Here’s the post.

My first thought upon reading it was, “Wow, look how far I’ve come.”

At that point in my life, I was quite a mess. No getting around it. My classes were crazy stressful and I was struggling in them, and I had the added pressure of uncertainty with what I wanted to do with my life. Also, around that time I had recently finished my 100% whole foods challenge, and that messed with my head quite a bit. Post-challenge, my eating habits were erratic and as a result I was pretty anxious.

Now, I feel like I have things mostly figured out. I’m enjoying my classes, studying hard, and doing pretty well. I figured out what study methods work best for me. I’m working ahead on all my assignments so everything is pretty low stress. 

2 years ago Aurora. How did my hair look that good?? Also how is that dorm lighting decent?

I know what I want to do with my life now. And I’ve taken steps to get there. I have a plan. Well, for the most part.

I work some. I teach spin. I am comfortable with who I am, and I understand who I am. I mean, as well as a 21 year old is capable of doing.

And finally, my eating habits are better and more stable than they’ve ever been. Granted, my stomach issues kind of force that. But I finally feel like I’ve figuring things out. In a few weeks, I intend to do a whole post on this, but I’ve been feeling good. I’m happy.

Multiple times lately, I’ve stopped myself and thought “life is really good right now.”

I’m trying to get excited for my next chapter, but I’m also not ready for the end of this life. I’m trying to soak up every moment of my last year. How did this happen??

I guess college really is a time for growth, and I’m so happy I’ve been able to document that on my blog. It’s little moments like this that make us realize how much we change, often for the better.

This week has been surprisingly low-key. Which is some ways is actually unfortunate because I know I have a lot of craziness coming up that I can’t get ahead on!

Anyways, WIAW. One thing that wasn’t from my full day of eating that I still want to share because it was definitely the best thing I’ve eaten all week was this ice cream.

Tin Pot’s TCHO chocolate. Yes, here in the Bay Area, we have designer chocolate. This is hands down my favorite ice cream in the world. The texture is perfectly smooth, and the (local, SF) TCHO chocolate flavor is dark and rich. Tin Pot also has a lot of other awesome flavors but I can never bring myself to get anything but my favorite! My friends and I decided that gourmet ice cream needs to be a more regular thing, given we’re also extremely close to Smitten (Nitrogen ice cream).

Back to a full day of food, the regularly scheduled programing!

Pre-workout:

I went home for dinner on Monday, which meant that I returned with a delicious set of snacks. This lemon poppyseed bread was a GF version of this recipe. The flavor was on point, but the texture was a little weird. A little dry? Maybe from using GF flour, or maybe because I cut down on the sugar. I think I’m going to try combining the flavor of the lemon poppyseed with the texture of the cranberry orange bread I’ve been making lately.

Workout:

Crossfit was a doozy. Apparently we’ve been killing arms lately. I’m still recovering from pull-ups on Thursday. Strength was sets of 3 hang power snatches. My shoulder is finally feeling strong stabilizing overhead, and I worked up to 75# which I think is the most since my injury!

WOD: 3 5 minute AMRAPS, 1 minute rest of the following:

60 calorie row

50 pull ups

40 burpees

30 push press

20 push ups

I barely made it to the push ups and my arms were done!

Breakfast:

Plain nonfat Greek yogurt, cherry+blueberry fruit blend, sunbutter. Plus an assortment of crackers.

Lunch:

I had leftovers from dinner at home. I’ll share that picture first because it’s much prettier, and then show the reality of tupperware lunches.

This was a fennel and spinach soup with roasted red pepper yogurt sauce that I found on Cooking Light’s top soup recipes. Last night, served with corn tortillas broiled with parmesan and herbs. At lunch, served with GF everything crackers.

Mid-class survival:

Since I have to eat lunch on the early side, I packed a few crackers to eat in my last class so I wouldn’t be crazy hungry when I got home.

