SkyRise Chicago - Tower Up!

Climb Chicago's tallest skyscraper for a good cause! Walk, jog or run up 2,109 steps to SkyDeck Chicago at the top of the Sears Tower. If you're not very light on your feet, you can try for the hand-cycle category using stationary hand cycles calibrated for resistance and time to match the stair-climbing experience.

SkyRise Chicago
Sears Tower (aka Willis Tower, begrudgingly)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
7 a.m. to 12:00 noon

You can register as an individual or form a team. Proceeds from fundraising will support the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago's (RIC) in their patient care and research. Registration details.

RIC is the nation’s #1 ranked provider of comprehensive physical medicine and rehabilitation care to patients from around the world and is the leader in research and development of the most cutting-edge treatments and technologies in its field.  Through aggressive medical protocols, RIC guides the patient care process toward a better patient outcome – involving repair, regeneration, and recovery of brain, spinal cord and musculoskeletal function. More about RIC.

I'm excited for this new challenge. Stairs are definitely a completely different monster.

Insanity - Elite Nutrition



Grilled salmon, asparagus, red onion and whole grain pasta



One of my favorite dinner options for Insanity. Instead of honey mustard on the salmon, I added some fresh lemon, garlic, french herbs and tossed in a few capers. The grilled red onion gave the dish a bit of sweetness, the asparagus was crisp and green and the whole grain pasta was filling. Grilled the salmon about medium and came out perfect. Only takes about 15 minutes to whip up. 

Shakeology Tropical

The new flavor of Shakeology was announced at Summit. It's pink. It's tropical.

As soon as it's for sale, I'll order some and let you know how it is. Also, if you're interested in trying a free sample of Chocolate or Greenberry, go to my Shakeology page and send me an email. Limited to the first 5 people who contact me. Or just wait until Tropical comes out.

Whatever floats your boat.

Run That Tune

It's been a while since I went for a run. My mp3 collection is in need of some major revamping. I need your help!

What's on your playlist? What songs or albums get you pumped up for running? The best suggestion will win a free copy of Lady Gaga's album Born This Way [+ digital booklet] which is downloadable from Amazon.

I realize I may be in the extreme minority of runners who are iPodless. However, I'm really digging Amazon Cloud Player. It lets you play your songs through a browser or Android phone and allows you to easily create playlists from your downloaded content.

Check it out! And don't forget to toss some song titles out there. Thanks.

Beach Volleyball League

Summer is here (kinda?) and so is beach volleyball! I'm excited to start up a new season next week. I don't know any of my teammates, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of level of play they're at. It is a rec league, so fun is the most important part anyway.



North Avenue Beach, Chicago, IL



I joined my first beach league last year and had an awesome time. Since I wasn't able to form my own team, I signed up as an individual player. Only 2 people on the team knew each other, so we were dubbed Team Indy. Interestingly enough, although we lost a couple of the first games, we ended up sweeping the number 1 seed team in the finals and making it to the Championships! It was a grueling last game where we lost the first match, won the second match and lost the third match by 1 point! Still pretty good for a bunch of strangers!

View from Castaways at North Ave Beach

If you haven't signed up, hurry up and check out what's available at http://www.playerssports.net/. In addition to volleyball, they have a variety of other sports including dodgeball, outdoor soccer and even cornhole.

Play hard. Summer isn't here forever!

Chobani Greek Yogurt

Chobani ruined Yoplait for me. It really did.


I've tried Oikos, Athenos and Chobani Greek yogurts in that order. Oikos was tasty enough. I liked that Athenos has the yogurt separate from the fruit. But after having Chobani, I'm sticking with this pony.

Chobani Greek yogurt

Chobani has a whopping 14 grams of protein and is 140 calories. It does have 20 grams of sugars but the best part about Chobani is that it's not overly sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, I recommend mixing the fruit and yogurt fully before eating. The yogurt itself is considerably less sweet than some other brands. But, as I'm older now, that is what I like about it. It tastes more natural and is incredibly creamy and satisfying.

By comparison, Yoplait light yogurt only has 5 grams of proteins, it does have fewer calories at 100 and 14 grams of sugars. But compared to Chobani, it just tastes artificial and isn't as yummy.

Pomegranate, blueberry and pineapple are my favorite Chobani flavors. I have yet to try some others like vanilla, lemon or honey... but I'm sure they're all great. Give it a try :)

Nike Free TR Fit Women's Shoe

The moment my feet flew out of my Reeboks while trying to jump in and out of plank position, I knew I had to change my shoes for Insanity.

Looking to get some cross trainers, I headed to Dick's Sporting Goods. They had about 8 or 9 different women's cross trainers, half of which were bulky and the other half which were the typical slim-looking Nike types. I tried on 2 different pairs of Nikes and decided to give Nike Free TR Fit a try.

Nike Free TR Fit

At around $85, I'm assuming these are called "Free" because they are extremely light and provide very little barrier between you and the ground. While I love how they fit almost like a glove, I am not too thrilled about the lack of shock absorption. I knew going into it that this would be the case, but I decided to see whether it was a good trade-off for now slipping around during In and Out abs.

The good news is that these shoes stay put! The bottoms are extremely pliable as you can see from the cut pattern. The opening and tongue tie closely around the ankle for minimum movement. Not too crazy about how they feel laterally. During suicide drills, I can feel the distinct point where the soles meet the sides of the shoes.

The slightly even less good news is that my arches were beginning to ache in the middle of the workout during Plyo. It may be that I need to adjust from the cushioned shoe to the more natural shoe. I've heard some people do Insanity barefoot. That's something I haven't tried, but I feel like this is close to it.

The slightly better news is that these are great during Cardio Recovery. The rubber soles are perfect for the deep lunges and other poses.

I was thinking of returning these and trying some other shoes, but the pros outweight the cons. Also, I really love the colors. I give these shoes a 7/10. I wonder how long they will withstand these workouts... but for now, they keep me from smashing my face.