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I Should Have Done a Healthy Travel Series

Another weekend, another cross-country trip.

I really should have turned all these weekend trips into some kind of “healthy travel” series. Seriously. This weekend’s destination? The Boston area.

Because I’m gone SO much, I’m really trying to fit workouts in where I can, and maintain healthy eating habits (because if I don’t I will not feel too good…).

My flight Saturday morning left at a very sane time, so I didn’t have to leave for the airport until 9am. There were no Crossfit/spin classes early enough, so I went to the gym to do my own thing. I actually really like these workouts. I actually love the no-cardio lifting workouts, where there is no time pressure and I just work on what needs work. Because I deadlifted at Crossfit the previous night, I did squat day. I want to spend more time focusing on my power lifts (squats, deadlifts, bench). We’ve been doing sets of 20 reps for squats at Crossfit, but only at 60-75%. I wanted to try to work a little heavier than that. I worked by way up to 165# for doubles, which is heavier than I’ve been lifting lately, but still not that great for me. I did 4 sets of 2 at 165. I need more time with some heavier weight on the bar, that’s for sure! Then I did some accessory arm work: 3 sets of 8 single arm press (while kneeling on a knee) with 25# and 10 tricep dips. I finished it all off with abs via a Blogilates video. Abs, another thing that has been neglected lately!

A side note: I think my body is starting to feel the 3 teaching spin classes a week because I feel like I’ve been WAY hungrier than normal. Friday night, right as Crossfit was starting I got hit with that intense hunger despite eating normally all day. Huh.

I made myself a quick protein smoothie+Cheerios post-workout. I always try to squeeze in nutrients where I can because you never know what you’re going to end up with! Smoothie: frozen cherries, milk, cocoa powder, chocolate protein powder. Current fav (plus we’re out of frozen bananas).

I always pack plenty of snacks for the trip. I packed lettuce+hummus+a hard boiled egg to eat on the plane, as well as a few leftover roasted carrots. I was going to have that with crackers, but ended up passing a place at the airport with lots of delicious looking vegetables, so I picked up so butternut squash and brussels sprouts salad.

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We were lucky enough to get a nonstop (FINALLY), and arrived in Boston around 8:00pm. I’ve been anxiously monitoring the weather, and was happy to realize my 2 jackets from the plane were sufficient!

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On the way to the hotel, we stopped at Panera, where I had my usual half Fuji Apple Chicken salad, plus some gluten free crackers that I brought.

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We stayed at a Doubletree, as Doubletrees give you free, warm, delicious chocolate chip cookies. Sadly, I’m allergic to them (nuts) so I ate a granola bar in a sad attempt to replicate what I was smelling.

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Sunday morning, my dad and I both started the day with a 3 mile treadmill run. After that, we headed to the hotel’s breakfast buffet, which was a nice one. I had a few bites of egg and potato, and then had Chobani yogurt with Cheerios and fruit.

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Then, it was time to explore! The temperature was definitely manageable.

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We stopped in the nearby town of Worcester. The pronunciation of that is so silly to be. Apparently about half of the letters are dropped!

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We stopped at Wormtown Brewery to sample some local craft beer. We both tried Pumpkin Ale and Pilsner.

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Afterward, we drove into Boston, to Quincy Market in search of Wicked Good cupcakes.

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Lunch first though! There was tons of lobster and crab! I ended up getting lentil soup, a Greek salad, and rice pilaf. Sadly, it was far more food than expected so I didn’t finish most of the salad or rice.

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Sadly, the cupcake place was out of gluten free. My dad tried a chocolate sea salt caramel cupcake though, and said it was pretty good.

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Cupcakes in a jar—isn’t that fun?

Then, we were off on the streets of Boston.

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We went to the Boston Tea Party ship and museum. I saw it on the map on the way in and it looked interesting.

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We were all given feathers and backstories, and I thought my dad’s was hilarious:

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We started with a “town meeting” for some historical background, and then went out to the ship to learn more and toss some “tea” into the water.

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After, we headed into the museum to see some reenactment videos, more history, and part of one of the original tea boxes that was salvaged.

It was an interesting tour, and a fun way to kill an hour in Boston. Upon exiting, we found ourselves in the bakery/cafe, with the most amazing smell of chocolate chip cookies. Imagine my delight when I saw this:
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Finally, what I had been craving all trip! I got some with tea (of course).

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The sun was going down and the temperature was dropping, so we made the trek back to our hotel and had dinner at the restaurant there. I had a kale salad with roasted butternut squash, chickpeas, and chicken.

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And then got to enjoy leftovers from my pack of cookies!

