Thursday marks my 2 month Boston-iversary. I had just settled in New Jersey (about 7 months), when I was given the opportunity to relocate for work. I jumped at the chance… then proceeded to face plant in mountains of snow, like record breaking amounts of snow, but that’s neither here nor there.

This is the 5th place I’ve lived in the past 2 years. That’s a lot of moving around and I’ll be the first to admit making new friends doesn’t exactly come easy for an introvert. I do love meeting new people, but it’s not something I’m naturally good at. In college, it was much easier making friends because you had everyone around you all the time, you had reasons to spend time together and you were all in the same boat. I especially struggled in New Jersey where I knew literally zero people before I moved. I enjoyed spending time with my co-workers, but the small town I lived in wasn’t conducive to meeting other 20-somethings. Fast forward 7 months and I’m here in Boston and this time my sister is a five minute walk down the street, I’m living with a friend from college and for the first time in five years I’m less than a 3 hours away from home.

It’s exciting to be back in a city. One of the many perks (beyond having multiple coffee shops to choose from) is the vast array of fitness studios. I love working out, both on my own and in a group setting. It’s something I’m pretty passionate about so I figured it would be a good starting point to force to encourage myself to be more social. With so many different studios to pick from, I wasn’t really sure where or how to start.

Cue ClassPass. For those unfamiliar with ClassPass, it’s an unlimited pass to a network of classes around a particular city. You pay on a monthly basis, like a regular gym membership, but you have access to tons of different studios big and small around whichever city you chose. When I moved to Boston, I really wanted to try out at least a month of ClassPass so I contacted them to see if I could do a trial month in exchange for mentioning them on social media whenever I did a class. It seemed like a pretty amazing deal to me.

So far I’ve had an incredible experience with this membership. Their user interface makes finding and booking classes stupid easy. Me likey. I think one of my favorite features is that as soon as you book a class, they give you the option to add it to your google calendar. If you’re anything like me, your google calendar is pretty much the glue holding your life together. It also makes finding the class that much easier, because the location is in the event on your calendar, which links to maps on your phone. It’s almost too easy.

This past weekend, I wanted to make the most of having free time and my Classpass so I booked a spin class in the morning and an intro to Crossfit a couple hours later. The spin class was at BURN Fitness Studios in the Back Bay. Our instructor had a killer mix and her class had a nice mix of sprints and hills so the 45 minutes went by in a flash, a sweaty, sweaty flash. Luckily, there was an adorable coffee spot, Render and I enjoyed an iced red eye (iced coffee with a shot of espresso) to get me pumped for crossfit.

I drove to South Boston to hit up Crossfit Southie, which I later found out from some Boston friends is awesome Crossfit box (am I saying that right?) This was my first time ever trying Crossfit. I won’t lie, I’ve been intimated in the past, but since I’ve been lifting more on my own I finally felt comfortable giving it a try. They have introductory classes every 12noon on Saturdays (if you’re in Boston and interested). In the intro class our instructor, Christina went over the basics of how Crossfit is structured, we did couple warm-ups, went over basic strength moves (squats, presses, pulls, thrusters) then did a quick Workout of the Day (WOD). When I first walked into the gym, I was overwhelmed by how crossfit-y it was, but once we went into the level 1/2 gym (versus the advanced area) I was more at ease. Christina (besides being insanely beautiful and ripped) was so kind, intelligent, patient and was not condescending whatsoever.

ClassPass has been a great way for me to explore different parts of the city and dabble in different types of fitness (something I already enjoyed.) In college, I was so spoiled with tons of free group fitness classes and it’s been something I’ve really missed since graduating. With all honesty, I highly recommendClassPass if you’re in a new city, want to explore, meet new people, try different types of classes you wouldn’t normally go to, and challenge yourself to get outside your comfort zone.

Sweat on friends!

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