free stuff is the best!

Greetings from a four day weekend!!!  Between the holiday Monday, my plant (I work as a materials & release analyst in the plastics division of an engineering plant that does tooling, CAD design, foam, seats, plastic injection molding...you name it) being shut down today, and spending two days this week at the Chrysler Tech Center for supplier training, it feels like I've been on vacation for days already.  Fabulous!

Here's another thing that's fabulous: Influenster.  Basically, you sign up (my friend Dannie referred me a couple months ago), go through their laundry list of interests, pick what suits you best, and then take surveys, review products, and answer other peoples' questions until eventually you earn enough "influence" to qualify for free giveaways!  Every once in a while, the site will send you a survey to see if you qualify for a specific giveaway, and if you do, within a few days you'll get a surprise delivery of a box full of awesome free stuff for you to sample:

AND THE SPOILS ARE....

This box was specifically catered to an active livestyle - in fact it's called the #GoVoxBox, because it promotes all sorts of health and fitness related brands.  To be fair, I've gotten a few free things from the company before, but they were all one-offs of featured brands, and while I'm always up for trying out new free things, this is the first time I've been really really stoked to qualify for a giveaway.  As part of the idea behind Influenster, the point of being given all this free stuff is to turn around and share my thoughts on it with the internet - so here we go...

Blue Diamond Fruit Flavored Almonds - This was admittedly the thing I was the most excited about when it came to this box.  I love love love Blue Diamond - my faves are the low-sodium roasted almonds, the cocoa roasted, the salt & vinegar, the coffee roasted, & the coconut almonds...can you tell I'm a fan of nuts?  However, I'm not really a "sweets" person that often, and the idea of "fake" fruit flavor kind of grosses me out, so I was too skeptical to ever buy these on my own, so I was mega-thrilled at the idea of sampling them without commitment, and they were delicious!!  Granted, they were a little sweet for me, and I don't know if I would shell out my own money for them, but they were a really good fix for a sugar-craving, and the blueberry was actually quite good, and didn't taste like fake sugary garbage at all.  Awesome job, Blue Diamond!

PROFOOT Pedi-Rock - This was another one I was stoked about.  Working out as often as I do, I get the grosses callouses on the bottoms of my feet, and no matter how many exfoliating pedicure nonsense products I buy, they just don't seem to get any better.  I used the pedi-rock this morning & while it didn't take care of my callouses completely like those fantastic skin-graters they have at the nail salon, it made a HUGE impact.  My only concern is that it seems like after only one use, the exfoliating outside of the rock was already pretty worn off?  I'm unfamiliar with products like this, so I'm not sure how long they're even supposed to last, but after one use, mine already looked like this ---->

Aqua Spa Relax Collection Body Creme in Lavender Chamomile - I was less excited about the lotion itself and more excited about the scent!  Lavender Chamomile has been one of my favorite relaxing aromatherapy scents for years - when I first moved into my condo I pretty much bought out Bath & Body Works of it's lavender chamomile aromatherapy line & it's been the scent "theme" of my bedroom ever since.  The lotion itself is really nice, not greasy, and really nice for post-shower pre-bed relaxation, but the best part by far is the awesome smell.  I think it's even stronger than the Bath & Body Works version!

The Vitamin Shoppe Next Steppe Fit N Full Meal Replacement Shakes - The GoVoxBox came with 3 flavors of these meal replacement shakes - Swiss Chocolate, French Vanilla, and Fresh Berries.  I'm not a "meal replacement shake" person - they don't seem to fill me up or leave me satisfied - so I can't speak to using these that way, but I have been using them bit by bit as whey protein powder additions to smoothies and yogurt, and I will admit they're quite delicious that way.  I even made Paleomg Sweet Potato Protein Chocolate Chip Cookies with the vanilla yesterday & they were fabulous!  The best part about this part of the giveaway was that Vitamin Shoppe was nice enough to also include a quaint little mini blender bottle, which is the absolute PERFECT size to stash in my gym bag for those days when I really need a quick shot of pre-workout.  Awesome!

