By that I mean that this week involves a lot of happy hours. Last night I went to an event through YBConnected at the Brook's Brothers store in downtown Philadelphia to support MANNA, an organization that delivers food to those less fortunate in the Greater Philadelphia Area. My boss Mollie Elkman is one of the founders of YBConnected - the only woman in the founding group!

All ticket sales went to MANNA, as well as a percentage of the proceeds from anything that was bought in the store last night.

Shopping, wining, dancing and benefitting a good cause all in one night! Pretty cool.

My cousin Sara stopped by as well to have some fun before taking her board exams for nursing (Eek - good luck girl!)

Right after work today we headed to Independence Beer Garden again because the weather here is fantastic and I feel like I need to soak up all of the warm weather fun before it turns wintry here. Also because from 5-7 p.m. beers are $3 and food is only $4! I'm telling you - this place is a must if you are ever in Philly!

This morning I woke up and went on a beautiful 3.5 mile run before work. I love when the streets are quiet and it seems like everyone is still sleeping. Something about it makes running feel so therapeutic! It makes me want to try (again) training for a race. There are so many fun ones up here too. Last time I rushed into it and did too much too fast and got AWFUL shin splints. I've gotta ease into it this time because I am for sure no runner!

I cannot believe tomorrow is already Thursday. These weeks are flying by - I still keep writing May whenever I have to write the date!

- Rach

Runners out there - any tips for starting a race training plan?

Happy Monday! I'm not being the greatest with updating my blog at the moment. Things this (last) week have been crazy busy.

First off, my weekend back home was short and sweet! Julia graduated and is currently at UF for her preview. I keep getting texts from her and my dad telling me how much they love the school and I'm just like OK I GET IT I MISS IT TOO MUCH STOP.

And a throwback to when I graduated because clearly I miss college a little bit...

Work has been great and Philly even greater. The week flew by, probably because I feel like I just didn't stop for one moment. But I love it! Busy is good.

Tuesday night I taught my first cycle class in a month! Finally got hired to teach somewhere. I subbed that Tuesday class, a 6 a.m. circuits class on Wednesday, and on Saturday I taught a back to back super circuit and spin class!! Starting this Saturday I will have a permanent 9 a.m. Saturday class at the Sweat Fitness Old City location! Come sweat with me if you're in the area :) My hour long spinning playlist:

Spinning Playlist

Wednesday night Chelsey and I got off work and decided to peruse the million shops by work. Lululemon is very close and I finally caved and bought my first lulu leggings. I love them. I can see this being an issue. After that, it was already 6 p.m. and we thought we would stop for a beer somewhere because every Wednesday night in Philadelphia there is a city-wide happy hour called SIPS - beers are only $3, wine is $4 and cocktails are $5. We stopped by BRU first for a beer and a pretzel:

On the way home, we stopped by the Independence Beer Garden, which is a magical little place right across from Independence Hall. And after all of that I was still in bed by 10 p.m.!

I returned to Independence Beer Garden with Michael on Friday night before downing a whole pizza with parmesan and prosciutto at Pizzacato. YUM. This restaurant was delicious! I definitely recommend for some quality pizza. We then stopped at Big Ass Slices because Michael needed some more pizza for desert.

Yesterday consisted of relaxing in Rittenhouse Park, lots of laundry, grocery shopping & ending with a little walk to Race Street Pier. For lunch we bought some cheese, meat, bread and fruit to enjoy in the park from DiBruno's - favorite kind of snacky lunch. DiBruno's is quickly becoming one of my favorite markets. But the prices are not my favorite.

I'm determined to foster my inner chef and get some more recipes up on here soon! And workout ideas as well.

Who knew moving to a new state and starting a new job would be so busy??

I hope everyone had a cheerful Memorial Day weekend! I got back to Philadelphia today and had a very fun, all-over-the-place weekend. Before I share my weekend travels, I wanted to share all of the fun classes I did last week, thanks to Class Pass. If you haven't heard of class pass, it is a service that you can subscribe to monthly and attend unlimited group fitness classes at the studios and gyms that are partnered with class pass. There are SO many studios that I can have access to with class pass, so it is really fun to try new classes every week. So here is what I did last week:

Monday - rest; tired from the weekend and pooped after work

Tuesday - 45 minute rowing class at RowZone - LOVED this!! The class included intervals on the rower and strength intervals off the rower.

Wednesday - Bikram Yoga - PHEWWW I can't believe I made it through the 90 minute class. Not sure I'll be back, but had to try. 60 minutes would be plenty for me. I enjoyed the heat, but the excessive sweating was a little ridiculous.

Thursday - 60 minute cycle at Body Cycle Studio - this was a fun class and a really nice little cycle studio! Going to try my best to audition to teach here...

Friday - rest; work and then traveled to Allentown after work!

Saturday - watched the CrossFit East regionals while I ate chicken fingers and fries (hardest workout all week?)

Sunday - 3-4 mile run/walk + probably 2 more miles of walking (didn't track anything) around Prospect Park in Brooklyn with Michael. The weather was in the low 70's and we just wanted to be outside all day. Plus the amount of dogs in the park made it worth it (I'm a tad obsessed.)

Today - bussed back to Philly, schlepped to get some groceries at Whole Foods and helped my roomie build a bed so that was enough moving around for me! Just relaxing and enjoying the day off :)

I love variety and the variety that class pass allows makes me really excited to workout. I am also trying to run more during the summer before the northern cold weather takes over in only a few months (yikes, not ready.)

Anyway, this weekend was a blast. I got to Michael's place in Allentown around 6 p.m. on Friday. He made steak and rice and we downed a bottle of wine - we were sleeping by 10:30 (we're crazy partiers, I know.)

Saturday morning we left by 7:30 to head up to Hartford, CT to watch the CrossFit East superregionals! CrossFit isn't really my thing, but I definitely like to learn about and respect every form of fitness. Plus, watching the athletes is really fun and exhausting in itself! It was also fun to see a new city even though we only saw a small part of downtown.

Our original plan was to camp in Connecticut Saturday night and go hiking on Sunday morning, but literally every camp site was booked. We clearly do well at planning ahead! Luckily, the wonderful people, Steve & Diana, that I lived with last summer in Brooklyn were home for the weekend and generously offered for us to stop by and stay the night!

It ended up working out perfectly because New York was on the way home, and I had not seen them since last summer! We had a lot of fun catching up on Saturday night. On Sunday, Michael and I got up early to grab coffee and enjoy the beautiful day.

I had plans to take Michael to Smorgasburg. We got on the L train to Williamsburg, where I remember the food festival being last year (it happens every weekend on Saturdays and Sundays from April-November.) We got there and I realized that on Sundays it is at a totally different park! Go me. We stayed in Williamsburg for a delicious lunch anyway and got to enjoy walking around without the crazy masses of people.

We picked up some craft beer on the way back to Steve & Diana's house to enjoy while everyone prepared for a big BBQ. More food! Steve is a chef and made killer ribs and chicken on the grill, and Diana's potato salad is amazing. They make sure everyone is well fed!

 We hit the road after dinner to go back to Allentown. I'm really happy that I live so close to New York now because Steve and Diana really feel like family away from home in Florida. I'm never one for making plans and I think that this weekend just reminded me how much more fun traveling is when you don't really have a set plan. We had no idea we would be stopping in Brooklyn but so glad we did! It's all just an adventure, right?

The weekend was well spent, but I'm ready to get back to work tomorrow to keep learning new things. Have a wonderful Monday night and Tuesday morning.

- Rach