05.10.15 Weekly Recap: Food + Fitness + Fun

I was all over the place last week: Sunday = Brainerd, Monday = Minneapolis, Tuesday = Winnipeg, Wednesday = Calgary, Thursday = Minneapolis, Friday-Sunday = Denver. It was crazy, busy, but it was a great week overall. Here’s the recap:

FOOD:

Clearly since I was barely home, a majority of my meals were eaten out this week. A lot of them were in the airport. And since I was only home for a few days I didn’t go to the grocery store to restock my refrigerator. No joke, it’s just eggs and condiments in there. I had a lot of almond butter fried egg sandwiches. Therefore, I’ll just call out the things worth calling out.

• Mother’s Day Brunch. My mom and I made brunch together at the cabin. We put together a delicious mushroom, spinach, asparagus quiche, thick cut bacon, crusty bread, fresh berries, and hot coffee. It was delicious and bright and fun (proof). My parents and I devoured it.
• Brunch at Linger. This place was so fun. There was a litebrite-esue bartop, unlimited mimosas, and an interesting bathroom. I ate an amazing chile relleno. After brunch my friend (Katie) and I headed up to the rooftop for a little bit where there was a nice view of LoHi and downtown Denver, but then it started to rain so we moved along.
• Dinner at Root Down. Ohemgeeee, this dinner was amazing. Katie and I split the kale and pea salad, seared Columbian arepas, the Roman gnocchi, and a bottle of Syrah. Everything was delicious. We sat there for a longggg time eating and chatting and working through our bottle of wine.
• Dinner at Kaos Pizzeria. First of all, this place had an awesome happy hour – $2 beers! Second, there pizza is delicious. We had the margarita and the prosciutto.
• While in Denver we also had a quick late-night dinner at Mead St. Station, coffee at The Laughing Latte, happy hour at Machete, a glass of wine at Old Major, lunch at Vine Street Pub, and beers at Tavern.

FITNESS:

• Sunday: Easy run. A nice 4-mile run up north by the cabin. Total = 4.0 miles; 8:58 min/mile.
• Monday: Cycle class + hill workout. I started my Monday with a DharmaCycle cycle class. I planned to do a prime yoga class, but a mix up at the studio led me to cycle, which was fine. Then later after work I did a hill workout. Actually, I’m not sure I would go as far to call this a “workout”. I basically just ran jogged up and down a large hill 8 times with some flat miles before and afterwards. Total = 10.6 miles; 9:20 min/mile.
• Tuesday: Strength training. I was planning on going for a run, but decided that strength training would be a better option for my body. I started out with a 10 minute warm up on the elliptical, then did 2 rounds of each of the following circuits – 1^st: Romanian deadlifts, stranding triceps extensions, biceps curls; 2^nd: dumbbell chest press, bent over rows, plank knee-to-elbow; 3^rd: lunges, shoulder scaption, plank with hip dips; 4^th: side leg lifts, hamstring curls, side plank hip dips, pushups.
• Wednesday: Short speed workout. I happened to be in Calgary when Running Room was having one of their group runs, so I went to check it out! They had a bunch of different training groups doing different workouts. I joined up with the Half Marathon group that was doing a speed workout. We warmed up by playing freeze tag. Freeze tag! How fun is that?! I think I was 12 the last time I played freeze tag. Then we did 3x 200 meter sprints followed by 4x 50m sprints in a relay format, then a little cool down. It was a lot of fun and everyone was super nice and welcoming. Plus, we met at the store right down town and ran through a beautiful park by the river. I’m glad I joined up with them rather than doing a run on my own. Afterwards I just did a little 4 mile run on my own. I ran along the river and it kind of felt like I was in Minneapolis. Calgary is a very pretty city! Total = ~5.5 miles.
• Thursday: Rest day.
• Friday: Long run. I took a half-day vacation so that I could fit in my 20-miler before flying out to Denver. Such a fun vacation, right?! Thankfully my friend Monica was willing to run the first 9 miles with me; otherwise I really don’t think I would have made the whole 20 on my own. I mean, I guess I probably would have, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. The last 11 were tough, but I had Comedy Bang Bang (episode #349) to entertain me. Total = 20 miles; 10:00 min/mile.
• Saturday: Yoga Flow. My friend and I checked out The Freya Project yoga studio in the Highland Denver neighborhood. The studio was super cute and the class was great. We went through a ton of hip opening and IT band stretches. It was like the instructor knew exactly what I needed.
• Sunday: Rest day.
• Totals: 1 strength training session, 1 cycle class, 1 yoga class, 4 runs (40.1 miles).

OTHER FUN THINGS:

• I was in Canada on Tuesday and Wednesday visiting my Winnipeg and Calgary warehouse sites. I have been working with these sites since February, so it was great to finally meet everyone in person and see the warehouses with my own eyes.
• The TC 1-Mile was Thursday night! I volunteer with the Marketing Committee for Twin Cities in Motion and my role was to put together the Cheer Zones along the course. We had one at Eli’s, Rock Bottom Brewery, and Maruso. I led up the one at Maruso, handed out Thunderstix and cowbells to the spectators, and cheered on all the runners. It was a chilly, rainy night on a new course (it used to be on Nicollet), but it was still super fun.
• My friend Katie and I spent the weekend in Denver. We just wanted to get away from Minneapolis for a little bit and explore the city even though we were just there in October. We spent the weekend eating and drinking at a lot of good restaurants (see above) and walking around different areas (like Cheeseman Park). Unfortunately the weather wasn’t super awesome (quite a few rain showers), but we made the most of it and will definitely be going back for another visit!

Hope you had a great week!