Muller Greek Corner, Corner & FrutUp Yogurts - This one was a coupon for a free yogurt - obviously sending one via US Post wasn't quite feasible.  Luckily most grocery stores around here carry the brand & I was able to pick one up pretty easily.  I enjoy yogurt, but again I don't like fake or syrupy fruits (even when they're not the totally sugary processed gross bad ones), and I normally just get plain & add my own mix-ins, so I wasn't quite sure which Muller I was going to choose, but luckily I found a Greek Corner flavor that's just vanilla yogurt with caramelized almonds to mix in - I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to add a whole lot of fresh fruit when I do!

The box also came with a couple other treats - a Vitamin Shoppe coupon for more Next Steppe products, a 16 pack of Playtex Sport Fresh Balance Tampons (which I can't review because I haven't had the need for them yet, haha), and a PROFOOT Traid Orthotic shoe insert that I haven't tried out yet either.

These products were all supplied to me free through Influenster, for reviewing purposes, but the opinions are my own.  Hopefully some of you can gain some insight to some products you might want to try based on these reviews!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you signed up for any programs like Influenster?  What's the best free sample you've ever received?

blog version 2.0 (and a little throwback friday)

I keep thinking, I need to make a post about _____.  And then I don't, because it doesn't seem "relevant" enough or "big" enough or "important" enough, and so my blog, which I created because I'm a writing major, and I miss writing and I miss tracking memories & being able to go back to them whenever I want, sits here and gathers dust because the things I feel like posting about don't fit into my pigeon-holed ideas about what the blog "needs" to be about.

And that's stupid.  I'm not a fitness blog, I'm not a beer blog, I'm a me blog and those two things just happen to be what I'm most interested in.  So now I'm going to write about me, and I'm going to write more often, and if you only want to read about the cool things I'm brewing or the cool classes I took, or how much weight I can lift, you'll have to learn how to skim.

We picked the bracelets with the bells because
we love to be annoying!! (My shirt says "I
HATE RUNNING" FYI....but I don't hate dancing!

ANYWAY, to start things off, last night I went to a 2 hour "Spring into Summer" Zumba Bash at Ken
Jackson's Fitness Factory (which is one of my favorite "small" - maybe private is a better word? - gyms/studios, because every time I go in that place I can't help but feel totally badass.  Maybe it's the giant mural all over the wall, or industrial feel, or the garage doors that open out into the parking lot, or the giant tires strewn about and the punching bags hanging from the ceiling, but it's really just an awesome space, period.  I took my friend Alisha, who is really trying to get into working out & being fit, which is great because it is SO fun to have someone to work out with again!! Especially now that it's getting nicer outside, so we've been incorporating a lot more walks & bike rides & outdoor stuff into the routine.

The cool thing about this jam was that it was taught by Ivy Mitchell, Terri Harrick, Nancy Bara, Dru Roby, Terri McCartney & Nancy Graybill (one of my Bokwa mamas!), some super longstanding Zumba instructors in Michigan, and the "theme" was kind of a throwback to the roots of Zumba.  Say what you will about Zumba - yes it's silly and no it doesn't feature barbells and heavy weights and giant muscles, but it's what really got me into fitness a few years back, and dance fitness classes in general are still a big part of my routine, and a huge part of the weight loss I accomplished.  I'll always have a soft spot for it - and it's just plain fun!!  Nancy started the class off saying how they're all 102 years old, but these ladies (and gentleman!) absolutely brought it for two straight hours.  Plus, I've been doing Zumba for about 3 years now, but it's been around for a lot longer - so it was really cool to see some styles & hear some music from basically the inception of the workout.  I'm not going to lie, my favorite dance class at the moment is 100% different - full of hip hop music & club dance styles and full of a lot less salsa & meringue, but it was really cool to go back to the roots.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What got you into fitness & how has it (or you!) evolved since then? 

beer #1 - ipathermia tasting!

My Brew Master Glamour Shot ;)

I just went to the mall and no joke, bought leggings with donuts on them. Multicolored, sprinkle-covered donuts. And since I used to work at Tim Hortons (and since I literally don't think I've eaten a donut since), I thought I needed them. And so on, and so forth.  ANYWAY more importantly......yesterday was the official tasting date for my very first 100% on my own homebrewed beer!

We've brewed again since then (stay tuned for updates on EAT YOUR WHEATIES, a low-gravity milk stout brewed with freshly roasted coffee extract), and we've brewed before this, but this is the first time I've been able to genuinely say we did it all ourselves, with no resident beer gurus guiding us through the process.

