Restaurants
How can it not be a good day when you wake up to this view out your hotel room window?
After a long day of conferencing, it felt great to walk outside and discover it was warm and beautiful out.
It felt weird taking pictures of somewhere I’d been so many times. 
The roommates and I:
New mom and work-out rockstar Tina; fellow-RD and Fitbloggin’ speaker Katie; and newly accepted culinary student and DC local Amanda.
After our less-than-stellar crab cake dinner, we made sure to find a restaurant that would make up for it. When we saw M&S Grill had tables outside and could sit us fairly quickly {a huge achievement the weekend of Preakness}, we knew we’d found our spot.
M & S Grill is the little sister to seafood powerhouse McCormick and Schmick’s, so it was sure to please.
And it did. I’d had my fill of seafood, so I dug into a fresh strawberry spinach salad that pretty much knocked my socks off.
Spinach topped with strawberries, red onions, and spicy hot pecans, served with a thick and spicy peanut dressing.
Along with a side of parmesan potatoes in case the salad wasn’t big enough.
We must’ve spent a few hours at dinner since it was dark by the time we left.
And with that, Fitbloggin was over just as quickly as it started.
Social Media
Things you may have, should have, or would have learned at Fitbloggin’11:
1. If you have big {but not super big} feet, you get to rock the black New Balance sneaks.
2. Share your friends posts- it’s better than self promotion.
3. Updating your title tags after the initial publishing of a post likely won’t do much.
4. Workout pants are larger than they appear.
5. You’ll never become a good photographer if you don’t take pictures.
6. To be successful blogger, you need to hold yourself accountable- just like any other job.
7. Use language that is unique to you and your brand.
8. Even if you eat 80,000 Popchips, despite all beliefs, you will not turn into a Popchip. And you’ll still want more.
9. If you don’t ask for what you want, you’re just hoping and wishing.
10. Have genuine, real conversations with people.
11. Jumping on trampolines isn’t just for kids with pent up energy and ambition to flip each other high into the air with the highly sought-after double bounce.
12. It’s not about competition; we can ALL be successful in our own ways.
13. Zumba isn’t so bad after all.
14. Don’t keyword stuff. You will get penalized.
15. Owning a smart phone is essential if you want to succeed in life. You may only pick up on this being mentioned 50,000 times if you don’t own a smart phone.
16. Link to each other with good anchor text, not necessarily the name of the blog.
17. Social media is an SEO factory.
18. stolencamerafinder can help you discover your photos across the web using uber secret ninja codes embedded in your camera.
19. Watch out Facebook, there’s a new “poke” in town. Pokens all the coolest thing since sliced bread. I can already see everyone walking around in 10 years high-fouring each other. So long, business cards, you’re in the past.
20. Above all else, be true to yourself.
21. Hustle.
What did you learn at Fitbloggin, or what have you learned from your own experiences?
Restaurants
{And not just because Fitbloggin’11 is over!}
If there’s one thing Maryland is known for, it’s crab. Having grown up outside of Baltimore, I’m not stranger to crab- I can’t tell you how many birthdays were celebrated with a bushel of crabs steamed in the kitchen and smothered in Old Bay, with a live crab or two escaping the steam bath and skittering across the kitchen.
So when in Maryland, it only makes sense to eat crab…Especially crab cakes, where the cake is more crab and less, well, cake {aka filler}.
Within minutes of arriving in Baltimore, I headed straight for the crab cakes.
I had the pleasure of participating in both DC and Baltimore’s oh-so-welcoming rush hours. The extra hours in the car followed by both a shuttle ride and a stint on the Light Rail {not to mention a heck of walk} left me more than a little starving upon arrival.
Luckily I found my roommates for the weekend just as they were heading to dinner at Bo Brooks, a waterside seafood restaurant in Canton, not far from the Inner Harbor.
Instead of traditional crab cakes, I opted for something a little more interesting to mix things up a bit: Chesapeake Toast- mini crabcakes on a baguette with chipotle aioli.
They were nothing less than fabulous, despite being a little mayo-y for my liking.
Of course the Chesapeake toast whet my appetite for crab cakes, and I had to get them again the next night.
Unfortunately this time it wasn’t the same pleasant dining experience. Unless crunching down on shell after shell in your crab balls is your thing.
It’s not mine. Dinner at Mo’s was disappointing, and leaves a tarnish on Maryland’s stellar reputation for above-the-bar cakes of crabby goodness.
Though round 2 of the crab craving failed to satisfy, at least the company did!
{Don’t you love when people capture awkward photos of mostly-unsuspecting victims?}
Cross training
1 mile walk
50 minutes crazy zumba dancing
25 minutes hardcore fitness challenge
50 minutes 80s style trampoline jumping
= 1 tired fitblogger
Yesterday kicked off the 2011 Fitbloggin’ conference with a bang.
The morning started off bright and early with a 5K…that I didn’t run. I didn’t want to make my knee angry- there were trampolines to bounce on later. Instead I did a 1 mile fun walk sprinkled with wall push-ups and step-ups.
After watching a kettlebell demonstration, the sitting was over- time for some action.
Despite protests of my extreme dislike of Zumba, I decided to give it one more try. It wasn’t so bad this time around, and it was definitely a good workout. I was sweating in no time.
As soon as the dancing was over, it was time for leg blast fitness challenge with Cathe Friedrich. {Apparently a fitness workout icon that I failed to know anything about prior to this weekend, but she lived up to her hype.}
{Tina with Cathe. Post pictures courtesy of Tina!}
She guided us in a quick but intense lower body workout complete with resistance bands and paper plates-turned-floor slides.
Just in case we hadn’t gotten our fill of fitness yet, as soon as we were done, JumpSport Fitness rolled in a slew of personal-sized trampolines. The kind that were popular in the 80s, but updated and cooler.
Trampolining may be my new favorite workout. I was nervous it was going to hurt my knee, but it was so low impact that it felt great…new physical therapy tactic maybe?
Despite being fun and bringing out my inner child, it was a challenging workout. I could definitely see a trampoline taking up center stage in my living room…sound good husband?
School
I feel as though I’ve completely lost my sanity the last few days. The number of ginormous things I have on my plate is making my brain spin just thinking about it. I mean, of course I have 8,000 things going on…that’s why I stopped to read a collection of short stories…and two novels. I absolutely excel at procrastination.
But I sure did cross one major thing off my checklist yesterday:
I finished every.last.grad.school.assignment. EVER. All of them. Over. Done. Complete.Finis. Terminado. Finito. Fertig. Fardiga! {yeah, I looked that one up.}
There’ll be no pomp and circumstance, mortarboards, or horrific bags gowns, but I’m just as excited as if there were. Sigh-of-relief.
What shall I do with all this free time?! {Don’t let me regret using the words “free” and “time” anywhere near each other in a sentence later…especially considering that I’m spending the next 4 weekends in 4 different states…}
How about go to Fitbloggin?! 
I’m volunteering at the fitness/blogging/wellness conference this weekend- and going home!
Leave a comment if you’re going to Fitbloggin so I know who to look out for! I’ll be the one wrangling the mic.
