catching up for a bit, we parted ways and I headed uptown to meet up with Abby and join her on her first post-marathon run. We kept a slow pace since she was just a tiny bit sore from, y'know, Boston qualifying at the Philly Marathon on Sunday. In her first marathon. No big deal. (In case you don't know, Boston qualifying is a huge goal for runners around the world, and many runners work for years and are never able to achieve it)

We ended at JackRabbit Sports -- they were having a big Black Friday (weekend) sale that we wanted to check out. I picked up a pair of Brooks for only $50! I needed a pair that gave me greater support for over-pronation so finding a pair of Brooks for such a low price was really exciting. Beth met us at JackRabbit and we met up for brunch and drinks. New discovery: grapefruit mimosas are delicious. It was so great to sit down with some fellow running-obsessed friends and chat for several hours, and I loved getting to know both Beth and Abby better.

it's gotten SO cold, but Central Park is beautiful as always

I can't lie, today was kind of rough. In the best possible way. I had already committed to taking a Refine Method class with Lynette today and wasn't about to cancel on her, but when Holly Rilinger posted on Facebook that she was leading a Nike Training Camp session on Sunday morning for free, I knew I had to hit it up. So it was a double day, despite already being pretty tired from the Uplifting class on Saturday.


The session at Nike was amazing. Holly was a fantastic instructor, which I would have expected given her spin class, but one thing that I really loved was how sports-oriented the workout was. Holly is a former pro basketball player, and I felt like that came through in how she led the workout and started it -- team cheers on three, lots of partner-oriented work, and even a basketball-style shuffle around the room. We did two 10-exercise circuits by time, doing each exercise for 1 minute, and there was extra core work in between the two circuits. I left Nike and walked through Central Park to Refine Method, feeling tired but energized in that great way you feel after an amazing workout.

the Sunday morning crew!
(source)

I was left exhausted, but today was amazing. When the first jumping jacks started at Refine, I wasn't sure I could push through, but I did. I was able to put in real effort and almost perform as well as I would have at a normal class. I loved pushing myself to my absolute limits and seeing how far I could go.

But um... I'll be doing some less intense strength work this week. Because my legs are gone.

Last week's goals
Here's how I did last week:
• 1 spin session (done and loved it!)
• 3 strength training workouts (ended up with 4!)
• 3 runs for at least 15 miles (only got two runs and 10 miles in)
• 2-3 yoga practices (1.5 - a bit with my trainer and one video practice)

Goals for this week
This week's goals:
• 1 spin session
• 3 runs (2 speed sessions, 1 long run of 8 miles including a race!)
• 2 yoga practices
• 2 strength sessions


How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Any fun Black Friday purchases?

P.S. My trainer Amanda went to Haiti recently to teach yoga to children there. She's written an incredible series of posts about her time there: part 1, part 2, and part 3. Give them a read if you have a few minutes and want some inspiration!