I’m just going to pop in here really quickly. 

Tomorrow’s Friday! Wooo! It’s amazing how fast the week goes when I don’t have 3 midterms…

This morning I was planning on going to spin and then running for the first time post race with a friend. However, I realized mid spin class that I had to get something done ASAP. So running didn’t happen-looks like my first post race run will be another race!

I ended up with 2 extra hours in the morning before class, so I went to a coffeeshop and worked on homework-it was actually a really great and productive way to start the day!

And HELLO. It was sooo cold today! I swear it wasn’t as cold in the morning, plus when I ran out of my dorm I was still hot from a shower and spin-but I was FREEZING in my sweatshirt and scarf-it just never warmed up!

I didn’t take pictures of everything today, but there are some noteworthy things. I drank a lot of probiotics today. Let me just say-I love probiotics! My stomach was on the verge of really starting to hurt from eating so much late at night at our food party, but this little guy was a lifesaver!

This wasn’t my favorite flavor but it seemed healthy so I went for it. It was actually fine though-but a little gross when it was flat by lunchtime…

I also tried this-

I was planning on drinking this in the afternoon, but for some reason I kept thinking it was mango flavored. Weird. ANyways, I actually really enjoyed this. I love grape anything. And the chia seeds took some of the sharpness out of the flavor of kombucha. 

And if you’re wondering, no I did not just come into a large inheritance. Part of my meal plan is “meal plan dollars”-which I’ve never used up before. Well, now they work in a place with all these fancy probiotic drinks. If that made no sense, think of it this way-I call meal plan dollars “free money.” And they will most likely all me spent on fancy things like this. 

I had a flag football game-but the team we were playing had to forfeit because they didn’t have enough players. We ended up lending them a few players and just scrimmaging. 

After football, I had a kind of emergency errand. You see, I was kind of an idiot yesterday. I threw away my toothbrush in the morning. Without checking to make sure I had a new one. Which I discovered late last night when any place to buy a toothbrush on campus would be closed. Smooth one Aurora. Let’s just say I must have looked awesome brushing my teeth with toothpaste and a paper towel….

So yes, it was an emergency toothpaste run.

I have never seen such a beautiful sight. 

While at the bookstore (where I got the toothbrushes), I happened to see some crew neck sweatshirts. That were ridiculously cheap. So I bought 2-to be fair, I love wearing crew necks, but the only ones I have are black, so I wanted to branch out. But I’m pretty sure the same exact thing happened last year, which is how I ended up with so many sweatshirts…

I made dinner in my dorm-I just wasn’t really feeling dining hall food. 

Trader Joe’s Pumpkin soup, spinach with swiss cheese and pesto. I realized that it had been a really long time since I’d had swiss cheese, so I decided to change that. The pumpkin soup was good-I don’t know about you guys, but I do think it’s kind of boring to eat a soup with such a uniform consistency and flavor. Any ideas how I could spruce this up, or use it in a difference recipe? I still have half a carton.

I had a non-pumpkin fall inspired dessert-ish thing! Yogurt, apple butter, sunflower seed butter, and half a piece of zucchini bread. If you can’t tell, I have a whole bunch of frozen zucchini bread. This was some type of fancy yogurt. My roommate keeps thanking me for getting obsessed with yogurt last spring because it made her realize how much she loves yogurt. I think she repays me for that buy buying yogurt in large quantities and then needing help eating it all. I have absolutely no problem with that. 

Ok, I need to go! My room is a mess-I’m giving it a deep cleaning and rearranging this weekend, but it might need a pre-clean clean first. And I need to do homework and make a practice spin class for tomorrow morning. Have a great Friday!

Do you have an opinion on probiotics? Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s had a toiletry emergency?

Hey guys! I hope your weeks are going well! This week is definitely much lower key than last!

By the way, check out my guest post- Does Everything Happen for a Reason? It’s a departure from typical Fitness is Sweet content.

Since the weather has been changing, I keep thinking back to my life this time last year and being nostalgic. I miss rowing! One thing about frequenting the coffee shop here (besides emptying my wallet) is that I’ve run into a lot of my rower friends and had time to chat with them. One reason I’m glad I’m not rowing: they’ve been taking a lot of singles out. For those of you that don’t know rowing, this means that people have been flipping. A lot. Which was one of my greatest fears, and quite frankly, plunging into the bay at 6am doesn’t sound like too much fun. 