The verdict..........a success!  IPAthermia has a strong hoppy scent (although not as citrusy as I would have expected given the quantity of Cascade hops), a typical IPA flavor (a little sweeter than I wanted, and I think I attribute that to the malt extract - can't wait to get into all-grain brewing to confirm!), and a punch of hops at the end which mellows a little into the aftertaste.  Pretty solid first beer, I'd say.  Now, just one more week before we can bottle the next baby :)

#IMWITHCUPID

What an attractive looking group of people ;)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!!  Hopefully everyone had a good one, whether it was spent out with someone special, or sitting at home with a bottle of wine (for me it was at a hot yoga class followed by some shawarma and a big ass bowl of bananas, peanut butter, & almonds...don't judge me). But more importantly the day AFTER V-Day........

 I literally thought after the cold that was the Winter Classic & Alumni Games, I was completely done with being outside until winter went away - but I had signed up for the 2014 Cupid's Undie Run, & it's an awesome (and super short) race, for a great cause, plus I was doing it with some friends I hadn't seen in ages, so I decided to be cold one more time.  The idea of Cupid's Undie Run is simple - dress up in your underwear and freeze your ass off for about a mile or so - with a big Valentine's-themed party full of pink cocktails before and after.  The Detroit race was sponsored by major local radio station Q95.5 last year, so it received a ton of coverage and got even bigger heading into this year.  The race party central moved from Cheli's Chili Bar to The Fillmore Detroit, & went from having a "meal" ticket you could redeem afterward for a quick lunch, to having a huge buffet table full of fruit & veggie cups, PB&J sandwiches, granola bars, bananas, apples, & the like.  The race also expanded to have an actual bag check this year which made a HUGE difference. No more racing back to your car in your undies frozen to death.  So a big shoutout to the organizers for improving an already awesome event!

I'd met up with a friend who I used to work with at my old job & a few of his friends, so we were able to run the race in a group which made the event even more fun! The route changed a little bit from last year, and it seemed like it was over practically as soon as it had begun - I'm honestly not sure it was even a mile!!

The ladies with our new friend outside trying to keep warm before the race started.

Ready to race!

Working on warming ourselves up again afterward.

Following the great Undie Run success, we made our way to Green Dot Stables for some post-runnin' sliders & beer.  For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the vast spread of food, but it was all phenomenal.  Green Dot boasts $3 rotating Bells & Shorts taps, as well as $2-3 fancy sliders, of which we ordered practically every option, along with some poutine & some venison chili cheese fries.  Topping my list was the catfish, the current week's mystery meat (which was a bison short rib & scallions), and my absolute favorite, the Korean (a burger with kimchi & peanut butter).

The Detroit vein of the Undie Run raised $203,217 for the Children's Tumor Foundation, & the run as a whole is nearing the $3 mil. mark - plus they're about to get another $25 from me, because who doesn't need this t-shirt???
 

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Well.........would you do a mile run in your undies in mid-February??

beer #1 - ipathermia

Our very intricate garage brew setup.

Disclaimer: this post is going to have absolutely zero to do with fitness or health or food of any kind. In fact it is going to be 100% about brewing beer, because that is another thing that I do, on occasion. Carry on!

So this is not actually my first brewed beer. Prior to this I assisted a good handful of times on beers brewed by a group of my buddies, but decided recently to take the last big leap - this is my first beer brewed completely with my own ingredients, in my own garage, and without anybody reading me off what to do. And I can't bottle it for another week, so I'm mostly just praying it doesn't turn out like crap.

We wanted to go easy on this "first" one - I'm really hoping to get into all-grain brewing eventually, but right now I'm buying extract kits and modifying them with a little personal touch each time. For this particular brew, we used a Brewer's Best India Pale Ale kit, but planned to modify it by dry-hopping with the last of the Cascade hops I grow out of my backyard (another topic for another post, another time) - just to add a little extra bitter fun ;) (Another reason for the extract kit - it's COLD out there and my little propane burner doesn't make 4 hours of garage brewing feel any better!)

The brew went pretty smoothly (we took the 2 hour sanitizing & boiling opportunity to eat 5 lbs of peanuts and drink other beer) until we got to the very end - we're planning in building our own wort chiller but haven't had luck finding 25+ feet of soft copper coil yet, so we decided to do it the old fashioned way - use those giant snowbanks!

