Usually when you see workout scenes in TV and movies, it’s all about pushing yourself to the limit because #NoPainNoGain. Well, this week’s wellness tip is all about listening to your body and moving at your own pace.

Chris Scott, one of the six Miamians taking on our wellness challenge, is working with Michael Vouvounas, a trainer and co-founder of the Barbell Society gym, to lose weight and get in shape with hopes of one day running a marathon.

During his training Chris has focused on endurance training, including running sprints and doing full-body workouts with exercise balls and free weights.. One thing he’s learned? Move at the speed that works for your body and your exercise routine.

“Take it slow if you have to, it’s not a race. The best workouts to burn fat and build endurance are long and slow,” Chris says.

He told us that he and Michael have worked to find the right mix of exercises to strike “that balance of fat burning and endurance building” so Chris can reach his weight loss and fitness goals. Some of those include: side steps with resistance bands, walking and lunging with dumbbells, and a medicine ball toss.

Stay tuned for more tips and advice from our challengers each week!

MADE POSSIBLE BY BAPTIST HEALTH SOUTH FLORIDA

10 Days of Connection comes to a close today. In the last 10 Days, we’ ve explored new neighborhoods on walking tours, had lunch with strangers, broken bread in a mosque, jammed with different music groups, and played connection bingo (to name just a few of more than 70 connection experiences Miamians have had during this initiative).

Over in the Facebook group, about 800 folks have come together to, among many things:

• plan blind lunch dates
• share what questions we ask to get to know people
• crowd-source a silo-busting Spotify playlist
• share books that have changed our perspectives
• share their favorite connection moments in movies

Today the events are winding down, but in the group we have a couple very important questions: What was your most meaningful connection experience? How did it impact you? And how will you commit to connection more year-round? Head to the group to hear from others and share your own experience. And stay tuned for our collection of tips and suggestions of how to keep this going year-round. (We promise it won’t be painful.)

We rollin’. While Miami-Dade Transit numbers have been steadily declining, use of free city-based trolleys is booming, especially in the City of Miami. Ridership on the privately-owned and operated trolleys has been so good that earlier this year the city launched a second route in Little Haiti and now they’re planning a third route in Flagami. Exact route TBD. (Curbed)

In denial. Is living in Miami Beach in 75 years going to be an option only for the rich? That’s kind of what it feels like after reading this New York Times piece about a stunning, high-tech Miami Beach home built to withstand several feet of sea level rise. The owner says that most developers seem to still be in denial, building homes with no plan for their watery future. Case in point: “In 20 or 30 years, someone is going to find a solution for this,” developer  Jorge Pérez of the Related Group says in the story. “Besides, by that time, I’ll be dead, so what does it matter?”

On a related note… The Miami Herald Editorial Board writes today that our flood control system is in big trouble.

American Dream or American Nightmare? The behemoth American Dream Miami – half shopping mall, half theme park – will be the largest mall in America if it’s built according to its current plans. The county planning board gave the project a thumbs up this week, but the project faces massive opposition from nearby residents, who fear a traffic apocalypse in the western part of the county as a result of the project, which is being billed as a local alternative to Disney World. (Miami Herald)

Today in unaffordable Miami… A study shows that restaurant workers can’t afford 99 percent of the homes for sale in the Magic City. (Miami New Times)

Pretty please with a cherry on top. With 12,200 vehicles crossing the Brickell bridge every hour between 4 and 7 p.m., it’s pure agony to be a driver nearby when the bridge goes up. The Downtown Development Authority and Florida Department of Transportation say they’ve finally come up with a plan to give us some relief: they’ll be shortening the lockdown time in the morning to just an hour (8 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and extending the evening lockdown time to a full two hours, from 5 to 7 p.m. The final decision rests with the Coast Guard. (Miami Herald)

Last ditch effort. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump ended DACA, aka Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. While the courts figure out whether it was even legal for him to do that, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients across the U.S. are stuck in legal limbo without any solutions. Miami Republican Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo, who have both regularly bucked the GOP party line on immigration, are fed up. They’re trying to force votes on four separate immigration bills and they’re confident that they have enough Democratic support to get the bills approved  and maybe give some relief, or at least some answers, to DACA recipients. (Miami Herald)

Bow down. King James is going to be holding court in Miami soon – but not on the basketball court. He and his childhood buddies are opening up the flagship brick-and-mortar for Unknwn, their clothing and sneaker line for men, in Wynwood. The spot is at 261 NW 26th Street and will have not just a store, but also an outdoor event space. Which means we get to party with LeBron now, right? (Miami New Times)

Oops. In yesterday’s newsletter, we wrote that all of our congressional seats are held by Republicans. We also have Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz representing the northern part of Miami-Dade.

WE WANT TO END TODAY WITH SOME MAJOR PROPS.

Local running club iRun placed #12 in the world at last weekend’s Wings for Life run, an international competition in which runners in about 30 cities around the world start at the same time and run as far as they can before they are caught by a car that leaves the start line 30 minutes later, driving at 15 km/h. All the money raised goes to spinal cord research.

To determine a winner, the team members’ distances are added up. The iRun team ran a whopping 2,540 kilometers between all its members. And iRun member, and Miami local, Ana Maria Villegas WON the whole damn thing, over in Sydney, Australia, running 46.9 kilometers (29.14 miles) before she was caught by the car. (Full disclosure: Ariel, our director, is part of iRun, but she cannot run that far. Or that fast.)