Monday morning hotel breakfast was similar: yogurt with cheerios and fruit, plus a bit of eggs.

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Lunch was a catered Chipotle burrito bowl, with plenty of guac.

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The best part of the day?

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Obviously.

Finally, it was time to head for the airport. We grabbed some food to eat on the plane. I got a salad with goat cheese and some kombucha, and ate it with crackers.

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Other plane snacks included a protein bar, smoked salmon jerky, cheerios, and an apple. When we arrived home around 10:30, my mom had some vegetable soup waiting for us.

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But more importantly, she made a mini gooey butter cake! If you recall my St. Louis adventures, gooey butter cake is a St. Louis classic. She made a version with GF flour. This was a little different than what I had in St. Louis, a little less gooey and more custardy than sweet, but was still delicious!

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And now my friends, it is back to temporary reality. I’m home for a whole 2 days, which includes teaching a spin class and taking a final, before I’m off on my last (albeit long) adventure! My final trip takes me to 3 eastern locations, and lasts 10 days. Stay tuned as I freeze my face off!

SO. EXCITED.

YAYYY IT’S FRIDAY! And guess what?? I’m throwing a guacamole party tonight! I’m so pumped, I LOOOOVE Spanish music. And I’m bringing this bad boy out. ImageYes, I own a sombrero.  🙂

I didn’t end up running this morning because I was up a bit late studying for a Psych midterm today. Breakfast was yogurt from the dining hall (non Greek, booo) with banana and sunflower seed butter, plus some pancakes. ImageMy midterm went well, I had an extra half an hour! After the morning’s pancakes, I settled on a south western chicken salad for lunch. ImageAnd I may or may not have gotten some chocolate mousse with my dining hall dollars. 

I’m seriously trying to break my habit of snacking, and in Psych we talked about Classical Conditioning. This is Pavlov’s dog; he rang a bell before feeding them so they started drooling as soon as he rang the bell. Me walking into my room after class is like ringing a bell. Step 1 was clean my room and create a different environment. It seriously needed it! Taking out the recycling….Image#Obsessed.

Step 2 was get a new habit/sport/after school activity. And today it occurred to me! Biking! I love Spin, so it seemed to be the next natural step, right? I twisted my ankle today walking out to my bike (yes, just walking) so I was glad my afternoon activity was biking and not running! It was an absolutely beautiful day, so this was perfect. And actual biking uses slightly different muscles than spinning, so my butt was burning! Also: at one point I had to stop to extricate a small animal from my eye…yayy flies. Here’s a picture I took then.ImageI need to find actual bike trails. I followed a sign to a bike bridge and was super excited, but it really wasn’t that exciting.ImageAnd then I found myself biking on a bike path through a park…which turned out to be SUPER small…ImageOverall though, I loved it! I was able to experience the world around me better than I can while running. I can definitely see this as becoming a hobby. And it is another step towards my dream of becoming a spin teacher!

When I returned, I began the process of cleaning my room while watching the news. I’ve been following the whole thing all day/night. It’s insane, and I am so glad the caught the bombers. Again, my heart goes out to anyone affected, and I give thanks to all the brave people who put these criminals to justice.

This evening, I went grocery shopping with my friends and sister in preparation for my guacamole party tonight. I also restocked yogurt, although they were out of all the non-expired of my favorite yogurts. Darn. It was almost 7 by the time we got back, and my roommate and I decided all we wanted for dinner was yogurt, so I skipped my sorority event and ate in. ImageThe last of my frozen pumpkin bread with vanilla greek yogurt and sunflower butter, and spinach/mixed veggies with a wedge of garlic and herb laughing cow. Hit the spot!

After dinner, I finished cleaning (and vacuumed, yay! The dorm vacuum had been MIA for a while…), and made my playlist for tonight. Have I mentioned I love Spanish music? 

I’ll let you all know how it goes tomorrow!

Do you have any fun hobbies? Are you “conditioned” to do anything?

Roll Outs

At my school, it is customary to “roll someone out” anytime they join any group on campus, and sororities are no exception. Roll outs involve the said group coming to your dorm room early in the morning and banging loudly on the door and screaming. Yes, this does wake up the whole dorm. I suppose that is the point. In case you’re wondering, a lot of times the groups have to climb in a VERY high window in the lounge. Since I’m always up early for workouts (and in the past, crew) I see  lot of these people. Funny story, one day I saw my sister mid-window in my dorm while I was leaving…ANYWAY. On the calendar we got, today had “surprise breakfast-8 am) listed. Good thing too, or I would have been at the gym! I was up at 6:15 to lift weights. I began with cleans, and actually got within 5 pounds of my 1 rep max for full cleans, even though I was only doing hang cleans! I decided not to push it because I’m scared to drop weights here. Maybe next time! I followed it with the same Crossfit style workout I did last week, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 or bear complex and burpees. I started with a lighter bar (because last time I dropped down after the second set) but I improved my time by almost 5 minutes! Awesome! It was a quick and dirty workout. I was dripping and panting ], all in about 45 minutes. I got back with just enough time to get a shower in before my roll out. Yeah, good luck catching me asleep!