Snack:

A bite of quesadilla:

And a honeybell (grapefruit crossed with tangerine)+ one of my custom raaw macaw bars. This one has a date, sunbutter, and oat base, and contains chocolate chips and dried cranberries.

Workout #2: Teach spin. The air system was broken so it was a completes sauna in there. Everyone was sweating buckets—the spin studio was at least 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the gym! I made sure to drink lots of water.

Dinner #1:

Grilled chicken breast (not bone in, which was exciting), salad with caesar dressing, grilled veggies. Plus an AMAZING gluten free brownie. The chef recently started making more desserts gluten free! The brownie had a slight tinge of cinnamon, and it was salty, gooey, and delicious. I would have loved a second one but my caffeine tolerance couldn’t handle it sadly!

Close up:

Dinner #2:

The other part of the quesadilla from earlier, plus half of my other flavor of raaw macaw bar (double workout days=more food!). This one has a cinnamon sunbutter base, and has sea salt, chocolate chips, and tart cherries,

And that’s my day of eating! It’s only 9pm but my bed is looking awfully enticing already…

What is your favorite baked good?

Mine might be muffins (like real muffins, not the healthy kind)—love the blueberry muffins from the box, with fresh blueberries thrown in, and then topped with sugar. Even better in bread form.

6:33: Get out of bed. I woke up about 15 minutes earlier, and am getting up an hour before my alarm thanks to an early bedtime!

Record the night in my sleep journal, which I have to keep as homework for my Sleep and Dreams class. It was a good night’s sleep!

Then it’s time to get ready for my morning workout. In this process, I accidentally started updating the software on my phone which took foreverr and was super frustrating while I was trying to take pictures of everything. GRR. Some photos had to be taken retroactively.

Daily vitamins: probiotics plus a gummy multivitamin. I know they’re mens, but the differences are not significant and when I couldn’t find my normal brand I went with what looked most delicious.

Next, I head downstairs for a pre workout snack and realize I have a friend.

Was not expected that! He has quite a presence in the corner there. We’re having a Star Wars themed dinner in my house on Friday, which I’m assuming is why he’s there!

I go in search of the gluten free crackers.

I usually do about 2/3 of a serving pre-run, and there were only about 5 crackers left so I supplement with another 5 from a bag in my room.

7:15: Check weather and bundle up (although not enough because #CAgirl).

7:30: Get going on my track workout!

I start with a one lap warm up and then stretch. I’m less than 2 weeks from race day, so I’m honing in the paces a little more. I planned to do 3x800m at 8:00 pace with a 3 minute rest in between because my track workouts have been around that distance lately, but then I realized that was silly because on Sunday I ran 1.5 miles at that pace with no rest, so I upped it to 4x800m plus a 400m sprint at the end. I’m happy to report that I felt good and solidly hit my paces!

I made it halfway through the workout before caving in to the gloves. #CAproblems

I finished around 8 am.

8:15: Back at the house, it’s breakfast time! The yogurt in the house right now is full fat plain Greek. I topped about half a cup of that with a peeled persimmon and sun butter. I spent some time trying to arrange it to not look like something the cat threw up, and I assure you it looks much better in the picture than in person.

While eating, I scroll through my Timehop and find this post.

1 year ago today was my first flare up, which means I’ve been dealing with this illness for a year now. I’m definitely doing better, but I had no idea what a rough road I had ahead of me at that point!

On a happier note, here’s a time hop of baby freshman Aurora.

After breakfast, I pack up my food for the day. I’m out of the house all afternoon and through lunch.

Then I shower and get ready for the day. I have a piece of this gum along the way! So good. I ordered like 12 of these off of Amazon.

It’s about 9:30 now and I don’t have class until 11:30. I spend this time finishing up my spin class—I didn’t choreograph the last hill—and doing some Psych reading.

Along the way, my stomach starts to feel a little funny so I have a few crackers hoping that it’s not in the process of flaring up.

11:15: Leave for class. I bike, but it’s clear across campus.

