Monthly Archives: May 2014

The Color Run!

Hey guys! As I type this, my hands are still stained a bit blue. Yes, I’ve long since showered and I’ve washed them dozens of times. Why, you may ask? This morning, my friends/sister and I did The Color Run! I’ve never done a race that was at all like this before, so I was pretty excited! I woke up bright and early to pick up my packet and eat a banana.

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I brought a ziplock bag to carry my phone in during the race, but pretty soon just threw in the towel on keeping my phone remotely un-colorful. I wanted to document how pretty we looked after the blue station (my fav color!) and my phone quickly got covered in colorful dust, and then my ziplock decided to refuse to zip. So, here’s a recap mostly with pics!

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I think it’s definitely important to document the “before” of a race like this!

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Waiting for the start!

When we first started running, my legs felt heavy from standing around and doing a rough Crossfit last night (my #1 sign that I had regained my strength post-illness!) but by the time we went through the first color station, I was warmed up! We didn’t really know what to expect of the color stations. We jogged slowly through while volunteers squirted powdery color onto us.

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I think I got the most colored at the blue station! I loved how it matched with my shoes 🙂

Next, we came upon a cloud of purple.

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We then proceeded to go through yellow and pink as well. I thought the colors of The Color Run were really pretty. In my opinion, some of the other color runs use much darker colors that blend together and don’t look as good!

Before we knew, it, we reached the finishing shoot and received additional color packets to throw after the race.

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I was trying so hard not to get it in my eyes! This is after the first color throw, where everyone just throws their color packets at each other. Note the color of my face: unpainted.

We then met up with the rest of the group for the second color throw. Someone nearby us must have had green, because I got covered in it!

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One cool thing is that the race was sponsored by KIND bars, and they had free samples after the race. The exciting part was that they were giving out their new bars that don’t have nuts, so I could actually have one! Yay!

Back to the pictures-notice the color of my face. Well, I was still under the impression that I didn’t have any paint on my face. My cleaned off the best we could (I brought wipes to clean my hands/phone) and then put on our clean Color Run t-shirts to go out to brunch. I didn’t realize I had paint on my face until we walked into the bathroom to clean up a bit…and I realized I had developed quite a nice mustache.

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The brunch place we went to was fantastic, and they didn’t seem to mind all the colorful people! (We weren’t the only ones coming from the race!) If you’re ever in San Jose, I highly recommend Bill’s Cafe, on Willow Street. The menu looked fantastic, and it was hard to decide what to get! I ended up ordering the veggie skillet-veggies, egg whites, and cheese atop hash browns, and topped with avocado!

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They also had amazing looking pancakes and French Toast, including cinnamon roll French Toast! We all agreed that we need to go there again!

All in all, it was a great morning! I then proceeded to take the longest shower of my life. I’m mostly not blue, and even though I can’t find any dye in my hair, it was somehow dripping blue…I have yet to see how my laundry will look!

Also-PSA: running in workout pants with a hole is probably not the best idea ever. I have the worst chaffing of my life, which is currently patched up with gauze, a bandaid, and Neosporin.

Have you ever done a color run of any type? Or other fun run?

Reflections from a Formerly (?) Sick Person

I think I’m pretty much better! Yay! Thanks for all the well-wishes! I’m currently at a cafe on campus-I plan to spend the afternoon getting things done. My last couple of days I didn’t have a lot of immediate work, so I was pretty much laying low-and I think I’ve pretty much kicked this sickness! (Knock on wood!) Yesterday I felt much better, and this morning I woke up feeling normal, minus a stuffy nose. No fever, no weird aches! Yay! It’s weird having a sickness that goes away after a couple of days….the last time I was sick I had Mono and I had a fever for over a month!

This morning since I felt pretty much normal, I went for a baby tempo run. Overall, I was happy with my pace! And I definitely felt less stuffy afterwards.

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One major highlight of my day was watching the Spanish video my group made for class. We did a spoof of Iron Chef, and it turned out so well! I was in tears the whole time we were watching it! (Or maybe I just find myself really funny..?)