My neighbors must think I'm insane.

Note also the upside-down Christmas tree on my balcony - don't worry guys, I got this.

This is bound to work, right?

We knew it wasn't going to be a 20 minute quick chill, but it ended up taking over an hour!! Thanks to the cold, though, we were inspired (and frostbitten) & able to christen our soon-to-be beer - IPAthermia! Luckily when it finally got down to around 80 degrees, we measured the OG at 1.060, right around where it should be, sealed it all up, and left for dinner at a bar we heard had 2014 Hopslam on tap (they did, and it's great!).

I started to get a bit nervous when it took over 72 hours to start fermenting, but it did, at last, and by the time I got home from Ottawa it had stopped bubbling, I measured an FG of 1.015 (which puts our estimated ABV at 5.9%) we were ready to rack to secondary and add the hops!!

Goodbye, last of the 2013 Cacade Hop Harvest!

I read the best at to dry-hop with whole cone hops is to add then all to the carboy first and pour the beer over then, so that's exactly what we did....not looking forward to somehow getting all those hops out of the carboy when the bottling is over.

We pulled a tiny sample (which we should have done sooner because I'm pretty sure it was 50% trub) and holy bitter!!! Things bode well :)  It's insane how much darker the lupulin from the whole hops has made the beer, but it's looking (and smelling) good, so we're hoping in a week we'll be able to sample, bottle, and continue the waiting game....

BATCH #1: IPATHERMIA

Kit: Brewer's Best IPA modified by adding Cascade whole cone hops prior to secondary fermenting. 

OG: 1.060

FG: 1.015

Approximate ABV: 5.9%

Stay tuned for bottling & sampling!!

2014 race schedule

I hate running, but ALL I POST ABOUT is running!  I think I might be exaggerating just a tiny bit when I say I hate running.  It also seems crazy to be planning to do things as far off as October (7 months away!), but it's so much fun to have a full schedule to look forward to & get excited about!

Of course things could always change, but as for right now I'm looking at...

• February 15; Cupid's Undie Run.
• April 6; The Cocoa Classic.
• June 21; The Color Run.
• June 29; Spartan Race (In Ottawa!!)
• May 2; Hightail to Ale (Thirsty 3 Series Race #1).
• August 16; Running Between the Vines (Thirsty 3 Series Race #2).
• October 5; Scrumpy Skedaddle (Thirsty 3 Series Race #3).

Also hoping to do the Mustache Dache again - but 2014 dates haven't been announced yet - as well as Warrior Dash...bringing my total to at least 9, which is 2 more than I did this year. Not only that, but I think I have a nice blend of serious, timed races, and just-for-fun silly themed races.  Ready, set, race!

Question of the Day: What races are you planning on running this year?

ottawa 2014 (aka doing all of my favorite things, but in canada!)

Ladies & gentlemen, I have, at last, a shiny brand new MacBook (my first mac!) to replace my poor old Sony, which is definitely in the twilight of its lifetime (I'm pretty sure you can hear the death rattle when it kicks on, these days).  Part of my bargain with myself when I handed over the paltry $2000 sum was that I would get back to all of the things I used to use my old beloved computer for - namely blogging.

Scarf Head & Pouty Helmet Face on the Canal.

Last weekend I took a little mini-vacation out to Ottawa to visit my friend Deiss & her husband, skate on the Rideau Canal, eat lots and lots of pancakes (and drink lots of beer), and also get in a little bridge run (she's much more of a runner than I am, so she was an amazing running buddy!).  Admittedly I've been a little bit lax with my fitness over the holidays, so it was awesome to have a vacation so full of activity (I like to think it did at least a LITTLE bit to balance out all the beer we drank and pancakes we ate).