I love this shirt but it kind of makes me crazy to look at…

11:30: Animal Enrichment Lecture. This is an awesome class. Senior pre-vets have the option to do it, and we meet once a week for lecture and once a week for hands on time with the animals. Last week, we got to hang out with pigs! Today in lecture we talked about pigs—various breeds, behaviors, and how to handle them.

12:45: Lunchtime! Class ran a little bit late today. I have leftovers for lunch. Sweet potato chicken soup and a cornbread with a drizzle of honey.

Right before lunch my stomach started feeling a little funny and while I hoped it was just because it was empty, I suspected it might be more than that. After lunch I took my first stomach med of the day in hopes of staving off the issues a little bit. I love these new tums—they’re chews and are pretty tasty! Despite my concerns, I powered through my meal because I needed the calories for my spin class that night.

1:15: Leave for my 1:30 class.

My 1:30 is Sleep and Dreams, and today we talked about Lucid Dreaming (being aware that you are dreaming). It’s pretty cool how they proved it! The lucid dreamer was able to give eye movement signals from within a dream.

2:20: Break between classes. I was supposed to eat my pear at this point to meet my morning calorie goal, but it was clearly not happening. My stomach started getting angrier.

I spent more time doing Psych reading. The reading is on Depression.

2:45: Pop a single pepto to try and quiet my stomach enough to eat my afternoon snack because I HAVE to get at least those calories in before teaching spin that evening. Hate my body a little bit. I do develop a theory about what caused the problems today though. I had a persimmon this morning, and can link flare ups to two other instances where I ate a persimmon. This was a late variety persimmon, and both other instances were this same type, so maybe it’s this particular type that is an issue, and the other ones I had earlier in the season were ok? I can’t actually think of any cases where I had this type of persimmon without a flare up. So I suppose persimmon season will be prematurely ending for me :/

3:00 Sex and Gender in Physiology. Today we’re talking about hormones.

Thankfully, I’m starting to feel better and have a Luna bar in class. I have to be pretty precise with the timing so that I’m neither full nor starving by 5:30.

Dealing with my stomach is such a freaking process.

4:30: Arrive at my dorm. I ordered more stomach meds on Amazon and am pretty pumped that they’ve arrived because I’m out of the orange flavor and am getting a bit tired of berry. I think I just need to accept that these are my life right now.

I’m feeling a lot less like death than earlier, but still a bit rough and since I’m teaching spin, I take a full dose of pepto and of my new Tums. I really try to avoid taking these when I can, but Spin can be rough so it’s worth going all out. Thanks to my stomach, spin teaching days are especially stressful because I HAVE to be feeling good come 5:30.

4:30-5 Get ready for spin. The stomach meds are working. They are amazing. They are a lifesaver. My stomach returns to its normal size and I get pretty hungry. Uh oh. Nothing to do now though—my stomach is definitely not happy enough to eat right before class.

5:10: Bike over to class.

Again, bundled up. I was freezing all day, so 2 jackets it is.

5:30: Teach spin! Last night I was inspired to choreograph an epic, disgustingly heavy hill, and my class just nailed it. It was awesome! Even better? My stomach 100% behaved itself. I thought I might have problems from being too hungry, but it behaved! Yippee!

6:30: Dinnertime! On the menu is turkey with olive tapenade, and rosemary roasted potatoes (with ketchup of course). I had some greens on the side with light champagne vinaigrette, which I bought myself because I’m sick of the sugary dressings we have! I also grab some greens for second dinner later on, and for lunch tomorrow since I’m packing again.

This much meat is probably not wise, but I’m starving and don’t have too many other things on my plate.

For dessert, I have a few chocolate covered gluten free pretzels.

I also grab part 2 of lunch tomorrow to claim for myself: gluten free pizza, AKA pizza made on a tortilla! There’s only one without sausage, so I don’t want it to get eaten up!