Most sororities here roll their girls out around 6, and get them black out drunk by 8. Yeahhh we didn’t do that. They took us to a nice breakfast with delicious pastries, and they gave me this:Image

SO CUTE. Breakfast was very carb-y, and I knew it would put me to sleep. Afterwards, I hit up the dining hall for some protein in the form of eggs and a little coffee. Yeahh my first class was interesting. I felt like the caffeine and carbs were at war in my body, one fighting to put me to sleep, the other to keep me awake. But I made it through. So maybe I can eat carbs if they’re always accompanied by coffee? Great plan, right?

For lunch, I decided I shouldn’t be spending so much money, and should take advantage of my meal plan, so I went to the cafeteria area to pick up a premade southwestern salad. Image

Truffles are on my meal plan too. 😉ImageImage

I was sort of planning on an afternoon run and yoga, but my knee was bothering me a little. I think I did something funny when I was catching one of my heavy cleans in a squat. I guess the rest worked, because it feels fine now! Snack was a yogurt bowl.Image

I believe that is the end of my yogurt. 🙁

For dinner, I ventured to the far side of campus to experience the finest dining hall. It turns out it was faculty night there, so the food was extra good, and it is already the best dining hall on campus. Image

Salad, breaded salmon, brussels sprouts that are actually cooked (crazy concept, right??), and the famed honey biscuits (in whole wheat and regular form). Yum! And dessert was chocolate fondue with the all kinds of things to dip. No picture though, whoops! Plus, since this is a peanut free dining hall, they had sunflower seed butter. Let’s be honest; I could never have that as my primary dining hall, and I’m glad it’s far away. I’d be 500 pounds! They had a menu up…they have CINNAMON ROLLS for breakfast. We have…toast. Meh. I’m sooo full though.

When I got back, I spent about an hour talking/complaining to my roommate about Nutrition and why our government stinks in this respect. I love that we can have conversations like this. There is some program that we saw that delivers produce to your doorstep, and I think we’re gonna split this. Kale is on sale…kale chips anyone? Finally something I can make in the kitchen that no one will want any of, haha!

So, some of you may have heard of Run for Boston. The idea is you get a big group of people together wearing blue and yellow and hold up signs saying Run for Boston, and then post them on the facebook page. Someone sent an email out at my school, and it sounded like it was going to be a big event. It was after dinner, and Iw as running on a very full stomach (and I may have eaten a cookie literally 2 minutes before leaving) but I figured a little stomach discomfort was the least I could do (it ended up being fine, by the way)

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I was expecting to get there and see a huge crowd of blue and yellow.

Nothing. All I saw were 2 people in blue running, and some frat boys pledging. Image

Shot gunning beers and then running in bathrobes and dresses? Why not?

I have never been so disappointed in my school as I have been regarding their response to the Boston tragedy. People talk about the “bubble” here, where you don’t really experience the outside world. I’ve never felt that more than with this. On Monday when I found out about the bombing, I went to the lounge to break the news to the people there. They knew. They just didn’t seem to care. I didn’t get it. How could their worlds not have shattered, like I had felt mine did? And today….really, no one could step away from their busy lives to show their support? I love my school, but my complaint is that they don’t seem to care about important events outside of school, and frankly I see that as a little selfish.

Either way, I’m glad I went. Image

Once I reached my destination, I decided to walk, because it offers me more time to think. I can never seem to get lost in my thoughts while running. I’m too busy thinking about running. Walking, however, is perfect. I don’t often walk in peaceful places, so this was the perfect opportunity to gather my thoughts. ImageImageImage

I decided that not only is my body strong, but I could be getting more out of it. This Marathon tragedy has inspired me to really get into running and push my limits. I really want to do a long run on my birthday. I would LOVE to get a 10 mile run in, but given my birthday is coming right up, I’m not sure that is possible. So I’m going to run for as long as I can on that day. For the next couple of weeks I’m going to shift my fitness focus towards running. I’m nixing my timed mile on Friday in favor of a longer run. Since I ran a 5 miler last week, I think I’ll try 6 on Friday. Happy running!

What do you do while running? Think? Listen to music?