Once I got back to work full time, I quickly realized that I was going to have to set time aside for myself. I remember a few months prior to getting pregnant my best friend and I promised that we wouldn’t lose ourselves when we became mothers. Now here I am, a W H O L E mom! LOL, it still blows my mind.
I would wake up, spend time with bubs, head to work, drive home, spend time with bubs, put him to bed, and do it all over again. I mean I would occasionally go workout, but I didn’t make it a priority. One day at work, I decided to send out messages to a group of my girlfriends asking them if they were interested in finding a workout studio + then go to brunch afterward, and that we would do this at least once a month.
There were so many of them who said Y E S! I decided our first workout studio would be SoulCycle and I don’t know how I found this restaurant but ended up choosing Nazca Kitchen for brunch. Now, I chose SoulCycle for the experience it had to offer. I knew it was a place where I could get a bomb workout in and plus get a little bit of motivation. If you go the website, it talks about how their mission is to bring soul to the people and how their riders go through an inspiration meditative fitness experience that’s designed to benefit the body, mind, and soul, so I was definitely like SIGN ME UP!!! (Click here, to learn more about SoulCycle!)
Well, I planned this outing about a month before and had like 10 people say they were in, but December 15th came and only two of my girls joined me!!! Another one of my friends couldn’t find the place, so she just made it in time for the photos LOL!
Now let’s talk about my experience.
When I first walked in, like 5 minutes before go time, I was greeted by my friend Jasmine. You know when you first go to a new place, you expect to be greeted, well I wasn’t (HUGE PET PEEVE OF MINE). It gets better though, I promise. Anyways, Jas shows me where to sign in and as I’m signing in, I greet the front desk, and they responded of course. They let us know we can put our things in the locker, so we proceed to the back of the studio and we are quickly greeted by our instructor, Berkley! She was very friendly and E N E R G E T I C af from the start. She asked me if I had shoes and let me know that since it was my first time the shoe rental was free! I thought I was going to have to pay $3.00, way to start off my weekend by saving a couple of bucks! It would’ve been nice for the front desk to let me know that, but I just walked back to the front and picked up my shoes, oh and I had to sign a waiver.
We head back to the class and I’m like it’s about to get real, by now Chalyse has joined us. Berkley gets us situated onto the first row, mind you … we definitely reserved seats on the third row! The class wasn’t full, so there was no way we were getting out of that. They helped us set up our bikes and clamp our shoes onto the pedal, that was pretty cool if I might add! Then she, Berkley, proceeds to change my dumbbells to a lower weight, now if you know me … in my head I was thinking does she not know how much I can lift! I had to mentally check myself though, my strength is not back to its full potential yet!
We are locked and loaded , our 45-minute journey begins.
Berkley start the class off with a motivational introduction and I swear within the first 10 minutes, I was ready to unclasp my feet from the pedals, and smooth walk out of the door. I quickly trumped those negative thoughts of mine and refocused on the class, kind of felt like I was doing CrossFit again, because there are times you have to find that mental toughness to push through a workout even when you just want to stop.
We did high intensity probably for 30 minutes it felt like, my favorite part was when she picked up the candles and had each one of us blow out the candles. I guess she did that because we were new maybe? Anyways, Berkley went to Chalyse first and it was hilarious because Chalyse couldn’t blow it out! I died laughing inside, Berkley eventually just had to blow it out for her, Jasmine and I had no problem blowing out our candles. |Chalyse is going to kill me for sharing that!! |Once the candles were blown out, it was pretty dim in the room and she was able to put us in a meditative environment to where I was able to zone out. I kept telling myself to remember a couple of mantras that she was saying, but that was Saturday, and I totally forgot them. This part was my favorite because I just felt like it was just me in the room and I just felt motivated to go after what I want. It was magical man, so thank you, Berkley, for that!
We then moved on to the weights and that was definitely a mood … we did biceps curls, push presses … it was a good burn! We ended the class with a chill ride and eventually got off the bikes to stretch and do some breathing. Then I had a funny thought while we got off the bikes, they basically make those shoes to keep you hostage in the class, because they were a bit difficult to get off. One of us just took the shoes off and left them on the pedals, I’m not saying any names, but just take a good guess!
Class was over, Blair met us outside the classroom, and Berkley interacted with us trying to get a feel of our experience and even jumped in a picture with us. She invited us back and gave us information on other classes that she teaches, definitely wish we went to the Missy Elliot mix earlier that morning. Well, we all felt pretty badass afterward and said we would most definitely come back, so thank you Berkley for the great experience!
I’m glad I chose this place, because it really had me pushing my limits, and I walked out the door as though I owned the place. That being said, I highly recommend trying out SoulCycle, get out of that comfort zone.
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I wish more of the girls would’ve joined, but I don’t think they were about that life. We then left for brunch at Nazca Kitchen. I’m telling you guys, I have no idea how I even found this place. I definitely didn’t look at the menu, because I thought I was going to order a Belgian waffle, but there was nothing close that on the menu. They did have $2.00 mimosa’s though, so that was cool. I made a reservation for 10, but we ended up with about 13 people (there’s a reason why I’m pointing this out). So, I had steak with eggs, and potatoes and when I first got my food it was like really cold. My cousin had already told the waitress about her food, so I was a bit reluctant to complain about mine. I ended up telling the waitress and she told me, it’s because there were a lot of us. I just shook my head inside and told her okay.
They remade my plate and it was delicious (much better hot), I was so happy I told them that my food was cold! Anyways, I got to hang out with my girls! We talked about everything from babies, careers, networking, podcasts + blogs, married life, and weddings. We are all at a different points in our lives, but it’s so nice to be able to be with everyone and just catch up. We even decided that we would do another vision board, so stay tuned for that. I can’t wait to see what I checked off my 2018 vision board.
Check out our vision board soiree here, video included!
All in all, I think it is important to have that girl tribe, gang, or whatever you want to call it. It can be lonely sometimes when all your focus on are others and not yourself,. especially if you have a family + working full time. I truly understand the saying that there are not enough hours in the day. How do you manage your time and stay social in your busy life? And how far in advance do you have to plan outings with a big group?
Surround yourself with those that make you smile, inspire you, and build you up to be the best you can possible be. I’ve grown with some of these ladies since I was a baby, some junior high school, and of course college! So I am definitely blessed to have them in my life. We all have something we want to create outside our 9-5 and I think that is awesome, it is inspiring to be around people that are working on bettering themselves in order to level up.
Glad to be able to have a group of young women that are dreamers, doers, and wholeheartedly support one another . It’s a tribe.
