Hi friends! You know what I’ve been loving lately even more than usual? Yoga! After not getting my ohm on nearly enough this summer/fall due to all my travels, I’ve been hitting the mat hard lately and man does it feel good to get back into it.
On Thursday night, I introduced my friend Chelsea to my favorite yoga spot in the DC area: Edge Yoga in Arlington (Courthouse). I’ve been going here for years now and love it! If you haven’t checked it out yet, do it. Cozy, welcoming, and free mats, too, so you don’t have to worry about lugging your own mat there. 🙂
Chelsea contributes to the blog The Fit Crasher as a DC area fitness studio reviewer and we thought it would be fun for her next review to be Edge Yoga because I’ve been talking it up to her for awhile now! We hit up Mark’s 6p.m. intermediate class, which was awesome as always. I really like that his classes are more athletic in style and super different from other studios I’ve been to – lots of twists and things that really challenge me, but in a good way.
Chelsea snagged a picture of me working on my forearm balance inversion with Mark’s assistance (the photo above is also hers – thanks Chelsea!). An interesting side effect of finally nailing unassisted headstand is that it’s been hard for me to do forearm balance now! I was glad to have his help in working to remind my body how to do this pose.
After our sweat fest, Chelsea and I grabbed a low key healthy dinner at nearby Sweet Leaf. I had the largest salad in all the world, full of greens, chickpeas, all sorts of veggies, and some sweet potato and quinoa for good measure. Plus feta cheese, avocado, lemon juice and balsamic vinaigrette. YUM!
Going to yoga on Thursday really made me realize how TIGHT I’ve gotten with mostly doing just running and crossfit/boot camps and sitting on a million airplanes over the past 6 months. I really want to get back into yoga, and figured there was no time better than the present, so I went back to Edge Yoga for the 6 p.m. class on Friday after work. I brought a change of clothes with me and metro-ed straight there from the UberOffices downtown. Perfect! I love doing yoga in the evening as a way to wind down, and now that it’s dark out by 6 the studio has really calming, dim lighting. So cozy!
Nikki was teaching, whose classes I also love, and the class was low key but really good. She gives the BEST adjusts and little mini massages when you’re in child’s pose and savasana at the end, too. I basically melted into my mat. Also, hi to the blog reader that I met at yoga on Friday – and to the blog reader and her boyfriend who Matt and I met at Fuego afterwards (refueling with guac and fajitas was a very good idea – love that place)!
Anyway! Just in case you thought I was hanging up my running shoes to be a full time yogi, have no fear. Saturday’s workout adventure was a fun and sunshine filled run with Matt on my old favorite the C&O Canal.
Long time readers will remember this view! 🙂
It had been ages since I’d run out there and Matt and I thought it would be a fun (and less windy) spot to hit up on Saturday. It was cold out but so sunny and the fresh air felt great.
We did a relatively speedy 5 mile out and back. My speed definitely still isn’t fully back – this felt pretty tough – but it felt good to challenge myself.
The beautiful views helped distract me. 🙂
Done! We did a good negative split – our last mile was 8:09 pace! Nice.
Matt and I came home and made ourselves an epic brunch feast to refuel. Bacon + scrambled eggs + pumpkin pancakes! We followed Cookie + Kate’s Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancake recipe and it rocked. Highly recommend! I ate some of the eggs before I took this picture/while we were cooking, don’t judge. And def went back for seconds of the pancakes. Yum! We doubled the pancake recipe to have leftovers and I’m excited to snack on them this afternoon at work. 🙂
Speaking of, time to get back at it!
How was your weekend – any great workouts? 🙂 I’ll be back tomorrow to share an awesome workout I did on Sunday morning – stay tuned!
Also, congrats to those of you who ran the Richmond Marathon on Saturday – I was very nostalgic thinking about it (it was my first full marathon last year – recap here)! Hope you all crushed it – I know Mary did (congrats on your PR, girl)!
