Fitness Friday: City Fit Girls Ambassador and StrideBox Review!

It's another Fitness Friday over here.  Yippee!!

First order of business this morning is to announce my new Ambassadorship with City Fit Girls! 

"City Fit Girls is a network of women who inspire, uplift, encourage and motivate others to live healthy lifestyles at home, school, workplace or social settings."  Yes, yes, yes.  All about that.  I'm excited to work with them and connect with others to spread the word that fitness is FUN!

Alright, also on the agenda today is a review of StrideBox!  I'm sure many of you have heard of StrideBox before, but for those who have not, it's a monthly subscription box targeted to runners. 

Another advantage of my sister currently being pregnant is that she is passing down her monthly StrideBoxes to me lately, which were a gift from her husband, so I should be thanking my brother-in-law here too.  So, not only do I get another nephew in a few months (!), but I've been getting all her great running stuff lately too!  Thanks Laura :)

So far, I've received 4 boxes from her and they are full of all kinds of goodies.  Each box comes with about 8 samples and/or full size products, plus coupons and a sheet that provides information on each product in the box.  About 2/3 of each box was filled with food products (most of which were full size!), but they've also contained other interesting little tidbits like lip balm, blinking shoe lights, a reflective arm band and iPhone compatible gloves.

What I love about these boxes is they allow you the opportunity to try out new products before committing to purchasing a whole box/case of something, and to discover new running accessories you may not otherwise be exposed to.  (I've been wanting to try Picky Bars forever and they were in one of the boxes - Score!)

 

These days there is pretty much a box out there for any interest (beauty, crafting, kids, pets, alien enthusiasts, j/k I have no idea about the last one) and most of them are usually pretty affordable. I checked out StrideBox's pricing and they charge $15 month/$0 shipping, which isn't bad.  Currently, I'm on a tight budget and don't have much in the way of disposable income so I probably wouldn't be able to purchase a subscription myself, but I think that price is probably affordable for many people. 

I've only ever subscribed to one monthly box service before and that was years ago.  I did Birchbox for awhile, which is a box of beauty samples.  It was only $10/month (this is how I justified it!) but I honestly rarely used any of the products!  I'm just not a beauty junkie, I rarely wear makeup, and I use very few products on a daily basis (think hair gel and Suave lotion).  Plus the samples in Birchbox were tiny.  Like I mentioned above, most of the products in StrideBox were full size bars/gels/food. 

 

Even more than purchasing these boxes for yourself, I really like the idea of doing what my brother-in-law did and GIFTING a subscription to someone! Who doesn't love receiving surprises in the mail, and this would be a gift that keeps on giving.  You can do as few or many months as you want and for people who wouldn't necessarily buy this for themselves (like me!), I think it would be a great little treat for the recipient to receive every month.  I'm always looking for new running nutrition and snack bars and loved having the opportunity to try to so many out here. 

I want to thank my sister again for sponsoring this post!

And with that, I'm off to see the wizard. 

Have a great weekend everyone :)


*This post was not sponsored in any way by StrideBox.



Do you subscribe to any monthly boxes?

Ever try StrideBox?

What's up for the weekend?!

Lots of Little Things...

It's a brand new week and the last week of February!  Yippee!  This makes me happy, happy, happy.  March happens to be my BIRTHDAY MONTH and also the month that brings us Spring! 

We got a bunch of snow in PA (and Baltimore) this weekend.  Ain't nobody got time for Winter anymore.  Especially New England.  Man, do I feel bad for those people.  Also, I wish they would stop jumping out their windows into it. 

Now, lots of little things from the weekend...

• My friend's baby shower, in which I apparently didn't snap any pics!  She is nearly 7 months pregnant with twins and looks phenomenal.  You would never guess she's got two babies in there.  Her shower was in downtown Bethlehem in one of the original historic Moravian buildings.  It was a really unique setting and I wish I had taken pics.  Sorry :(
• My other friend's NEW BABY GIRL!  Oh my, it's hard to put into words how small, sweet, precious, perfect she is.  Maybe I just did.  But she's lovely.  All 5lbs 4oz of her!  And I love her name:  Elyse.  

Jillyruns/IG

• I got some Valentine's from my Dad while I was home!  Gummies of every shape and size.  That's some good running fuel right there:

• My parents also surprised me with some Girl Scout Cookies.  GSC season is different in PA than in MD.  I'm pretty sure they come in the Fall in MD.  Both of the cookies below are DAIRY FREE, just FYI for others in the same boat as me, and those new cranberry ones were really good. It's a citrus/lemon wafer cookie, with dried cranberries and made with whole grain. 

 

• My mom sent me home with a loaf of her infamous, original, amazing zucchini bread.  Perfect timing, because I just ran out of those 2 dozen frozen muffins I made a couple weeks ago. Obviously, I've already torn into it. 

 

• My sister is currently pregnant and not running so she sent me home with an ENTIRE shoebox filled with all kinds of running fuel!  I am going to be eating good for weeks with all these treats from my family.



• Anddddd, my Dad bought me a new heavy duty hand cream to try.  I don't know what I did to deserve all these gifts this weekend.  This hand cream is apparently made for man hands, lumberjacks, mechanics... and me?!  Hahaha.  Let's hope it works!

• Last Tuesday, PBS aired the first two episodes of their documentary "The Italian Americans", and will be airing the third and fourth episodes tomorrow evening.  The first two were great and I thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone is interested in watching tomorrow.  One of my favorite Italian-American authors, Adriana Trigiani, is featured in the show, as well as her hometown, the infamous Roseto, PA.  Roseto is a little town close to where I grew up and has been the focus of several sociological and scientific studies due to the fact that the Italian inhabitants had some of the lowest rates of heart disease in the entire country [see 'The Roseto Effect'].

That's it!  I hope everyone had a great weekend, despite the snow.  Spring is coming, Spring is coming.  Let's just keep repeating that to ourselves :)


What were you up to this weekend?

Try out any of the Pinterest workouts over the weekend?!

Has Girl Scout Cookie season come to your area?