However, one (dry) way to relive my rowing glory days is to hit the erg and do some of the workouts we used to do. Workout nostalgia is totally a thing, right? I didn’t do any of our crazy long workouts because I’m just not in that kind of rowing shape, but I did 3×12 minutes, plus some quick abs. 

I decided it was silly to take pictures of every single cappuccino, so here’s an old picture.

Today, I succumbed to the inevitable. I packed my salad in a ziplock bag. I don’t know if this is genius or just the epitome of lazy. I don’t really have any good tupperware for salads, in my defense.
I also had to scan an entire meal in…to run in and get one hard boiled egg. My salad consisted of lettuce, egg, and TONS of spinach and artichoke hummus.

I also tried a green juice from my Whole Foods trip last week. I’ve had my eye on this for a little while, and I finally decided to try it.
It’s really good! I think I found my key to green juice-the pineapple and kale combo. I loved the juice I got in Hawaii that was kind of similar.
I then realized that it was freezing, and today was really not a good day to decided to wear only a long sleeved shirt.
Why am I telling you this? Because it meant I had to run back to my dorm and grab a jacket-plus eat pumpkin bread.
A lot more than just this slice. But don’t worry, the rest of the pumpkin bread is safely in the freezer. And I didn’t slice it, which means if I want any, I’m REALLY going to have to want it, because cutting a frozen loaf will be interesting.
I also tried Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Chai Latte mix! It’s really good-I made it with almond milk instead of water for a creamier flavor.
This evening, I went to Crossfit and lifted for the first time in over a week. Oh how I’ve missed it! Th strength portion was every minute on the minute of 3 backsquats at 75% of your one rep max. This was actually pretty easy for me, since I regularly do 8 minutes, with 2 reps every 30 seconds (which is tougher), at what happens to be the same weight. The workout was a good one too-it involved front squats, toes to bar, and a little bit of running (which felt awesome, by the way!)
On the way back, I picked up our CSA box!

I was able to drive it closer to my dorm, but I still had to bike back from the parking lot. My mom texted me about being careful to not drop it and make “pear sauce.” I biked back. With the box in one arm. I’ve gotten pretty good at biking one handed, but CSA boxes are big and heavy. And I’m not actually that good at biking one handed, I realized as I wavered around turns. I was more worried about not making “Aurora sauce”! But I did get back in one piece!
I decided I should probably go to the dining hall for dinner. Nothing special-chicken, salad, rice, squash.

Photography courtesy of my roommate because for some crazy reason I didn’t have my phone with me.
Our evening ended with an impromptu food party. My roommate and i definitely have the best foods, so we had a “spreads” party-fancy nutella, pumpkin butter, pumpkin cream cheese, sunflower seed butter.

It was fun! But I’m stuffed. And a little sugar crazy. Oh well.
Tomorrow, I’m planning my first post-race run. I think it will end up being 4 miles-I’m running with a friend. Oh, and I have a confession.
I kind of want to run a marathon.
There. It’s out there. I don’t want to say that I feel I’ve mastered the half distance, but I feel like I’m ready for another challenge. But here’s the thing-it wouldn’t be for a little while. Because of that, I’m going to do one more long run before I significantly reduce my mileage in 5k and 10k prep-I want to see how my feet hold up NOW, while I’m still in shape enough to do the longer distances. Better figure it out now than a month before the race when I start running farther, and have already been training for who knows how long. BUT don’t worry-I’m giving my body plenty of time first. Most of my running soreness is gone, but I’m still taking it easy for another week-I’m planning this one last long run for a week from Sunday. I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it goes…and what I decide!
What’s your next fitness goal?

I’m sorry for such a downer post yesterday! Call it a mid-college crisis, plus being sick. I’m feeling much better today. I gave in to my cold yesterday and took it super easy. As a result, I’m much better today! I’m much less worried about my classes now-I’m going to some extra reviews, and I pretty much figured out next quarter’s schedule, something else that has been hanging over my head! Just spending a few minutes to figure things out made me feel much better!

Plus, the next part of my Bio class is Biochem, which I love. I bought a Biochem book for fun in high school, so I should be able to kick butt on this next midterm!

