Hello from sunny, southern California!

I flew in for the weekend to shoot a couple videos for two different clients and am taking full advantage. After landing around 11am, I checked into my hotel and made it to SoulCyle in Santa Monica for a 1pm class with Alba. I was looking for a cross training class midday and despite wanting to try Cardio Barre per your suggestions via Twitter, SoulCycle is a tried and true favorite of mine and the timing/location worked. 

Mini Review of Alba’s SoulCycle Class

Alba’s class had awesome music and made me sweat so much I think I could have wrung out my sports bra! My heart rate hit my max a few times and I pushed myself more than I have on a bike in a long time.. She had fun choreography and a lot of third position riding. The class went by fast which I guess must mean, gasp, I enjoyed it. The studio was the largest SoulCycle I have visited I think and very clean. I would highly recommend Alba’s class if you are in town or live near by. At $30 a pop, the workout doesn’t come cheap but in my opinion it is worth it if you just spent 6 hours sitting on a plane.. 

Lunch Time

I was pretty hungry after class so I walked to one of my favorite go to vegetarian restaurants, Real Food Daily and ordered lunch to go. Since the vegan and vegetarian food is so good in the area, I typically eat a meat free diet when visiting. My other favorites are Cafe Gratitude and Lemonade. When it came time to order, I remembered obsessing over the Sea Cake from my first visit so that was a no brainer and threw in a caesar salad to meet my daily dose of greens. 

The picture does not do this dish justice. It looks like nothing special but it is a little taste of heaven. It is made with butternut squash, yam and sea vegetable croquette, pesto, and sweet chili aioli. I’m not sure either was a sea vegetable croquette is supposed to taste like but this is one of my favorite appetizers of all time. It is amazing. The caesar salad was also delicious. The best part were the wheat free blue corn croutons that were slightly sweet. I ate my lunch sitting on a bench over looking the Santa Monica Pier and counted my blessings. 

I requested a hotel in between my two shoot locations and ended up in Venice Beach at the Hotel Erwin. It has a pretty awesome roof deck that overlooks the famous Venice Beach complete with a full bar. 

It took me 40 minutes to drive to West Hollywood for dinner, which is where I usually stay if I’m not at my brother’s. I love the beach and am hoping to have some time to hang out relaxing by the pacific ocean but since this is a work trip, I’m not holding my breath.

I am going for a 6 mile run tomorrow before my first day of shooting and very excited to take advantage of the boardwalk. California has some of my favorite running routes, Runyon Canyon as the highlight of course. I always run more here than I do at home.

Where is your favorite vacation running route? 

Revisiting My Go-To Los Angeles Spots