In other news, my friends and I have been doing our selfie a day for over a week! The goal is 365 days, and so far it’s been a lot of fun. If we can keep this up for the next year, it’ll take me through DC, home, the beginning of Junior year, and hopefully Chile! I’ll probably do a post on it in the distant future because I don’t want to bombard you guys with selfies regularly!

On the food front, breakfasts have been nothing new. Although I only have one serving of berries left!

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Lunch-turkey meatball with broccoli and avocado.

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And snack-morning glory bread! Over the summer, I’m going to try and come up with a recipe for this.

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The other day I bought chocolate milk for post-workout, so I’ve been enjoying that this week. (As in, still recovery from Murph!)
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Yesterday, I picked up our last CSA box of the year and jumped for joy at this week’s selection: BLUEBERRIES, giant apricots, and peaches!
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Now, for the reflections of a (formerly) sick person. I feel like this quarter I’ve been treating my body badly. Last year, I definitely was when I got so sick with mono-I never slept, rowed for hours a day, was super stressed, and ate not in the best way possible. This quarter, I’ve eaten some junk and felt junky, but pst importantly I’ve consume a lot of things that have caused allergic reactions. Sure, my allergy to nuts is getting worse so I react to much smaller amounts, but I’ve had a lot of hives this quarter. I haven’t been careful enough in avoiding nuts, or I’ve said “Screw it” and had some (not lately). In reality, I need to be more careful. My skin hasn’t been great thanks to this, and some of the hives are particularly not fun. And who knows what else may be going on besides hives? It’s possible I’m reacting in a way I can’t see-I really don’t know. Lately, I feel like I haven’t been able to do anything right! For example, the last two nights, I too Benedryll to help me sleep with my cold and because I was having seasonal/cat allergy issues. Well, both mornings after taking it I wound up with hives. Is it even possible to be allergic to Benedryll? Man, that would be ironic, wouldn’t it? In this case, I feel like I did everything right…and still hives. I don’t get it!

Ok, that’s my rant for the day. Moral of the story-treat yourself well to stay healthy!

 

 

Post-Murph Pain

I’m not linking up for WIAW today because I have so few food pics!

But let’s start with last night. I knew I was in for it when I starting getting sore the day of Murph! I didn’t sleep very well thanks to lingering allergies (or something-more on that in a minute). But when I woke up…WOW did my shoulders hurt. I’m not sure if my shoulders have ever been that sore. Like, to the point of lack of function. I went to spin, and just jiggling up and now on the bike was excruciatingly painful! Thank goodness yoga was mostly stretching-I don’t think I was capable of a Vinyasa! Most of the time I don’t mind soreness, but sometimes I get grumpy sore. Like when I”m so sore it inhibits function and just makes me irritable. Yeah, that was today.

Post-workout breakfast was yogurt+berries+sunbutter.

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My whole body was aching, plus my Achilles wasn’t great, so I took some Advil. Well, when the Advil wore off, I realized I was a little too achy, even post-Murph. And my forehead was hot, and I was feeling overall blah. So….yeah, I’m sick. I have a fairly low grade fever that I’m warding off with Advil, and lungs/nose that are going crazy from a combination of allergies and maybe sickness. I’ve had a low key day, so I’m hoping it passes in a hurry! Since I barely slept last night, I’m going to take Benedryll tonight to help me sleep and ward off any lingering allergies! Meh-this is what I get for going home for the weekend with my sick mother- my first sickness in over a year!

I only have a few other food photos. A slice of my bread (a lot of you were super close!) and all of my carrots.

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Excuse the selfie-it was my selfie of the day and I didn’t get a pic alone of the food…but me being the biggest weirdo. I wanted sunbutter+jam (berry compote) but I had NOTHING to put it on-no crackers, bread, tortillas, nothing. But what I DID have was some free samples from some race or another…of seaweed! So yes, I put sun butter and jelly on seaweed. And yes it was a little weird, but not bad!

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I also got chocolate milk for post workouts today. One thing I remember a Nutrition professor saying is that while protein+carbs are super important post workout, protein is even more important when your muscles are building, AKA when you are super sore and in pain, but most people don’t think to consume the protein then. Well, if you’re in enough pain, you do! So chocolate milk was consumed mid-afternoon.

