Grits in the City - Fitness. Family. Food.

Hope you enjoy all these as much as I do!

lessons from a virtual half marathon

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A few weeks back, I ran my first ever half marathon. It was huge – not just because I had to restart after breaking my foot but also because I knew I was not only training solo but would be fully running the day of solo. I knew a virtual half marathon would be an interesting experience. Here’s what I learned.

Figure out what motivates you and make it part of your plans for the day you do the race. It sounds silly. It sounds obvious. But man I found it to be true. There will be no crowd cheering you on. No music possibly pumping as you pass by. Just you and the pavement. I took my cheerleaders with me for the fun — they go by the name of Matty, Matt and Selena (Peloton instructors if the names aren’t part of your routine like they are for me.) I knew that taking a series of Peloton runs would keep me motivated and so that’s what I did. Maybe it’s no music for you, or perhaps audio books. Whatever it is — try out your options and know what helps you the most and make that your plan.

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home search financing: digging into the numbers

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I’ll admit, I was ill prepared going into buying a house for the first time. We spent a lot of time thinking about cities we were interested in and our must have house features, but finance? I’d only really skimmed the surface. I knew what our lender would approve us for, but hadn’t thought enough about the practicality of what we wanted to be spending

The offer you might have to go up to in order to win the bid in today’s market could have some unexpected added costs. Right now, 2/3 of offers are in competition with others. More buyers are buying in all cash. Those who can’t take that approach are taking all sorts of steps to try to make themselves standout, including waiving things like appraisal and inspection contingencies. These risky moves might get you the home, but at what cost to you?

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dino dig adventure at liberty science center

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Last weekend before we headed out on vacation, we got the chance to be part of a sneak peek weekend event at the Dino Dig Adventure at Liberty Science Center. This isn’t the first special event we’ve been to at the Liberty Science Center. We previously got to preview this fun Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle exhibit before we had kids. This new permanent exhibit just opened this week on July 21. With how much Q and L love dinos, there was no question about our answer to the invite. The 60 tons of sand proved to be tons of fun for our two. 

The Dino Dig Adventure space is nice and open, and it has a fabulous view of the Manhattan skyline. The kids each got their own brush, which they can use in the sand to uncover and polish dinosaur bones. There are replica bones of seven different dinosaurs along with other bones, eggs … even some massive dinosaur poop! There are three different pits that the kids can explore to see what they can find just like if they were real life paleontologists. 

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hiking the watchung reservation history trail

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One of our favorite weekend activities with the kids has become hiking. It started a bit before but picked up in earnest when the pandemic was in full swing. When the kids were maxed out and cabin fever was intense, we could manage to head out on the Watchung Reservation History Trail and feel relatively safe. We would head out with our masks in hand so we were ready just in case and know we could go early and know we would likely only encounter a few others with us on the trails.

There are several options at the Watchung Reservation History Trail you can take – and one which gives you a longer route around it (6 miles), if you’re up for the journey. Of course with the little ones, the focus and stamina to do it has yet to be there. We really like it because we can go many times without it feeling too repetitive for the kids or us. There’s a deserted village (better to pass while hiking than to go just to see it.) There’s a lake (love that it’s called Lake Surprise — since nothing about it is incredibly surprising.) Most of the trails originate at the Trailside Nature & Science Center. However you can park at a few other areas and hit them as well, including the Deserted Village of Feltville and Lake Surprise.

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race recap: 2021 virtual disney princess half marathon

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I have a long history with runDisney’s Disney Princess Half Marathon that thus far hadn’t led to crossing a finish line. Quarantine, however, gave me a unique opportunity to finally get to do it in my own way!

The History

Around 10 years ago, I decided I was going to get into running. Why not? I lived in Manhattan. There were so many places I could go. Running is cheap (or so I thought.) I wouldn’t need a gym membership! I just needed my own two feet and the open road! So much win!

Fail. Almost immediately I thought it would be a great idea to join Paragon’s mixed level group in Union Square for a run one week. I’d love to know how long we ran. Definitely longer consecutively than I had ever done at that point in time. We ran over to a track on the East Side down around Chinatown. Once there, we did drills. We ran around the track. I felt so excited and strong… until I woke up the next morning and couldn’t walk. Not exaggerating at all. My knees were completely shot and I ended up in PT for two months, unable to even leave my home to go to work. They gradually built me back up to running on a treadmill. I remember them asking if this was my normal pace, to which I’d responded “but I’m not really a runner!” Rehabbing a running injury when I wasn’t truly a runner yet just added to my frustration.

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anniversary celebration at summit house

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We recently celebrated our sixth anniversary! It unfortunately fell on a Monday and the weekend prior we had sick kids, so we ended up celebrating the weekend after. We had a reservation to dine outside at Summit House in Summit, NJ, but of course the weather had other plans this past weekend, raining on and off for a lot of it. They called to let us know that they were closing the outside dining but they could shift us to indoors. So, for the first time in almost 16 months, we ate indoors.

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athleisure review: free people movement

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The fact is that I would like to own just about every item Free People has in their Free People Movement line. I started with one thing that caught my eye from one of the Peloton instructors wearing it. Then I found a number of other shirts that I loved … and here we are. I can’t do their shorts because they don’t seem to understand yet how awesome and necessary pockets are for running shorts. I won’t buy anything any more without them. But their tops? Aces.

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june faves

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I would say I can’t believe June is almost gone but a 97 degree day has totally underscored that we are clearly into summertime. This Bama native though far prefers warm to cool temps, so I’ll take it.

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

Recent Read: One to Watch

I can’t seem to get away from Bachelor Nation, can I? During the off-season, I couldn’t resist reading One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London. The show is trying to make some efforts to diversify all the people on it – both in front of and behind the camera. But there’s been one thing they’ve yet to address – body size.

The cast has always been very thin so this book centers on a different take, with a plus sized fashion blogger being the lead of a show called Main Squeeze. She agrees to go on the show on the heels of a painful breakup and what ensues is an imaginative take on a very familiar show, down to producer manipulation, surprise suitors and lots there (as always) for the wrong reasons.

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teneral cellars love is love wine collection

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This post was sponsored by Teneral Cellars as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

I love wine. I love wine with a story and purpose even more. When I learned about the Teneral Cellars Love is Love collection, I had to try it and was excited to get to introduce some of my good friends from my book club to the collection as well. Teneral Cellars is a California based winery focused on women’s causes and inclusion within the industry. Their wines are sustainably farmed, so love that it’s such a clean alternative.

Teneral Cellars has no tasting room, so that means they’re focused on bringing all the elements of that tasting room to their customers regardless of location. I especially love that each of their releases is linked to a cause, with 10% of profits going to support women’s empowerment causes.

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6 tips from 16 years of blogging

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I started blogging on Blogspot back in 2005 when I lived in DC. My blog was called District Belle and it was all about my life as a single girl having fun in the city. It was when blogging was really taking off and some of the posts like this one about our trash can being stolen from our Capital Hill row house were picked up by the local paper. I moved to New York City, I decided it was time to change that up with a new name and a new focus.

I launched Grits in the City back in 2007, choosing instead to focus on food. For a number of years, I focused solely on food — mostly dining out in the city sprinkled in with a few recipes here and there. When I moved to the suburbs and became a parent several years back, I broadened that a bit to lifestyle in general – food, family and fitness.

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