Hey friends! Happy Friday! In case you missed it yesterday – I shared 6 of my favorite healthy and delicious Super Bowl snack recipes for you to enjoy on Sunday!
I had a fun treat yesterday – one of my best friends from college, Turner (that’s a nickname, in case you are wondering… her real name is Laura!) was in town for a conference. Hooray! Morning run date? Don’t mind if we do.
We met up in Woodley Park (northwest DC) and did a nice loop through some of Rock Creek Park. There were a couple stretches where snow/mud/ice was still around, but for the most part it was clear. I can’t believe how quickly the snow melted!
We tried to do one of Turner’s favorite loops from when she lived here, where we ran back up through the Zoo, but sadly we discovered the Zoo is no longer open for people to run/walk through in the early mornings! Boo! No cute animals for us.
Luckily it was easy enough to continue on through Rock Creek to get back to our starting spot. 🙂 We stopped for a quick sweaty selfie by the main Zoo entrance!
We made it just about 4 miles – I forgot to turn my watch back on briefly at one point so this isn’t entirely accurate, but close enough. This also included a MASSIVE hill. Oof! Northwest is so hilly.
Turner and I actually met up again last night for dinner! She’s in town a couple more days but Matt and I are going on a quick ski trip in Pennsylvania this weekend with some friends so Turner and I knew we wouldn’t have another chance to meet up. Getting to see her twice in one day was a nice treat. 🙂
I probably should have gotten a cute picture of us dressed up like normal people at dinner, but you know sweaty selfies are how I roll, so I just took some quick pics of the food instead. 😉 We met up at Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan – great spot!
We shared everything, which was fun so we got some nice variety! Our appetizer was the pickled deviled eggs (SO GOOD), and for our entrees we shared the five grain risotto (my favorite – so creative and delish) and the monkfish. For dessert, we shared the bread pudding! It was really light and egg-y – yum.
I so miss having Turner nearby – in college we were roommates and spent a ton of time together. We were so spoiled! Move back to DC, Turner, k? Thanks. 😉
The other food highlight from the past couple days was lunch with another old friend, my friend Stephanie, who I’ve known since we were in 7th grade! We met up downtown on Wednesday at the Teaism near the White House. I love Teaism – such a great spot. We both had the chicken curry – and I added a side of greens, too, which I stirred in to the curry for some extra veggie power. Hit the spot on a rainy, cold day, and it’s always fun when the workday includes a catch up with an old friend.
As for today, I’m working from home and started my day with a visit from my new trainer, Paul of Capital Energy Training! Paul and I met last week via a friend (read about our first session here) and have decided to do a partnership on a couple levels – a training/blog exchange, and also referring clients to each other. I’m really happy to have finally found a local trainer that is a good fit for me to refer my AnneTheRD nutrition clients to – he’s very knowledgeable and has great attention to detail, I like his style/approach (positive and encouraging but not over the top), and he doesn’t try to give nutrition advice to clients. 🙂 I also love that he travels to the client’s homes – makes it easy to refer people to him since location within the DC area doesn’t matter!
He’s going to be training me once a week to see if we can work on my ridiculously tight hips and shoulders. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been having some right hip and lower back tightness/soreness from running and I think this will fix me right up! Each week, I’m going to highlight one of the exercises that we do so that you guys can try them on your own if you want (at your own risk), as I know many of my runner readers are probably dealing with similar mobility issues.
Here is a little collage of a couple of the moves we did today:
These moves work specifically on shoulder/chest mobility. To do them, lie down lengthwise on a foam roller with your head and bottom lying on the foam roller. Starting with the top left picture, hold a stretchy band (or a towel) between your hands and make sure you are engaged/slightly pulling it out sideways. Then, slowly lower your arms back/up towards your head, as seen in the photo in the middle on the left. Repeat! Another one you can try without the towel is on the bottom left – it’s hard to tell in the photo but I’m doing very small arm circles. Lastly, in the photo on the right, I’m holding a squishy ball between my hands and doing small inward squeezes. Make sure to keep your core tight while doing these moves – and your bottom tucked under and activated! Give the moves a try and let us know in the comments how it goes! And if you have any questions or don’t understand what I’m explaining (stuff like this can be hard to write out), Paul said he’s happy to help clarify – you can contact him on his website.
One last thing before I sign off today – the Winter Shape Up week 3 meal plan is now live for those of you that want to shop this weekend! It’s linked to on the main Winter Shape Up landing page. Gina and I are still loving all of your updates and pictures on social media and in our Winter Shape Up Facebook group. Keep up the great work – and don’t forget to check in on the meal plan and workout pages to enter the giveaways! 🙂
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Anyone else going skiing this weekend?