7:15: Start typing up this post while trying to decide if my stomach is going to rebel again or if the flare up actually seems over.

7:45-8:15: Work on more Abnormal Psych reading. Decide my stomach is happy enough for second dinner.

This absolutely hit the spot. Gluten free bread, spinach, egg, and a sprinkle of mozzarella. Egg cooked in the microwave because I don’t need anything fancy! I also had a couple of bites of potato and half of a kettle corn rice cake for “dessert.” I’m trying to work more real foods (plus veggies and protein) into my late night meal, so this was perfect.

I spent the next 30 or so minutes doing more reading and then headed to a women’s health event downstairs where I had a couple of pieces of chocolate.

Now, it’s approximately 10pm. On the agenda is the rest of my reading. It’s definitely not imperative that I finish tonight because I have plenty of time tomorrow morning before class, so I’m going to pack it up around 11 and get ready for bed then most likely!

That’s my day! I guess it turned into a “day in the life with stomach ailments” but hopefully that gives you some insight into my day to day happenings!

What does your day look like?

When the teacher asked us to set an intention for the class, I decided on “healing and moving forward.” That was cause for some reflection. There I was, standing on my mat. My shoulder was strong, my stomach was calm.

2015 was a difficult year health wise for me. Just to be clear, overall I actually really loved 2015.

But 2016 will be the year of healing. Healing and moving on from the issues that plagued me throughout the past year. It’s time to look forward with optimism.

Another thing that’s bringing on this post is how much better my stomach has been lately since making some changes. It’s definitely not perfect, and I have to be very vigilant, but I feel like a new person. Now, it’s easy to fall into bad habits that might harm my stomach (aka overeating) so this is a precarious balance, but I’m hoping that knowledge is power and I’ll continue on as I am.

Last night was a senior night. On senior nights, my school buses the seniors to and from downtown. I wasn’t actually able to make any last quarter due to scheduling conflicts, but I remember wanting really badly to go to the one the first week of class last quarter but being too sick to go.

Last night, I was able to go. And I was so grateful. Grateful for my health. Grateful to be able to have fun like a normal personal without the intense worry about how my stomach would behave. It was such a stark contrast to how I was that time last quarter.

Right now, I’m grateful for my health and all that I can do, because it is not something to ever take for granted!

Now that I’m (hopefully) getting into a groove with my new eating habits, I thought I’d do another WIAW link up with Jenn and the gang.

Before Crossfit, I had another piece of Cranberry orange bread. Love it.

Crossfit was really tough. The workouts at this Crossfit are hard, I’ve determined! Haha. They tend to be longer. This one took me about 14 minutes.

3 sets

15 box jump w/step
10 no push up burpee
5 power clean and jerk
250m row
Rest 1

Post Crossfit, I had some fage 2% with homemade cranberry sauce and sun butter. Cranberry sauce is the easiest thing to make. I had no idea. I just threw leftover cranberries on the stove and eyeballed water and sugar. This is probably tarter than most which is fantastic!

My first class today was at noon, so I packed a lunch and ate early. Miltons GF everything crackers+leftover Tuscan Chicken and Vegetable stew.

After a couple of classes, I came back and had my afternoon snack. I grabbed a couple of slices of turkey on the way in with a piece of avocado, and then had one of my Raaw Macaw bars.

After doing some reading, I headed to the gym for a short spin workout. The classes I teach start up again next week and I have a ton of new music, so I wanted to get a feel for the choreography.

I was hungry when I got back so I had a few more crackers to take the edge off.

One thing about having to eat small meals is I have to be careful not to get ravenous because I have to really be in control when I eat my mini meals.

Dinner came shortly after—for some reason this looks like more food than it was, but I had some roasted sweet potato, roasted garlic kale (SO good), and a small salad with rosemary chicken and sesame dressing.

Dessert #1 was an Enjoy Life gingerbread cookie. These are so good—soft and spicy! I prepackaged a few desserts before coming back to school to help with portion control and because it makes me feel more organized.

