California Dreamin'

Hello from California!

After a busy couple days of traveling and meetings, I'm finally spending some quality time with my mom.  Remember how I said the weather was going to be gross?  I lied.  Or really, the weather forecast lied.  It's beautiful and sunny today, and I feel energized and can't wait for some warmer temps in DC.

We took advantage of the nice weather and walked along the beach for three hours this morning.  It was great workout, and we even stopped along the way to watch a local surfing competition.  If I come back in another life, I want to be a surfer.  It looks hard but so fun!

This afternoon we had lunch at the Country Mart and then headed to check out the newly renovated Malibu Lumber Yard.   It used to be an actual lumber yard and hardware store, and now it's a posh shopping area with restaurants and a great outdoor area with ping-pong tables, lounge chairs and even 12-foot tall fish tanks.  It's very California, but I enjoyed it.

Pretty, huh?  Before we left, I of course had to stop at Crumbs and get a treat for later! :-)

I hope everyone is having a great weekend, and good luck to my friends running the GW Parkway Classic tomorrow morning!  You'll do great!

P.S. Krista has a Larabar giveaway on her blog.  Check it out!

Winter Blues

Can it please be spring already??  I have a definite case of the winter blues.  I usually love winter, but I'm so over it right now. 

Thankfully, I have a working laptop again (hello, new MacBook), so I've been distracting myself by creating these inspiration boards.  You know, for when I come into some serious cash, and also for when I'm in-shape!  A girl can dream...

Spring Favorites (via ShopStyle):

For all my fashionista-minded friends out there, check out ShopStyle!  It's a cite that pulls from thousands of stores/brands and has a ton of selection.  It's nice to go to one place and browse a mix of style and prices.  It's the perfect place for ideas, and they have everything from clothing to furniture. 

Dangerous but very fun :)

Shutter Bugged

It's been a hot weekend here in D.C.  We've had 90-degree weather both days -- and it's barely May! Hopefully this doesn't mean we're in for a rough summer.

So, I'm officially obsessed with my new camera.  I'm fairly sure my neighbors are tired of my creeperish behavior outside... I've been roaming around taking pictures of random things like cracks in sidewalks, signs, and flowers.  People think I'm crazy.  But nobody's more tired of my paparazzi behavior than Cooper.  He's had enough of me telling him to "sit pretty" for the camera.  Poor kid. 

Here's are some of the shots I've taken thus far:

This one turned out pretty well!  Typical Cooper face.

Focused in on the bush instead of the flowers, but I still like all the colors in this one.

Not really sure why I took a picture of this sign, but I got the focus right!

Way too saturated, but I still like it.

As you can tell, I'm still trying to figure all the camera settings out, and learning what lighting works best, and how to focus in on different things and get that "blurry" background (don't you love how technical I sound?).

I decided to take a quick photography workshop offered by Arlington County, which will start in a couple weeks.  Hopefully that will help me fine tune my skills! 

More to come :)

xoxo,
Olivia

Beautimus

As crazy as it may sound, it's 90 degrees in DC today. Seriously, I'm in love with this weather. In typical DC fashion, it's going to drop about 30 degrees by Friday, but we'll take what we can get. Sunshine makes me happy :)

Saturday would have be the perfect day to run the J. Brian's 1.5k that I posted about awhile back.  Unfortunately, after a visit to the podiatrist last Friday, I'm on a forced hiatus for a few weeks. I've been having awful shin/ankle pains in my left leg, and after a couple rounds of x-rays, the doc said that it looks like I have a tibia stress fracture.  The good news is that I'm already a couple of weeks into the healing process, so I just have to take another 3-5 weeks off running to let things completely heal.

The podiatrist I visited is a runner, and had lots of good advice for an amateur like myself. I talked about how I've been regularly running and working out, but haven't really seen the results/progress that I would like. He gave me a shpeal about understanding different types of running, and how your body reacts according to intensity levels. For instance, fast and high intensity running won't necessarily mean weight loss (from fat), but can instead burn muscle mass and not do much for endurance (or something along those lines). He recommended that I get a heart rate monitor that will gauge which zone I'm in, and that can help me focus on burning calories from fat vs. training for endurance or speed. Since I'm a sucker for gadgets, I did some research and decided to get a women's Polar HRM watch.  Below is a chart Polar publishes that illustrates the benefits associated with each hearth rate zone (click image to enlarge):

Good to know!  I'm super excited to give my new little gadget a spin once I've got it setup.  While it wasn't cheap, if it helps me workout smarter, it's worth the investment.  Stay tuned....