Thinking about all this made me realize something-I need to get back down to my roots and what I am interested in. That being said, I want to watch one of my favorite Youtube videos this weekend (wild Friday night guys), and I want to blog about some different topics. One reason I started my blog was to share my knowledge about the scientific processes of metabolism and Nutrition. I did like one post on that! I want to do some research and do another post soon, because that really is what I love!

Now, onto the food! As you probably know, I ran my second half marathon on Sunday! My legs were feeling wayyy better today, so I did my first post-run workout. I did a 60 minute spin class I wrote myself a while back, but I definitely scaled it down. It felt good to sweat, but it was definitely nothing too crazy! I decided to skip the 7am class I would normally go to in favor of sleeping in and having more freedom with my workout. The extra sleep was much appreciated! 

Since I just ran a half marathon, I thought it would be fun to share what I ate before, during, and after the race for WIAW (and of course, thanks to Jenn for hosting!).

2 days before the race/the day before the race, I drank kombucha, which I decided was a really great idea. My stomach felt awesome in the days going into the race, but I definitely wouldn’t drink this on race morning!

My pre-race dinner was very simple, and not exactly the typical runner’s dinner. My stomach hasn’t been loving grains lately, and since I don’t eat them a ton, I decided I didn’t want to have anything too different. A salad with chicken it was!

I prefer my carb loading in froyo form. That’s a thing…right?

Before I knew it, it was 4:40am and I was having to shove food down my throat! I used to eat a Thinkthin bar and a piece of fruit pre-run, but I tried something different as part of my “mini Whole30” which ended up working even better for me because it was easier on my stomach, and therefore I could eat closer to race time (so I didn’t have to wake up so early!). My new pre-run breakfast is in theory a 2 ingredient pancake-egg whites and a mashed banana-plus cocoa powder-but since I’m a college student with no kitchen or in this case, was staying in a hotel, I make mine in the microwave. In a bowl. We can just pretend it’s a pancake, ok?

During my race, I ate most of 2 packets of Cliff gel. Pro-tip: it’s probably not the best idea to wait until the day before race day to restock on your race day fuel, especially when said fuel is only found at like one place. Let’s just say on Saturday I was frantically driving around town looking for some. I’m a big fan of CLiff because of the simple ingredient list. There aren’t weird ingredients, so it doesn’t taste weird. I actually took one of these without water for the first time during the race, and was glad I did because it gave me an instant energy boost. I took them at miles5 and 10.

Immediately after the race, I drank a chocolate milk that was being passed out. It was the best thing ever. It instantly perked me up. After gathering everything and meeting up with my parents, I returned to the hotel and had the next best thing ever.

A whole wheat bagel with chive and onion cream cheese and a hard boiled egg. We toasted the bagel in a pannini press. It was awesome. Those 2 items I think were key in my recovery, and the fact that I drank the chocolate milk right away helped as well. A couple of hours later, I felt completely refreshed (ok, this is an exaggeration. I could walk.) and had enough energy to run the end of my sister’s marathon with her, despite the extreme pain I had been in a couple of hours prior (tired pain not injury pain). The next few days were pretty much me eating all carbs everywhere. While it was probably not great to eat a lot of carbs and sugar, and hardly any veggies, I did recover really quickly. I’ve always found that if I eat a lot after a strenuous event, I recover pretty quickly. Here are some other carbtastic things that I shoved in my face refueled my body:

Free post race whole wheat cookies.

An epic pumpkin yogurt cup.
Lots of granola bars. This is partly because I was in a post race and cold induced daze and had no ability to plan meals/I had no food in my fridge.
A muffin my roommate baked while I was gone and saved for me. I love her!

Ok, I’m including this just because I packed it in my lunch today and it’s special to me because I earned it for free by running a half marathon. AKA-they passed them out after the race. I’m allowed to form emotional attachments with fruit, okay?

MASHED POTATOES. This was post race dinner. Delicious.
Aaand the best thing ever-PUMPKIN BREAD! I was planning on making this after the race, but that didn’t happen, so my mom made it for me and brought it to me over dinner-this dinner:
And here’s a million pictures of my pumpkin bread. Each loaf is half topped with a cream cheese/honey mix.


And now I promise I’m going to go eat some vegetables, like a good girl!
How do you fuel before, after, and during a race?