For the first time, I grabbed dinner #2 while getting dinner #1. This is mostly because I think I need more vegetables, and the vegetables are never present as leftovers from dinner.

I only ate about 1/2 of the drumstick because I wasn’t really feeling it. The disadvantage of getting food beforehand is that it’s hard to be intuitive about what I need so I’ll reconsider that in the future. For second dinner dessert, I had 3 GF chocolate covered pretzels.

And that’s a wrap!

What’s your favorite kind of quick bread?

Quickbreads are one of my favorite things so I’d love an idea as to what to make next

I love to tell stories; it is who I am. There is something amazingly satisfying about making someone laugh, turning the mundane into the absurd, turning nothing but free-floating thoughts into a cohesive entity. I love weaving together morsels from here or there, the threads of stories that are either my own or repurposed from another source. I used to fear the loss of stories—I embarked on a project of taking a selfie a day for a year simply so that each day I had a compact memory, a story I could not lose to the abyss of time. Then, I realized that my stories make me up—they stand alone and cannot be lost as long as they are told. So I continue to tell my stories to anyone and everyone who will lend an ear. I tell of my adventure of nearby getting caught on a giant lightning rod (a sailboat) during a colossal thunderstorm, of my dad climbing out the fifth floor of his college dorm on a rope—just to see if he could—and then getting stuck halfway down, of the night I stayed up to watch the sunrise just because I could, but was too afraid of heights to climb up on the roof to see it. I tell of the most interesting case I have seen from my summer job at a vet (a dog under the influence of marijuana), of the latest trouble my puppy has caused, of the exploits that have to be censored for certain audiences. I tell of the dead squirrel that prompted a major shift in my future career, of 6am wake up calls to prank a friend, of staying up late and only sleeping two hours to wake up early to exercise because my sleep-deprived mind was incapable of the thought process necessary to determine I should sleep in. These stories are my own, but by telling them I share them and they can become someone else’s to own, to recycle, to stitch together to create something new. They gain a life of their own, independent of mine—a life that may be longer than my own.

Speaking of sharing…I haven’t blogged much lately. I’ll almost certainly blog more over the holidays, but I honestly feel like not that much has happened, or at least not much Internet worthy. Just typical college stuff.

My high school friend visited, which was super fun! We both wanted to go shopping, so that was enough of a reason! Over the course of 2 days, I basically bought every long sleeved shirt in existence. I <3 long sleeves. The goal of shopping was actually to find lion colored clothes-more on that soon.

We also went to my friend’s Wind Ensemble Concert:

My friend is also crazy enough to want to track down a spotlight with me. There had been a HUGE spotlight in the air all week, and it was driving me crazy not knowing where it was coming from! We took to the streets and tracked it down. Success.

The course? HP. Typical. Gotta love Silicon Valley. We then proceeded to videochat our other high school friend for 3 hours…much needed!

I was met that weekend with quite the delivery-my roommate went home and brought persimmons! The obsession continues.

The following night consisted of dinner with my parents, an awesome prank, and a friend’s birthday party.

I brought a giant cake.

I feel pretty confident that none of the prankees will ever find my blog, so I’ll go ahead and fess up to it here. We got a walkie talkie (they’re pretty cheap off of Amazon these days) and hid it in our friends’ room. The next morning, after 2 hours of sleep I sat outside in 40 something degree weather blasting various things through it-notably the music from both Jaws and Psycho. Nailed. It. More pranks to come.

Other college things. The reason for lion colored clothing?

We had a big themed dinner/party at my dorm. The theme was “Who Run the World? Girls!” So vaguely Beyonce, vaguely vague. Since I sure as heck cannot pull off Beyonce, I was planning on dressing up as the lion from the music video. It actually didn’t end up working out due to a failed effort at coordinating another costume, so I ended up vaguely Beyonce, meaning I wore the one sparkly thing I own, paired with a pencil skirt and heels. Well, briefly heels. I think it’s actually been a year since I’ve worn heels so they definitely did not last the whole night. I think there’s a full outfit picture of me floating around on someone’s phone, but here’s a selfie.