Other than that, I've been keeping busy at the gym by switching things up between spinning, swimming, and the elliptical, all of which are low impact and thus tibia friendly. Happy tibia = happy O-livia. This Saturday I'll be going for a hike with JB instead of the race, so that will be fun and great exercise.  Plus, more fun in the sun!  Love.

xoxo,
Olivia

Steal My Sunshine

This weekend was fabulous -- it was sunny and in the 70s both days.  Love!

On Saturday I had brunch at Ris with The Proudfeet.  It was great to catch up, and brunch was so yummy.  Afterwards we stopped by TDR Island to roam around and soak up the sunshine. I've never been to the island, so it was exciting to explore.  The Proudfeet were nice enough to let me play around with their camera (they have a sweet Nikon D5000), and gave me some photography tips which was awesome since I'm interested in taking some classes over the summer.  Click here to see the beautiful pictures that they took!

Today was pretty low key. This morning I took Cooper to the dog park to romp around and enjoy the warm weather. We met another French bulldog puppy (4 months old) named Wilbur, and he and Cooper were instant friends.  Frenchie puppies are the cutest -- ahhh!  After not feeling well earlier in the day, I finally perked up and my roommate and Emily and I headed to dinner at Guapo's in Shirlington.  We were hoping to sit outside on the patio, but I guess March is a bit early for the outdoor seating.  Booo.  Any who, we still enjoyed a nice time out.  I had a frozen margarita (splurge!) and a chicken tostada salad.  I was trying to be healthy, but I think a taco "salad" still packs a good amount of calories in.  Oh well, it was delicious and a good treat :)

I took all last week off working out since my body was achy after last week's 8k, but I'm determined to get back into the swing of things this week. I registered for the J. Brian's 1.5k in Fredericksburg on April 10th, which should be a quick but fun race. I was tempted to try for the 15k but then reality hit me.  Maybe next year! 

It's back to the grind.  Have a great week!

xoxo,
Olivia

2010 St. Patrick's Day 8K Recap

I survived my first race, yipee! I agree that doing a 5K before an 8K is probably best, but this was all a learning process.

I ended up averaging just over a 14 minute mile for the race, which is above the pace I usually keep on the treadmill (typically between a 10-12 minute mile). I quickly learned that things are much different when you run outside... as in the ground isn't moving under you, and you have to deal with constantly changing surroundings (other runners, road conditions, weather, etc.). Somehow I also managed to pull a muscle in my leg last Friday, which was a bit irritating throughout. Overall, there were lots of walking breaks involved. But no excuses -- I'm still happy with how everything turned out, and now I have a point of reference for future improvement. 

Much love to my running partner JLB, who was very patient and stuck with my sluggish pace throughout the race...eventhough I know she could have gone much faster! :)

Here's a snapshot of the official results (via ChronoTrack):

First place went to Abiyot Endale, who finished in 24:20. That's just under a 5 minute mile pace. On top of it all, he didn't even have time to warmup because he forgot to set his clock forward, and arrived only a couple minutes before the start of the race (according to the website). He still managed to be freakishly fast. I'm in awe.

The rest of my weekend was pretty quiet -- Saturday involved lots of errands and a trip to Ikea for a new TV stand (I donated my old one to my baby bro, who's finally moving out of my parent's house and into his own place). After the race on Sunday, I was a hungry monster and just wanted to lounge around and do nothing. I did pretty much that... and studied for my International Business mid-term (which I took last night and I think went fairly well).  Cooper kept me company since he's all about the lazy lifestyle.  Check out those wrinkles:

I hope everyone has a great week. I'm super excited for the warm and sunny weather we're expecting in DC this week. I'm so over the rain!

Snowpocalypse

The DC area is getting pummeled with snow this weekend. Like 18-24" of snow. We're not used to this weather... it's like the end of the world is upon us. While I'm not happy that it ruined my weekend plans, it did get me out of work on Friday and it is really pretty.

I braved the cold to take Cooper for a quick walk, and snapped some pictures while I was out:

Winter Wonderland!

Did I mentioned it is was cold? So cold.

Coop had a blast though, he loves the snow!

... And my favorite action shot:

xoxo,

Olivia