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

Helllooo! The past week has been all sorts of busy and exciting. I officially started my job at Group Two Advertising in Philadelphia! Although I spent most of my time last week getting settled into my new job and trying to learn everything, I tried my best to do as much exploring as possible.

Two things are for sure: I am so happy to be working for an awesome company with such a great culture and I absolutely love Philadelphia. Although I have only been to Philly once before, I really feel like I fit in already, as weird as that sounds. There's such a great vibe here. I am living with my co-worker in Old City.

Some fun facts:

• My apartment building was built in 1735.
• George Washington's funeral happened right across the street from our building.
• Betsy Ross's house is only a couple blocks away.
• The oldest synagogue in Philly is right next door to our apartment.
• The oldest inhabited residential street in America, Elfreth's Alley, is a couple blocks away.
• The office right below our apartment is a gay pornography company. (not kidding)

It's really cool living in such a historic little corner of the country! There's so much culture. There might be ghosts in my apartment actually, who knows.

So I moved into my apartment last Sunday, had Monday to unpack a little and started work on Tuesday. On Thursday night, I met my cousin Sara and we went to an event called Night Market, which is basically when there are about 5 entire blocks blocked off in the city and FILLED with every kind of food truck you can imagine and probably every human being in the city. It was crazy but so much fun and I got some great pizza.

On Friday we left work early to play Escape the Room. If you've not heard of Escape the Room, you basically get locked into a room and have an hour to get out based on clues to find a key. It's extremely clever and so much fun. After Escape the Room, we had a fun happy hour at a restaurant called Alma De Cuba. The sangria was delicious!

The weekend went a little fast, but I got to enjoy some more tastes of Philly. Saturday morning I went to Continental Diner with a friend for a late brunch and sat in these awesome hanging basket chairs.

Saturday night Michael and I took a stroll and ended up at a restaurant/bar called Varga, which was a fun little place! We ordered a gouda cheese plate, duck confit chicken wings and lamb lettuce wraps. The cheese plate was my favorite part. On Sunday, we just kind of walked all over the place to try and see more of the city!

My goal this week is to NOT spend anymore money on food. I get a little carried away with all of the fun new restaurants to try.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the summer! I will try to post more pics and updates soon! Also currently trying to find a gym. There's a million different gyms here, so I decided to buy a ClassPass, which allows you to try out all different kinds of fitness classes throughout the city! Ideally, I want to be able to teach somewhere, but this will do for now while I scope out exactly what kind of gym I want to join. I'm trying a rowing class today after work!

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

- Rach

What's your favorite city? 

This past weekend I was at Auburn University for the third ever Evolve Fitness Conference! Evolve was actually started at UF two years ago and travels to different southeastern schools every year.

There was a group of 30 from UF this year and we all packed into mini vans to make the six hour drive on Friday at noon. We made it into Auburn at around 5 p.m. and registered for the conference before figuring out what to do for dinner. Eating plans are always on the forefront of the minds of 30 college-aged fitness crazed human beings. We are like eating machines.

Once we registered at Auburn's facility, we went to check into the hotel and decided to eat at a local burger joint called Niffer's. I was starving and got the grilled chicken, avocado and jalepeno burger with steak fries.

We all got quite the laugh on Friday night. We couldn't stop talking about how good the water tasted in Alabama compared to the Gainesville water. So much so, that Tracy, a fellow Zumba instructor, asked for some water to go and the waiter brought her an entire gallon of water, no joke.

And then there was a balloon magic man who made us a balloon gator...

We arrived back to the hotel around 11 p.m. and my room passed out. Needing to be at the gym at 8 a.m. the next morning, we needed to prepare for a full day of fitness.

I was lucky enough to snag a bike in a master spin class taught by Robin Dayer, a master Schwinn trainer. It was such a blast, her energy was incredible.

After the class, the keynote speaker was Martin Rooney, a highly accomplished athlete, businessman, coach, you name it! It was a really inspiring speech all about how bringing out the best in others as a coach will bring out the best in yourself. He focused on the importance of this characteristic in fitness and sports, but I also feel it's extremely relatable to any industry or job, really. When Martin finished, I opted to take a tour of the facility, which is beautiful, but UF's gyms will always be my favorite!

The rest of the day consisted of some more presentations. Saturday night we went out to the Bank Vault and Skybar - both awesome bars in the Auburn area!

On Sunday, I presented on a class specific to UF, iBurn. I taught this class for more than a year and couldn't wait to share it with student instructors from other schools. It's an awesome and challenging strength-based format. I had a short introduction, but the majority of my presentation was a demo iBurn class! It was a lot of fun and a great way to close out the conference.

I was glad to be back in Gainesville after a full weekend and back to cooking my own food! It seems ironic, but always at these fitness conferences, there is limited time to eat, and the majority of our meals are fast food. Plus we were on the road for a total of 12 hours, and the best options were Wendy's and Subway. I was craving greens and glad to be back in my kitchen for Sunday night dinner.

I'll have some more recipes & workouts to post later on this week. Now to go to work, study for my exam tomorrow and apply for a million jobs. Do all the things!!

Happy hump day y'all!

Rach