Also noteworthy-hiking the Dish trail with my mom. It was the perfect day for it!

And a visit from the (kind of) pups.

I also went to a football game, which was a crazy and frustrating one ending in a close loss. Unfortunately, I only stayed for half the game because I had a retreat for my sorority.

So that’s college. I realize that is not remotely food/fitness related, so stay tuned for lots of talk of that. Spoiler: I did my final trial for my class project of improving on a fitness endeavor!

Who’s excited for Thanksgiving?

Let’s compare:

What the heck?? How did that happen??

This morning I went for my first run longer than 2.5 miles since my half. It was uneventful. I’ve been embracing the shorter runs lately, especially with midterms and other life craziness! Plus I’m in love with my 2.5 mile route. It feels like fall! I broke out my santa run shirt-after Halloween means that’s officially acceptable. My spin classes are going to love me when I start busting out the holiday tunes! For the sake of my own dignity I will wait until after Thanksgiving for that. I’m a firm believer that the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is the magical period when it is acceptable to start celebrating Christmas but also to still eat all the pumpkin.

The weather here has been gorgeous as well, minus a rainstorm earlier this week. It’s quite brisk in the mornings, but warm enough during the day that long sleeves/cardigans and scarves are tolerable.

I spent my Sunday doing reading from our hammock!

For some reason, I haven’t been feeling sunflower seed butter at breakfasts and have been doing greek yogurt with jam.

I know this looks like a spoonful but the bowls+spoons are huge!

The food situation has been better as well. I think our new chef is adapting to the tastes and needs of my house. More vegetables, less oil, the return of grilled chicken to the salad bar, and sufficient food for leftovers.

One day for lunch, it was all salads, which was awesome. Asian with shrimp, chicken caesar, and butternut squash with parmesan and brussels sprouts.

Dinner of chicken, kale+veggie+tomatoes, and parmesan polenta.

Make your own tacos in salad form-Mexican rice, black beans, chicken, tomato vinaigrette. There has also been homemade salad dressings lately which have been awesome!

A dinner of leftovers because I was gone late at Crossfit-chicken, more polenta, leftover salad, roasted sage sweet potatoes.

Salad+chicken with roasted cruciferous veggies (my fave) and rice pilaf.

I made my own little concoction today as well-cinnamon apples heated up in the microwave on top of oats, sun butter, and a touch of honey. I heated this up in the microwave as well and the oats actually got toasty! The things you learn.

In other life news-check out this photo of my little guy!

And finally-I’ve been loving time hop. Today’s memory from 3 years ago was great. The context is it was my first regatta for crew.

My father, everyone!

Unfortunately, I woke up yesterday feeling off. I still made it to our Halloween Crossfit workout, but was starting to feel it in the afternoon.

Crossfit was not one to be missed though. I’ve been a baseball player for the last 6 years, so it gave me a chance to break that out again!

Lots of people dressed up, and we had a Paleo potluck afterwards (which I did not stay for). The workout was a good one-it involved actual pumpkins for goblet squats and russian twists, and I respect that.

(Photo not mine)

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to take it easy, but also cleaning and preparing for the party.

A few hours before the party, I started the process of making sangria by soaking the fruit.

Cranberries+raspberries.

We had lots of delicious fall-themed food, and my roommate did an amazing job of arranging everything.

Lots of cheese and crackers, chips and dip+salsa, fruity candy corn, pumpkin bread/muffins, cookies, truffle popcorn (delicious by the way), and of course candy!

I had a rocking playlist thanks to the fact that I teach spin and know every song ever. Decorations were rather extensive-I actually used a cool idea I found on the internet and it worked fantastically!

You put a glowstick inside a balloon, and then draw a face on it! The balloons also offered a bit of extra light so we didn’t need every single light on.