And my last random picture: microwave brown rice and quinoa, and microwave Indian lentil dish (which tasted more Mexican than anything thanks to beans!).

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Ok, since I’m taking Benedryll, I need to get to bed early! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Memorial Day Weekend

First, a huge thanks to all those serving or who have served.

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(Source)

I also want to spend a moment honoring those killed in the Santa Barbara shooting. This truly is a horrific thing, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for the students there. They are all in my thoughts!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! I had a pretty busy one-not a million pictures but packed with fun, friends, and family! As we speak, I’m fighting heavy eyelids, and it’s still early!

Friday night was a retreat for my sorority. The girl’s house we stayed at had a wood burning oven, which was awesome!

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And a cat-even more awesome!

Here are some other Friday food pics: cappuccino, berries+banana+sunbutter, and dining hall lunch.

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Saturday morning, I drove the early car back to campus and went to 10am Crossfit. The workout included lots of ring dips, ring rows, and burpees, plus a long farmer’s carry at the end! (Farmer’s carry is holding a heavy weight-I had 2 20kilo kettle bells!)

Saturday was spent doing housekeeping related things-I FINALLY got a car wash, cleaned, and did some laundry.

I then proceeded to stay up much too late prior to an early morning run. I went home to run with Crossfit people there-at one of my favorite places to run! It’s the trail I did all my long runs on last summer!

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I did 6 pretty fast (for me) miles. Running with a group definitely makes me run faster than I would have otherwise! Our overall pace isn’t indicative of how we ran most of it, since the first mile was pretty slow. When I split off with a few other people from the main group, we picked up the pace quite a bit and ran most of it around a 9:15 pace.

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I was definitely sore from this! I then returned home to visit my parents and kitties-but not before being convinced to spend the night at home so I could do Murph at my home Crossfit today.

I refueled with a simple egg sandwich and some of my mom’s leftover birthday cake.

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After catching up with my parents, I was off to the mall for business casual shopping with my high school friends! The only picture I have from that was a froyo break.

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Dinner with my family was a favorite of ours-BBQ chicken salad. The salad consists of chicken breast with barbecue sauce, on top of a salad of lettuce, fresh corn, red pepper, onion, tomato, avocado, and olive oil and lime juice.

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I also managed to get plenty of kitty time! Although my allergies definitely flared up. Worth it!

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Monday morning, I did” Murph”! Murph is  a Crossfit workout named after a fallen soldier, Mike Murphy, and is traditionally done at Crossfit boxes on Memorial Day. It’s one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, and consists of the following:

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

It’s one of the longest Crossfit workouts, and is recommended if you’re beastly to be done with a weighted vest (which I of course did not do).

I’ve done this workout once before. Like last time, I broke up the middle circuit into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups (banded), 10 push ups, and 15 squats. I was conservative on the run, but I’m definitely slower running than last time I did this (although my legs may have been a bit heavy from the previous day’s run). I was about 20 seconds off of last time on the first run, and significantly slower on the second. 300 squats makes the second mile feel like death! Although I didn’t beat my previous time (3 minutes off), I was the 3rd person to finish, and the first female! My time was 47:30. But here’s the super crazy part. The pull ups were so easy! I used the same band I always use for WODs, and it just never got difficult like I was expecting! So after I finished the workout and gulped down water, I figured, what the heck. I’ll try some unbounded pull ups. (If you’re keeping track, I’ve done one pull up once.) So, I just did it. And it wasn’t hard, at all. So I did another. And another. What…?!? It felt just like doing the banded pull ups! So I’ve clearly been slacking off! I think doing 100 pull ups with the band really honed in my kipping technique..or something. It was awesome though! I’m going to try to keep up this new found ability!

And here’s a group shot post-Murph.

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Right before leaving this morning, I threw my experimental loaf in the oven. It was good, but still needs some work before it’s worth sharing. Any guess as to what it is? 🙂

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After Crossfit, I refueled with some of that, plus some egg salad and roused carrots. No pic, so here’s breakfast pre-Murph: egg sandwich with Monterey Jack, on whole wheat.

