Cycling Around Governor’s Island

It’s no surprise, Governor’s Island is still one of my favorite things about NYC summer.

All summer it’s been on my to-do list, and yesterday Jeremy and I finally made our way to Governor’s Island for a lovely afternoon of walking and biking around the island. I don’t know what it is about Governor’s Island but we both seriously love it there and can easily spend 3 hours there doing more or less nothing.

I was SUPER excited to go bike riding since I absolutely love riding. Unfortunately though, I rarely get to hop on a bike (besides a spin bike…) in NYC since it’s not exactly safe. I know the city has come a long way, even since I’ve moved here to become more safe for bikers, even so I still don’t feel comfortable biking around the busy streets.

Governor’s Island, though, is a whole different story. It’s basically become an oasis for bike riding thanks to all the paths and a convenient bike rental station. Renting a bike for 2 hours only cost $15, not too shabby!

Jeremy said he was pretty sure it had been about 10 years since he rode a bike… but the old saying is true “It’s like riding a bike!”

I also love all the bizarre artwork on Governor’s Island that changes every summer. Exhibit A, this interesting hut made of plastic cups…

 

I was also a fan of the quirky mini golf course plus this fun treehouse that was probably meant for kids…

I’m so happy we were able to squeeze in a Govenor’s Island trip before it’s closed for the season. If you’ve never been I can’t recommend it enough! Pack a picnic and take the ferry over, you won’t regret it.

 

Workout recap

One of the fun things about my job is I get to find a lot of new blogs when I’m researching for our new cities. During that process I stumbled across Ashley’s blog A Lady Goes West and I’m seriously obsessed. I swear reading a bunch of San Francisco people’s blogs made me seriously miss the west coast and want to move to SF pronto (for the record I’ve actually never been to SF… but I hear it’s really nice and I would like it, ha!) For her workout recaps she talks about what went well and what could have gone better. I really love that approach and thought I’d give it a shot!

 

Monday: Mindbody Bootcamp @ Circuit of Change + 2 hour trapeze class
Tuesday: Barihybrid @ Bari Studio
Wednesday: Uplift Strength @ Uplift
Thursday: Open level @ Ishta Yoga
Friday: Uplift Strength @ Uplift + Fly45 @ Flywheel Sports
Saturday: Metabolic Burn @ Body Space Fitness
Sunday: Fly45 @ Flywheel Sports

 

What was good?

I hit up a lot of my favorite classes last week, in particular Uplift and Body Space Fitness. For whatever reason those two studios are basically my happy place and I always leave feeling incredible. I actually hadn’t taken a Flywheel cycling class since I stopped working there at the end of 2013 and forgot how much I love Ryan’s Flywheel class. A lot of instructors (and studios even…) forget about bringing an element of joy and fun to working out. Ryan does just that while also delivering a killer ride. The 90’s throwback tunes help too :).

I also hadn’t done a double in a while and really liked the combination of Uplift + Flywheel. When I double up I like to make it 2 contrasting workouts and like the pairing of an intense cardio workout after a lot of lifting at Uplift. I’ll be doing it again this Friday!

 

What could have been better? 

I didn’t end up taking a formal rest day which I do 99% of the time. My yoga class on Thursday was kind of meh and not my style so didn’t feel like a workout (or even a stretch really) so I felt good to go for Friday. Early in the week my foot was feeling kind of funky, I don’t know if I landed on it weird at some point during Bari or what but my right foot was bothering me until about Thursday. I adjusted accordingly and avoided the high impact moves during Uplift. Don’t know what happened by now it feels fine, phew!

 

Question: What’s your favorite part about summer in your city? And what’s on your to-do list before summer (or the warm weather…) ends?