Who Forgot To Mention Hot Yoga Is Hot

Can I just speak to how much I love you all?  Honestly, I knew I missed you but the response I have gotten has brought me darn near tears multiple times since posting yesterday.  YOU ARE AMAZING! 🙂

For any of you who haven’t spent much time in Denver, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.  Denver is Sunny.

Nine days out of 10, you’re going to have the sun shining for a good chunk of your afternoon.

 Yesterday was NOT a Sunny Denver Day.

Yup, July 30th and I was wearing a sweater and long pants yesterday.  No wonder everyone is struggling with the beloved Summer colds.  Whomp whomp.

It rained relentlessly morning, afternoon and night.  Monsoon rain, with cloud overhang that I’m used to seeing in the Midwest, not Colorado.   It was the topic of conversation for everyone at work and out and about.  Us Coloradan’s aren’t used to weather like this!

Make The Best Of It

All I wanted to do yesterday was crawl back in bed and curl up with a good book.  I had running on the agenda, but in the end, I was inspired by something much more weather friendly.  Hey, a hot room sounded PERFECT.

Workout 

I made it back to Core Power Yoga for the first time since moving to Denver, and let me tell you.  All my instagram followers, you forgot to tell or remind me how challenging these classes are. I was DRIPPING buckets midway through class.  Talk about a detox.

There is nothing like the post run endorphin high, but man that class felt good.  60 minutes of a C2 class had this lady smilin ear to ear, and ready to EAT!

Good Eats

My gut has been all kinds of cranky this past week, so I’ve been drinking tons of juices and smoothies to get me through the mornings/afternoons.  And yesterday was one of those days.

At least they’re delicious!

My eats during the day have been mostly liquid to appease my gut, but dinners are still chewable ;).  And healthy!

Yesterday’s dinner started off with a cucumber, squash and tomato salad dressed simply with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and fresh basil.  YUM!

Zach and I ran out of greens earlier in the week and stumbled upon this meal.  No real recipe, we just used the mandolin slicer to pickle slice the veggies (one small cucumber and one small squash), added a few fresh tomatoes from the garden, and threw enough dressing to cover the mix.  I recommend letting it sit in the fridge and marinate a bit if possible, but trust me it’s fresh either way!

Also on the menu were homemade grilled falafel burgers and a side of Trader Joe’s pretzel bread.

All together now!

With a side of kambucha to wash it all down 🙂

Fresh, healthy and delicious!  Let me know if you guys are interested in the falafel recipe, I’d be happy to share!

Zach and I spent the rest of the evening finishing up the final season of Dexter (we gave up cable and got Netflix.  Best.Decision.Ever).

I may or may not have enjoyed a Whole Foods vegan cookie and a glass of wine while we waited up for Zach’s mom and sister to make it into Denver.

That’s right!  Family in town for the weekend!  We’re heading up to Breckenridge tomorrow afternoon to enjoy my favorite part of Colorado in the Summer!  Let’s hope the weather straightens it’s act up.

I leave you with a picture of our very happy furball.  We bought her a new scratch pad which she became attached to IMMEDIATELY.   We may or may not have entertained ourselves for a little while watching her go crazy on some cat nip.  Don’t judge.  It was one AM and we were all slap happy!

Have you ever done hot yoga?  Did you sweat yourself off your mat?

Falafel recipe?

Tips for an angry gut?

Plans for the weekend?

Friday Round Up — A Snowy Week

I love the excited feeling that comes along with late afternoons at work on Friday.  Everyone has been trucking away all week, we’re all anticipating the coming weekend, and everyone is just in good spirits. Makes me Happy 🙂

With that said, let’s round up the week!

Work outs

• Monday: Easy 5k + Hill/Spring work

• Tuesday: Tabata routine

• Wednesday: Cardio routine + weights

• Thursday: Rest and Stretch

• Friday: 2 cardio routines for 5+ miles

And as for this weekend, I’ve got a ski day planned for tomorrow and then an outdoor run planned for Sunday.  Lookin’ forward to it already.

I was pretty run down in the middle of the week, so this weeks work outs are ALL successes.  I’m working on listening to my body and making sure that if it needs rest, that’s what I give it!

Eats

Oh man, some great eats this week 🙂 So much color and variation — just what I love!

Sweets

Oh lord, the ice cream.  Sorry for the terrible picture, but YUM.

Something I’m loving this week

LOVING oil pulling!

Hope you had a great week, friends!  See you on for the weekend!

Date Night

I love Thursday mornings 🙂 ❤

It’s my rest day AND I get to sleep in.  That combo is pretty spectacular in this girls book 🙂  But let’s backtrack to yesterday, shall we?

Workout of the Day

I know I spoke to how I wasn’t feeling 100% myself yesterday, primarily battling with feeling like a slug. . . but I think the primary (not only, but primary) culprit was just a lack of calories.  Once I ate a few extra calories in a PB granola bar, and drank sone Nuun, I honestly felt like a new person, ready to tackle an awesome work out.

I seriously felt like such an energizer bunny after this work out, I think Zach thought I was crazy.

I started with a 22 minute cardio work out that I found in the recent SELF magazine.  For the jog, I used 6.0.  For the sprint I used 9.5-9.7 (ouch), for the recovery I used 3.5 and for the warm up and cool down I used 3.7 with incline.

After I finished the twenty two minutes I was right at 2.5 miles.  I decided to do a bit more running just to get it above 3, so I ran until 30 minutes where I finished right around 3.32 miles total.

I hit the heavier weights (for me) and did lower reps with the higher weight for a few minutes of high impact lighting (again, for me).

Finished off by a 5 minute plank series.

Honestly – -I finished this work out so pumped and feeling a million times better than I had been all day.  Nothing like a good sweat fest sometimes. . .

Date Night

Zach’s Red Wings were on TV, so we watched the first period as I got ready, and then headed to one of our favorite local spots Amato’s Ale House  to eat and watch the rest of the game.

{awwwwe}

We started with a caesar salad

That Zach thought was pretty weak overall but I thought was just fine.  Not overly dressed, simple and fresh.

And I got the hummus platter as my entree, which I also shared with Zach. YUM.  The hummus was sundried tomato and was AWESOME.

This was plenty of food to keep us busy through the game along with some good beer and great company.

We were home at a descent hour (I love living in the mountains where sports are always an hour or two earlier than we’re used to) and attempted to watch an episode of SIx Feet Under while we ate dessert but we both fell asleep.  Upps

This Morning

I got a good 10+ hours of sleep last night and I think that was more of my body telling me it did need a little extra rest.  The weather is pretty nasty here in Denver today so I didn’t get a good walk with Gus this morning like I usually do on Thursday mornings.

I spent a few minutes this morning getting a good stretch in and plan on doing some more through out the day to balance out this rest day.  As little movement as possible, that’s the plan 🙂 ❤

Now, it’s time to wrap things up, get some coconut water and head to work.  Woot!