I have a super exciting announcement to share with you guys today: this fall, I’ll be combining my love for ClassPass with my love for running – ClassPass is sponsoring me to run the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco on October 18!! I feel extremely lucky and am so excited to have this cool opportunity to be an official #ClassPassRunner. 🙂 I’ll be joined by 5 fellow bloggers on this journey – read all about them in the ClassPass Runner announcement blog post!
As you guys know, I ran the DC Nike Women’s Half Marathon back in 2013 and LOVED it. It’s probably best known as “that race that gives out Tiffany & Co. necklaces at the finish line.” 😉
It’s actually still my half marathon PR (personal record/best), too, although you guys know I’ve tried to change that this spring without success… yet. 🙂
Anyway, I was all set to sign up for the DC race again this spring (I had to miss last year’s due to travel/scheduling), and was really sad to hear that DC would no longer be a location for the race series. Boo!!
I’ve had the San Francisco location of the race on my bucket list for years now – not only because I loved the DC version of the race (also, Tiffany necklaces, duh), but also because I love San Francisco! I’ve always wanted to do a race there because I think it would be such a fun city to run around, even with all the hills. 😉
So: I am thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with ClassPass to travel to San Francisco in October and tackle all those hills! A HUGE thank you to them in advance for covering my travel/race expenses and for providing me with free ClassPass access from now until the race to help with training.
If you’re not familiar with ClassPass yet, it’s basically an all-access pass to the best gyms/fitness studios in cities around the U.S. (and London, Vancouver, and Toronto!). You pay one fee (in DC it’s $99/month), and then get access to attend classes at any of the studios in the ClassPass system. You can even attend classes in cities outside your own at no additional fee (called “Flex”, and a full list of all 31 participating cities is on their website), which is nice if you are traveling often for work or fun! In DC, there are a TON of studios in the system (193 and counting!), and more are added every day.
I originally tried ClassPass last fall when their team offered me a free month trial, and I loved it so much I have continued on since on my own. It’s awesome. Not only is it really nice to be able to mix it up without paying a thousand different gym fees (and making a thousand different online accounts), but the online scheduler that shows you the options near you is amazing. A few clicks to find all the yoga classes nearby at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday night, or the CrossFit classes at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday? Amazing. To narrow the results, you can search by location, type of class (“activities”), studio, and even amenities (showers, etc.). So user friendly! Then you just click one button and you are booked in the class of your choice. There’s even an option to add the class to your Google calendar once you’re booked – so perfect! In the photo below, you can see the little “Washington D.C.” location in the upper right corner – you can click on that to change cities if you’re traveling for the Flex option. So easy!
One more thing that’s really cool and brand new – you can now sign up for races through ClassPass just like you book a class! Cool, right? This is currently only offered in Boston and NYC, but you can always use your Flex option to sign up for a destination race! Spartan, Color Run, and many more are on there already. Just an FYI that there is an additional fee for these separate events, though.
ClassPass also makes it really convenient to meet up with friends for workouts (which you guys know is my favorite thing) because everyone has access to all the same gyms! Most of my friends are now on ClassPass, too, which is awesome. 🙂 Chelsea and I hit up one of our faves, Urban Athletic Club, via ClassPass yesterday morning!
A few of my other DC/NoVA favorite studios that are on ClassPass are: Edge Yoga, EPIC Yoga, CorePower Yoga, CrossFit Key Bridge, etc. I’m looking forward to trying some fun new ones as I train for San Francisco!
My game plan for training for this half marathon is what I’ve been doing/has worked for me over the past year. All about the variety:
- 3 days per week of running (1 day of speed/track, 1 day hills/tempo, 1 long run)
- 2 to 3 days per week of cross-training (I’ll do a mix of yoga, boot camps, CrossFit, etc. via ClassPass!)
- 1 to 2 days of rest, depending how I’m feeling. Usually I do 1 full rest day and 1 active recovery day, with a swim, light walk, or easier yoga class.
ClassPass sent us a big bag full of goodies from some of their partners to kick off our training, including some fun stuff from Nike Women (aren’t the pink tights I’m wearing above awesome?! you’ll be seeing a lot of those!), LUNA bar, and Vega. A big thank you to all of them for the package! I was especially excited to see the Vega Sport Pre-Workout Energizer in there – I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on the blog before, but I have been using this since January before super early morning workouts – especially track workouts. Love that it doesn’t contain stevia (I hate the taste) like most of their other products. I have it with my standard sprouted grain bread and nut butter, and it’s a nice little jolt of caffeine since having coffee before a morning workout doesn’t make my stomach super happy. I have been bringing it with me when I travel for races, too!
So – now for the really cool part – a giveaway! ClassPass is offering one fANNEtastic food blog reader a free month. The only catch is that you must be new to ClassPass (aka not already have an account – I know, I’m sorry) and of course you need to live in one of the cities where they have ClassPass (or be willing to travel to use it)! Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below, and good luck!! You have until August 8 to enter.
Another big thank you to ClassPass, the Nike Women’s Half Marathon team, and our program running coach Blue Benadum – can’t wait for race day!