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And some of MY leftover birthday cake was consumed as well.

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And now here I am! I may not have had the healthiest weekend in terms of sugar consumption, but it was definitely active-I got some great workouts in! And I loved the time spent with friends and family. Now, I just gotta push through these last few weeks until summer!

What did you do for the long weekend? 

Positive Beliefs and the Results

You know one thing about having a blog? You take a ton more pictures than normal people. Or than you would have otherwise. My friends were talking about how they want to do a selfie a day for a year. I agreed to do it with them-but I promise I won’t be obnoxious and post them!

I have a couple of things to talk about today.

1. Struggles to eat healthy that don’t normally appear on the blog

and

2. PR city!

I just want to address 1 briefly. I know I’ve mentioned over and over how I’m still working on my college eating habits. I feel like there’s ALWAYS temptation, through muffins at breakfast, cake at hall meetings, or mug cake in my dorm. One thing I distinctly remember in high school was when my sister visited home from college, she just ate a lot more sweet things than we ever did. Now this has become me! It is just a different eating environment, and I’m still working on avoiding those temptations.

Breakfast after Spin: egg and cream cheese on an English muffin, with a piece of cinnamon french toast and a dab of a sweet french toast casserole thing.

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Blueberry muffins are definitely one of my weaknesses-this is definitely something I give in to!

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This actually isn’t sweet or particularly unhealthy-but I wanted to show you guys because it was a test run of a recipe I’m going to be making up this weekend, so stay tuned!

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Mug cake before Crossfitx2 because the first one was over baked. Pound cake mix and lots of egg, with chocolate chips. This was probably not the best thing before Crossfit because I felt really full and gross, but I had a major PR so maybe..?

 

 

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These are just an example of some of the things that don’t make it onto the blog. That being said-apart from this I still ate my veggies and other things today! I just want to be transparent-I’m not gaining weight from all those roasted carrots!

And now, done with all that negativity-onto the second topic. First, let me warn you that I’m probably going to pull an insert from my college admission essay which is super embarrassing, but totally relevant so I’m going to roll with it!

My hard work had taught me discipline, but in these new activities, I discovered the amazing things my mind could do. Yoga allowed me to explore my physical and mental edge, while instilling a sense of calm. In weightlifting, I learned to push through mental roadblocks, launching myself into uncharted territory. With my mind, I could push my body further than with sheer strength. With difficult lifts, I found that if the thought of failure crept into my mind, I would instantly fail. So I pushed failure from my mind.”

Now, let’s get past the fact that this was an admission essay and I was clearly trying to portray myself in the best way possible (but hey-I’m in college!) I really love the last two sentences though-I think they’re very powerful. Literally, I was talking about weight lifting. The second you think about failing a lift, you’re going to fail it. Today-I wasn’t that confident that I would PR (today was back squats)-and definitely not this much. But I went up to the bar with an attitude, with confidence. (For those that know softball/baseball, it’s the same thing with hitting-you need an attitude!) I never thought I was going to fail a lift-and I didn’t! I actually called it a day after my last squat was not pretty.

PRing today was just such a great feeling. Before my last lift, my coach actually came over and said “Shit, she’s about to out lift me!” (Not sure if I actually did though, haha.)

I ended up PRing by 25 pounds, for a backsquat of 205! I was DEFINITELY not expecting that! I feel crazy strong after that!

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(Shiny new bars at Crossfit today-perfect for shiny new PRs!)

The moral of the whole quoting my college essay thing is that positive thinking really does work. I reread my college admissions essay for the first time a few weeks ago, and I’m struck about how passionate and driven I was-and it makes me realize how complacent I’ve become! Positivity and passion are definitely things for me to work on this summer!

On a more sad note, our little campus cat passed away this morning-he was hit by a car. Every time I saw him, it truly did make my day, and he was the sweetest, friendliest cat. That being said-cat owners, please be careful about letting your cats out if you live near busy streets!

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