Late-night fitness

THE FUTURE OF LATE NIGHT Our writers prepare to meet their destiny.

Photo: Jeremy Bolen

Health and fitness scribes Kevin Aeh and Jessica Herman forgo chugging beer all night for more enlightened options.

11:58pm Planning to attend a midnight yoga class, we arrive outside Self Centered Yoga (2201 W Belmont Ave, 773-388-8010, selfcenteredyoga.com) to see a group of glistening students inside sipping wine in a corner.

Midnight We walk in and discover the “midnight” yoga class (offered the last Friday of every month) has just ended. Turns out, the classes start at 10pm, and because yoga-goers chill out with wine and cheese after class till around midnight, they call it “midnight” yoga. We say false advertising.

12:34am Wearing flip-flops but still craving a workout (the night is young!), we head to the 24/7 XSport Fitness (230 W North Ave, 312-932-9100, www.xsportfitness.com).

12:47am We try to persuade the desk attendant to let us work out for free and grudgingly end up filling out a few forms, which happily results in a free weeklong trial membership.

1am We hit the treadmills barefoot, which attracts stares from the twentysomethings playing basketball.

1:45am After a quick shower, we head to the other side of the gym for sessions in the Mystic Tan booths. The attendant tells us an average of 30 people tan late each night, which is astounding.

2:50am Exhaustion from our short run starts to hit us, so we head down the street to a 24-hour Starbucks (210 W North Ave), which is packed with law students studying for the bar exam. We feel guilty for just reading magazines and not studying a textbook.

3:30am Looking for spiritual direction, we take a cab to Ukrainian Village, where we meet with a psychic named Dena (955 N Ashland Ave, 773-230-3839).

4am While we take turns waiting for our one-on-one tarot card readings in Dena’s “lounge” (read: apartment), episodes of Chelsea Lately play on a giant flat-screen TV, and a young man Windexes the dining-room table.

4:47am Dena tells one of us to stop phoning it in on the job and the other to relax about work. She is psychic!

5am We limp to Hollywood Grill (1601 W North Ave, 773-395-1818, hollywood-grill.com), where we order eggs and notice we already have tan lines.

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