Nike Women and Men's Health Urbanathlon!

Boy do I have exciting news! Nike Women is sending me to Chicago to participate in the Men's Health Urbanathlon this October 16th!!! Be sureto check out the Nike Women Facebook page- I may pop up there!

The Urbanathlon should be a real challenge from the kinds of races I am used to. It seems to be a run course with a ton of challenging obstacles. Their suggested training plan includes a lot of strength and parkour. Obviously I'll be including new things in my training as I've focused on running, biking, swimming and yoga.

I'm so excited for this opportunity. Check out the race website and tune back here for updates on my training. It's going to be a fun journey! Thanks Nike Women!

That is the fun thing I am looking forward to. My birthday is the fun thing that just passed! It was such a perfect weekend I thought I'd share some photos from it!

Saturday my family came to my side of town and took me out to my favorite vegan restaurant, Ethos Vegan Kitchen. Apparently they loved it so much last time they had it that they actually demanded we all go there again!

I have no problem eating my own vegan dishes while my family eats meat and dairy, but it did make my day to have my loved ones be so open minded and give they way I eat an honest try. And the fact that they loved it was even better!

Saturday got even better with my Little Black Dress Birthday Party that night!

Again, everything was vegan! It wasn't my initial requirement to be vegan, but my thought process was, "if we need items with animal products, we'll buy them." Turns out you can have a delicious and filling party spread and still be vegan!

Among the salsas, hummus and other mixtures I made an out-of-this-world bean dip with daiya vegan cheese. Everyone ate this baby up! I simply mixed refried beans with corn and spices, tons of salsa, daiya and black olives. YUM!

Thanks to my friends Cliff and Diana for making me a Peas and Thank You vegan carrot cake from scratch! It was tons of work... and all the hard work paid off. This baby was GOOD!

Recognize this beautiful blogger? :)

No party would be complete without an after-party at my favorite local coffeehouse, Austin's. I'm there almost every night so it makes sense that we brought my birthday party there!

In our little black dresses and party favors we played a civilized game of pin the tail on the donkey :)

Have you tried parkour or any kind of obstacle training? Any tips for me?