25 Miles

Yesterday, I biked my distance PR during a family biking outing. My youngest brother is in boy scouts, and for one of his requirements, he had to bike 25 miles. My family quickly turned it into a big event (yay bonding!) and planned to bike from Playa del Ray to the end of the strand. For those who don't remember my posts from last summer, the strand is a bike path right on the beach. 

My mom started off the day by making blueberry muffins that were amazing and pretty healthy. They had half whole wheat flour and less oil than normal muffins, but they still included a little oat streusel on top. I may or may not have had three of them (they were pretty small). I think I may try to recreate these later this week since they were so delicious, so get prepared for a possible recipe.

After breakfast, we packed up and drove the car to Playa del Rey to start our bike ride.

Our plan was originally to leave at 10:30, bike for an hour and a half, and then a have a picnic lunch on the beach in Venice. However, in my family's typical fashion, we were running really late and didn't leave until 12:30. By the time we started our bike ride, we were already on the look out for a place to eat, and chasing my dad--who had all the food strapped to his bike.

Biking with baguettes

We ended up biking to Santa Monica (about 6 or 7 miles) before stopping for lunch. Our picnic included baguettes with turkey for sandwiches, string cheese, bananas, peaches, and cookies including homemade oatmeal with white chocolate chips. 

Using a pocket knife to cute the bread haha

Besides a little period where we got lost in the streets of Venice, the whole bike ride went really smoothly. The strand is pretty much as flat as a course gets and we were going at a comfortable pace, so I didn't expect the bike ride to be that hard. Besides the sore butt (why are bike seats made so uncomfortable?), the ride wasn't bad until the 20 mile mark. At that point, my quads definitely started burning which surprised me. Luckily, the last 5 miles went by quickly. 

The best part about the ride was not only looking at the great ocean views, but also looking at all the really modern condos that are right on the edge of the beach. Around Venice beach especially, the condos have spiral staircases, bright colors, and really odd architecture. Sadly I wasn't coordinated enough to get pictures of a few of the most unusual buildings, but I did snap a few photos of the view even though they don't do the ride justice. 

Biking along the Pacific Coast Highway

Police in Venice

Not the best ones of the day, but I wouldn't say no to that house

The Strand

I spent the rest of the night alternating between laying in bed watching Friends and trying to remember if my hand have ever been sunburned before (apparently when biking this is a spot I will have to remember to apply sunscreen). Oh, and I had a small(ish) cheeseburger for dinner in between my laying around. :) 

My little brother actually has to do one more 25 mile bike ride for his badge, so I might go for another bike ride again soon! I'm already thinking of which one of my friends I can coerce into coming :)

Summer Plans

I've officially had two weeks of summer, but I'm finally starting/trying to figure out my plans for this summer.

I'm actually working as a Marketing Intern for a small company this summer. I usually get assigned to complete tasks from home, but today I got to go to a marketing conference in Santa Monica. So instead of working in lazy clothes, I actually got to dress up in business casual. And if I haven't said it before, I weirdly love business casual.

The conference was actually in the Museum of Flying which turned out to be a really cool set up.

I even got a sunflower from one of the marketing groups advertising campaigns which was very happy.

Almost as happy as having my camera working and being able to take pictures of my outfit and sunflower. Now without school to worry about and my newly working camera, I'm really excited to be able to start blogging again. But for now (this summer start up post is all over the place), I'll just jump right in to some of my summer goals since this blog is supposed to be a source of motivation for me. 

Work Goals: 

- Create a clear and efficient schedule for my internship so that I can focus when I work from home

- Possibly try to get a small job on the side to keep me busy and make a little extra money to save up for studying abroad

Workout Goals:

- I want to start training for a 10k! I haven't actually picked out a race, but I'm on the look out for one. 

Other Goals:

- Apply to study abroad for spring semester

- Keep up with Russian by practicing writing it at least twice a week

- Learn how to cook better (especially try new healthy recipes)

One of my goals is also to start working out in the mornings and stop going to bed so late (this post proves how I need to improve). Writing a post this late leads to a bit of randomness, but I have all summer to work on that! :) Hopefully this summer will be as great as last year's!

New Outfit and Week Workout

Hey everyone!
Whee! Workout for the week!
Monday- HIIT on the treadmill. 8 seconds sprinting 12 seconds recovering for 15 minutes. With an additional walking warm up/cool down for 3 minutes before and after. This ended up feeling more like a workout for my fingers (constantly pushing the faster/slower buttons was exhausting) than for my legs.
Tuesday- HIIT on the treadmill. 90 seconds sprinting and 3 minutes recovering. Repeat 6 times.
Wednesday- 2.5 miles around the school with my friend (we ended up walking a little bit).
Thursday- HIIT on the elliptical. 8 seconds sprinting and 12 seconds recovering. Elliptical is so much better for this workout.
Friday- Took the day off. How is it that the day I'm most free is the one that I don't squeeze in a workout?

I've been trying to incorporate more high intensity interval training in my workouts, but I don't think I've been pushing myself as hard as I could in them. I usually realize by the end that I've been restraining myself, and that I have a lot of energy left at each workout.  I'm going to have to work on going more full out this weekend/next weekend. Either way, 4 workouts in a row isn't too bad, and I'm happy I was able to fit them in with a busy week (of course on Friday when I had nothing going on except for 4 hours at my internship, finding time to work out was impossible).

PS. Since I spoke about wanting to document memories on my blog in my last post, I thought just for funsies, I'd post my latest favorite outfit. PPS for the few people who do read this don't judge me: I promise my pictures will evolve the second my camera works again :). Sadly, until I get my new camera charger from Amazon, you'll have to deal with my photobooth pictures.
It's crazy how even after a hard workout, nothing makes you feel cuter than wearing that outfit you've been planning for the last week.

Open back

high waisted deep green skirt

My great grandma's necklace

After a crazy couple days, I plan on sleeping in tomorrow, and getting some work done before I go visit Scott. After finally making a to do list for this weekend, I realized I've been in denial that this school year is almost over and my work is building up.
Have a great weekend!

Shocking turn of events: A new post!

After months of not posting, I've finally decided to go for it again. After months of posting almost everyday and then loosing my camera charger, I had realized I just wasn't interested in writing blog posts anymore. Classes, internships, clubs, and social events were (and still are) keeping my life much busier than it was in summer. Not to mention taking pictures of your food can get embarrassing when you're suddenly sharing meals with 60 other girls who live in your house.

However, I recently spent a lot of time procrastinating reading over my blog, and I fell back in love. I had no idea how much fun it would be to have so many memories documented to relive over again, when I may have previously forgotten about their significance. I love seeing how great of a summer I had, and being able to have a fun creative outlet that is just for me.

This blog also played a huge role in keeping me accountable with getting/staying in shape. I've written before about how everything about fitness fascinates me: blogs, workouts, races, clothes, other people's regimens. And although I do like working out, I'm typically very unmotivated. This blog gave me a jumpstart to working out regularly that held it's momentum until actually around the past month (I haven't stopped, but I haven't been working out as regularly or pushing myself).

Hopefully,  I can get back started and use this blog as a tool to document great memories and motivate myself a little more. So, in that spirit, here's a few memories from the past few weeks:

Spring break in Palm Springs with friends:

Hiking

Waterfall at the end of the hike

Out to dinner

Literally spent everyday by the pool

And this weekend was filled with a date at the Huntington Library with Scott:

So here's my not-so-eloquent dive back into blogging. Hopefully my posts will become more frequent (and have more thought put into them but my brain is fried from political philosophy and Russian) because I've missed Watermelon Smiles!