The best part of the party? Dry ice. It’s not a Halloween party without a dry ice punch bowl. Plus, it keeps the punch cool and fizzy!

For the sangria, I mixed up the vodka soaked fruit with some chardonnay and sparkling apple cider.

I was trying to figure out how to get it cold without watering it down with ice…and then I remembered-duh-I have 2 huge bricks of dry ice, so I dropped a piece in.

Also-I totally used my space blanket from the Nike Half as a tablecloth. #college

As for my costume-this year I was a cat! Haven’t been anything but a baseball player in forever, so that was exciting. I feel like a cat would be a cliche costume for anyone except me!

Also-here’s a little throwback to the last time I wore these ears:

And some pictures from last night!

It was such a fun night!

It’s crazy though to think I won’t be with these people this time next year!

By some miracle, I actually woke up feeling so much better. I’m hoping this was just a little 24 hour thing!

Did you dress up for Halloween? What were you?

Let’s go through the past several days, shall we?

Monday morning began with a track workout. I did a warm up followed by 4x400m, including a timed trial of my 400m run. The good news is in the past few weeks with my training program, I’m 6 seconds faster! Running for a grade is definitely a good extra motivator.

Monday was quite the grind. I had a midterm in Exercise Physiology on Tuesday, plus I was leading section for my English class so I had to prep for that. I think I spent 9 hours studying for my midterm alone. My only break was to meet up to work on my English, and to teach an over capacity (!) spin class. The energy from a full class was exactly what I needed to refresh my mind!

Foods:

Stuffed pepper, chicken, veggies.

Gluten free vegetable past and broccoli with sesame dressing (because there was no lettuce left). Plus a little rice pudding which apparently had almonds (but wasn’t labeled). And now I’m having a bit of an allergic reaction. Meh.

My new favorite snack: pumpkin pie filling (from a can) plus egg whites, cooked in the microwave. I got the Whole Foods brand which was pretty low sugar.

I have not gotten anywhere near sufficient sleep lately. I don’t think I’ve gotten more than 6 hours in maybe a week? That plus 9 hours of studying (plus other HW and class) had my brain so fried that by the time I was going to bed on Monday, I started talking to myself, which alone would be weird enough, but by referring to myself as the royal we. Oh sleep deprivation.

From my textbook-isn’t this adorable?

Tuesday morning I went for a short run to energize my mind and enjoy the fall colors.

Post run, I ate breakfast and stared longingly at the pumpkins that I would get the chance to carve with my dorm post-midterm.

I think the test went pretty well, and I got the chance to rest my eyes briefly before leading section, which definitely went well! At this point I was feeling my second wind.

Tuesday evening I went to Crossfit-we worked on bench press, and a long WOD:

10 minute AMRAP:

9 toes to bar (v ups for me because of my shoulder)

12 push press

15 squats

–

3 min rest

–

Helen, cutoff of 10 minutes:

3 rds of 400m run, 21 kb swings, 12 pull ups (I did TRX rows)

I was maybe a little too ambitious with my shoulder. It was feeling really strong prior to the workout, but the push presses were just too much volume. I started at 55# and had to drop the weight to just the bar in the middle. My shoulder was pretty sore afterwards, so I gave it a full rest today. At the same time, I think a lot of the soreness was just stretching and getting that flexibility back, because it’s feeling good now. I think it’s going to take some pushing while still being careful.

I stopped at Whole Foods for dinner and a couple of groceries. Dinner was veggie soup, roasted sage butternut squash, and brown rice.

On Tuesday night, I attended a school event that is a bit of a tradition here, but that combined with good conversations with cool people resulted in far too late of a bedtime.

That being said, tiredness-wise I’ve actually been doing really well, although a day off was necessary.

I was planning on running today, but I’m glad I waited because tonight I found my new shoes in the mail! They will be broken out tomorrow!

Also-I’m planning a day in the life for tomorrow so stay tuned!