Friday morning we went for a 15.6k skate up and down the entire length of the canal (the full distance you can skate when the entire thing is open is 7.8k) - it was the absolute most perfect day, and it didn't even feel like we were working out!  It snowed the entire time (hence my super attractive head scarf, meant to keep the snow from melting all over my hair, as I am a big vain jerk sometimes), which made it even prettier.  We ended up going back on Sunday as well, for a quick 5k skating jaunt.  The coolest part of it was seeing people skating by with backpacks & briefcases, using the canal as a means to get to school and work - I would LOVE to be able to skate to work every morning!! Mega jealous. Having Deiss as a tour guide was awesome too - she taught me all about the history and the maintenance of the canal & was able to point out all the coolest attractions.  Ever since coming home I've been absolutely craving putting my skates back on, even just at an indoor rink.  Skating that much worked up a huge appetite, so we headed out to the Pancake Shack, which is my new very favorite thing - a food truck that cooks up amazing breakfast sandwiches between two buttermilk pancakes.  I highly recommend Babe the Blue Ox & The Campfire, for any Ottawa locals who may have found their way here!  Shout out to my Pancake Shack buddies, from your biggest Detroit fan :)

Heading into Downtown Ottawa, about 2.4k up the canal from here. An absolute perfect day for skating!

Ottawa did not come without beer, either - after breakfast, Deiss and Pav took me across the water to the Quebec side to hit up Brasseur du Temps (where I tried every high gravity beer they had - go figure - and especially and surprisingly loved Grande Riviere, a Belgian style cranberry blonde), and then back to Ontario to Beyond the Pale, where literally EVERY beer was a new delicious sort of hop explosion in my mouth.  It was also really cool to see a smaller, newer brewery's setup (I got to walk through the back and take a little tour of the operations) - with any luck, someday I'll have one of my own!!  After all that beer we went back to the homestead where Pav cooked us the best Indian meal I've ever eaten in my life (you had me at oysters & horseradish, but that fish curry, though...), and we all stuffed ourselves full of more beer and more food that I thought could actually fit in me, and then went to bed early to prepare for our Saturday adventure!

Beautiful view from the bridge on our Sunday run!

Deiss is a big runner (much more so than I am!), and one of the reasons I think I'm so disinclined to become a true "runner" myself is because I get bored with it.  Maybe I just haven't found my inner running zen yet, but one of the reasons I was so excited about this trip is because I knew I'd get to go running with a runner buddy!  Not only that, but she had a beautiful route planned out for us - an early morning ~4k bridge run!  Part of me thinks I would love running a whole lot more if I had beautiful scenery like this to keep me going - Michigan is beautiful, no doubt, but where I live is so suburban any route you could run is basically trees...cars...more trees...

We clocked in at about 34 minutes for those 4k, but we stopped to take pictures on the bridge, again at the end of it, and again at the giant spider statue on the way back, so I think our average pace was pretty much in line with my usual 5ks!

Neither of us look our finest, but we're both thrilled at our morning run opportunity!

After the run I felt great - we came home to shower and then headed out to take in an Ottawa Senators game (the home team lost, as per usual, and I neglected to proclaim MINE ALL MINE in front of their giant Daniel Alfredsson tribute on the concourse...but we did get free Hockey Day in Canada hats, so all was not lost!  The evening took us to Brothers Beer Bistro, which was just incredible - from the beer flight, to the charcuterie & carpaccio appetizers, to the duck & octopus entree, to the peanut butter chocolate dessert, some of the absolute best prepared food & service I've ever experienced.

WILL RUN FOR PANCAKES!

Overall the whole trip went off without one single hitch - Pav had made us a perfect weekend agenda and everything could not have been smoother.  I hadn't seen Deiss in over 6 years, so it was SO awesome to catch up and see how much we'd both changed (and how oddly - but awesomely - similar we'd become!!).  I couldn't have asked for a better 4 days & I want to thank my wonderful hosts again for having me and treating me to all kinds of amazing things.  Your hospitality was absolutely incredible.

We of course also made plans to meet up again soon - namely in June, to run Spartan Race together in Ottawa, hit up some Montreal breweries (DIEU DU CIEL!!!!!!!), and enjoy some awesome Canada Day home cooking on their Tandoor grill.  (And, of course..........more pancakes.)

Now of course I'm back home & realizing how the results of all of my extravagant indulgences the past few weeks...it's back to fruits & veggies & the gym for this girl.  Time to give all those pancakes & beer a rest!

Up next.....my current batch of beer, & a tentative 2014 race schedule!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What are your go-to vacation indulgences?  Do you try to balance them out by squeezing in some travel fitness, or do you consider a vacation a free pass to indulge?