The Spirit of Exercise Events

What’s so fun about a long, muddy bike race? I asked myself the same question several times this weekend when my shorts were so soaked that every time I sat down water squeezed out like a sponge or when my stomach starting lurching at mile 30. 

I’ll tell you what’s satisfying about pushing yourself to your limits; knowing that you can do it. It’s refreshing to take a step out of your everyday routine and thrust your body and mind into a state of blissful, in-the-moment confusion. I noted several times while whirling through the trees that my mind was blank. Yogis spend years learning to achieve this state and I found it in the woods.

Why pay money to suffer when you can do it for free? Good point, but race events ooze such positive energy it’s hard to wipe the smile off your face while immersed amongst high-energy, fit people and it’s way cheaper than therapy. What’s not to like about perky race announcers, cheerful volunteers, encouraging fans and the luring podium? It kind of gives you a rockstar allusion.

So consider it, maybe a 5K run or a sprint triathlon or even an endurance bike race. These events are food for the soul and body. Dig out your inner rockstar and set a goal on the other side of your comfort zone. It’s greener over there anyway.

Last-Minute Training

I'm tired. It might be the chartreuse pollen coma or the exercise flu due to my attempt to cram a month’s worth of training into a few weeks for a 9-hour mountain bike race. 


Cramming exercise is like trying to speed read a book for a paper that’s due in the morning. It’s not ideal and we’ll see if it can even be done.

For some reason, I have a lot of nonsense coming out of my mouth these days. I get caught frequently saying worrisome things to the cats like, “you’re such a good hunter. I love how you got that ball” or “come get your treat for doing such a good job scratching on your post.” Yes, they are trained to scratch on a scratching post. Really, cats can be trained.

My “training,” on the other hand, has rendered me useless. Multiple classes daily at the gym equals fatigue, piles of laundry, uncooked meals and bad business. Apparently, it hasn’t affected my ability to be the cat whisperer, though.

So, here’s my master plan for my last week of training.

1. Have kids do laundry — ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

2. Drink raw cacao smoothies before working out (recipe below). Raw cacao gives you a great caffeine boost without the crash.

3. Eat more. When else can you do that?

4. Sleep an extra hour every night - scratch that, it’s not happening.

5. Create some motivational sticky notes for my desk. These made the cut:

Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone~ N.D. Walsche 

The difference between winners and losers is that winners win ~ Me

Work what you got ~ Mary J. Blige

Get off Your Ass ~ Me

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going ~ Jim Ryun

Chocolate-Strawberry Smoothie

– 1 cup frozen strawberries
– 1 whole banana
– 2 cups fresh baby spinach (spinach is great for your muscles)
– 1 ounce raw, organic cacao powder or nibs (Whole Foods sells it)
– 1 cup coconut water

Let’s go!

My Top Five Healthy Favorites for Spring

Well, here we are again. It’s spring and we basically skipped winter. Although I’m feeling a little jipped that we didn’t have a blowout, hunker-down snow storm this year and we only got a few days of skiing in, I’ve finally accepted that spring is here. 

The season is young and I’m feverishly trying to get in shape for an excellent mountain biking season. With all of this extra sunlight and warm weather, however, I’ve found some new springtime favorites.

1. Bon Appetit’s parsley, kale and berry smoothie

This is the perfect way to eat your greens without tasting them. Parsley is a natural anti-inflammatory and can help improve all sorts of ailments.

2. CXWORX core workout

This is a new 30-minute core training class from Les Mills. This class is super-intense and will have you ready for a bathing suit in no time. I’m loving the 30 minute format too. I catch my classes at Lynne Brick’s Belvedere.

3. Neti pot 

Hello, allergies. They’re here if you haven’t noticed. To prevent those pesky morning sinus headaches, I use my neti pot every night with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp baking soda (this prevents the salt from burning). I know it’s gross, but it works.

4. Goldfish crouton salad

This one is really for the kids, but I like them too. I am one of those moms that doesn’t usually buy the “real” version of certain snack foods to avoid some of those pesky, unhealthy ingredients. After much negotiating from my kids I broke down and bought “real” goldfish, not the bunnies masquerading as goldfish, because I realized they weren’t that bad.

Put the goldfish on top of a salad with ranch dressing and you might be surprised how many salads your kids eat.

5. The perfect water bottle

I have found the Holy Grail of water bottles. This bottle is glass, which is the absolute safest material for preventing unnecessary leaching into your drink. You can use it for hot and cold beverages and it's dishwasher safe. Just don't break it; it's not cheap!

Happy spring.

For the Love of Biking

What do you get when you fuse smashing music, interval training, sprints, hill climbs, epic mountain climbs and non judgemental camaraderie for one hour?  An astounding workout, of course, topped with a good dash of mental therapy.  RPM™ is an intense indoor cycling class formulated by New Zealand based, LES MILLS™. I've taken my fair share of stationary bike classes in the past, but there's no going back once you've experienced RPM™.


The brilliance of RPM™ is in the unequivocal, rhythmic program lead by highly trained instructors.  I love the certainty that I'm going to get an excellent workout every time I attend a class.  There's something comforting in knowing, for example, that Track 5 is always interval training or that Track 7 is consistently a challenging mountain climb. Don't get me wrong, it's never monotonous. The upbeat and methodical music is the central component to the class which boasts perfectly timed choreography.  LES MILLS™ introduces new music to the mix every three months, so the workout always stays fresh.


"RPM's™ benefits are innumerable," says Tamara Pitard and Linda McShane,  RPM™ instructors and fitness gurus at Lynne Brick's in Baltimore, MD. "It provides you with a platform to train for anything from a marathon, mountain bike race to a triathlon.  You can tailor your own workout, since you control the intensity.  We have people that come to class to just lose weight, while others are more concerned about increasing their VO2 max. Whatever you need, RPM™ can deliver."

For me, RPM's™ intensity allows me to stay in shape by burning 500-900 calories in just under an hour. I would say, "that's a good bang for your buck."  I absolutely love being able to squeeze that much intensity into such a short amount of time.  RPM™ has become my time to decompress and get lost in the rhythms, comforting patterns and instructor guided imagery.  Where else can you beat Lance Armstrong on a mountain climb or Tyler Hamilton in a time trial?  Go ahead, get on a bike, even if it's stationary!