A Monday Virtual Coffee Date

Happy Monday babes! My friend Dixya over at Food, Pleasure, and Health writes these lovely virtual coffee date posts to share what’s been new in her life and what she’s been up to. I just love to read them so, I thought today, I would give it a try. Thanks Dixya for the wonderful inspiration!

I had such an amazing weekend and I figured if we were having coffee today, that would be the first thing I’d want to share.

So, if were having coffee today I’d tell you all about the Sprouts Summer Splash event the Dallas Fitness Ambassadors had on Saturday. It was so much fun!

We met up at ALMI Design District apartments in Uptown for an early morning Barre Class hosted by Lauren of the Barre Code – Design District. I’ve attended some events with the Barre Code before while working for Nuun, but this was the first time I’d actually tried the workout.

Lauren has to have thighs of steel! Seriously! I had sweat dripping off my brow and into my eyes. Lauren had us working until our legs were literally shaking. Afterword, we cooled down with a beautiful brunch sponsored by Sprouts.

They were kind enough to set up a Prosecco bar featuring sparkling drinks of the tastiest flavors. I’m officially in love with the Sprouts sparkling Mojito and it may very well be my new poolside mocktail (after Nuun, of course!).

We also sat down for a fun smoothie bowl demo by Emily from Zen and Spice who is so incredibly talented. She showed us the basics and gave us some great tips on how to keep our bowls low cal and delicious, like using plain Greek yogurt to reduce sugar or using Acai paste to yield a higher flavor.

By the way, both Dixya and Emily are Registered Dietitians and nutrition enthusiasts like myself. If you’re looking for great reads, recipes, or just fun & healthy food ideas, I highly suggest visiting their blogs.

If we were having coffee today, I’d also tell you about the family hike we took after Barre class. I was still riding the high after leaving the girls on Saturday and rushed home to insist that my family get outdoors for the day. I’m working an event next weekend for Nuun and REI at the Cedar Ridge Nature Preserve.

The moment I heard about the preserve I knew I had to take my family out there. My son loves hiking. If you’re a mom of a teen boy, you know how hard it can be at times to get them to enjoy anything with you. I just knew he would love it and Cedar Ridge Preserve did not let us down.

We hiked the Cattail trial down to the pond and back. The temperature on Saturday was over 100 degrees, but we didn’t let that stop us. The 2.4 mile trail was beautiful, even in the dead heat of Texas summer. I will say this, there is a bit of a downhill/uphill elevation change that makes this trail a bit challenging.

More so on the way back to the trail head as it has a pretty steep incline. I had my Garmin running during the hike and saw my heart rate spike all the way to Zone 4 with 180 beats per minute! Apparently we need to more things like this. ha ha ha!

In total, we spent about two hours hiking and exploring the nature preserve before the heat got to us. We’re going to make an effort to go back and hike all of the trails Cedar Ridge has to offer. Perhaps a little earlier in the day next time.

If we were having coffee today, I’d tell about my friend James who completed his very first triathlon on Sunday. James and I go way back, but I haven’t seen him in years. He used to DJ at house parties and clubs in the DFW area when I was just 19.

We worked together at one of my very fist jobs and have been friends ever since. Now, he plays shows all around the world and is really making a name for himself. When I heard he’d taken an interest triathlon, I jumped at the chance to reconnect with him and support him in his triathlon journey.

He was racing the Take on The Heat triathlon by Playtri and invited me to join. Unfortunately, I’m still saving all my money for Ironman Texas so entry for this race was out of the question. But that didn’t stop me from going out to support him.

My husband and I headed out to met up with his girlfriend Jen (who is also a DJ) to cheer him on. He killed it too, taking 6th place in his age group!

He completed a 300 meter pool swim in 5:28 minutes with an average pave 1:49/100m (that’s super fast for a beginner FYI!) ,a 9 mile (two loop) bike ride in 24:02 min with an average pace of 22 mph , and finished up the race with a 5k run in 26:15 min for an average pace of 8:28 min/mile.

James has plans to race Austin 70.3 later this year and maybe even Ironman Texas with me in 2017 if all goes well. I’m so excited for him. It’s always amazing to watch a friend fall head over heals for triathlon the way I have.

Also, if you’re into electronic music, check out some of James’ music links below. Makes for good training tunes and I have to brag, he’s not just a great triathlete, he’s kind of an awesome DJ!

Facebook, Sound Cloud; Mix Cloud; Beat Port; Heartthis.at

 

It was an amazing weekend filled with fun, great friends and adventure. I can’t wait for next weekend but until then, tell me what you did! If we were having coffee, I’d ask all about you so don’t be shy.