Giant’s Race 2015

Date: August 27, 2015

Author: astottler

Hello! Guess who did a race this past weekend?

The Giant’s Race finishes in the Giant’s ballpark. It’s awesome. It was my first ever race! This year I did the 10k, not the half like I did the past 2 years. I had a hard time with my training for my April half because I was so sick, that I was just not up for it. That, and I had no time or energy to train with work. This summer I was on my feet 8 hrs a day, and half marathon training plus that would have torn up my feet!

So, I settled on the 10k.

It’s so crazy to me. 4 years ago, I ran this race for the first time.

I was about to start my freshman year of college. Where the heck did the time go?? When I ran it 4 years ago, I actually won my age group. I was in my best shape of my life at the time, and followed a strict training schedule to work up to that distance (at the time a PDR). This year, I ran the race about 7 minutes slower. Instead of moaning about how much slower I’ve gotten, I’m appreciating how my body has changed to allow me to run this distance without issue, essentially without training.

I didn’t have any expectations for the race. I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to run a decent pace. I was actually a second away from my last minute goal time. I mostly just wanted to enjoy this race. It’s an amazing course-along the Embarcadero, under the Bay Bridge, and out past Fisherman’s Wharf. Bonus-the 10k is flat. The half marathon course actually goes to Chrissy field, with a fantastic view of the Golden Gate.

The energy of the runners is amazing as well-lots of like-minded people (aka Giant’s fans). Plus, finishing on the field never gets old. I definitely enjoyed this race!

After the race, I met up with my mom and grabbed a complimentary post-race beer, just because I could. Yayy for 21. I only had a few sips though because we had other plans for beverages that morning!

There was also a little sandbag toss, for prizes. Of course, I had to take part. I nailed my first 2 bags right in the whole. I still have some softball player left in me, and walked away with some new sunglasses!

After my coffee exploration in New York, I figured I should use a trip to the city as an excuse to try some of the best San Francisco has to offer! I picked out a place, and it turned out they had gourmet and gluten free doughnuts! Dynamo Donuts. We arrived minutes before they opened.

I had a chocolate raspberry and a lemon buttermilk gluten free donut. Both were delicious, and you definitely could not tell they were gluten free.

Plus, OF COURSE a cappuccino. Excellent as well. Good coffee is just so much smoother, and without the bitterness.

Overall, it was a great morning!

Tell me-where’s the best coffee?

SF Workout and Ballgame

Date: June 14, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well guys, I am tired but I’m supposed to be keeping the puppy awake, which is not really working out too well. When puppies want to sleep, they SLEEP.

Friday was an awesome first real full day of summer. I started the morning with my current go-to breakfast-oatmeal, eggs, and blueberries.

I cooked the oatmeal on the stovetop with plain soy milk, banana, and vanilla extract. I made a big batch so I’ve been eating the rest of it every day since!

Then, midmorning my high school friend and I headed up to San Francisco for a workout adventure! While in DC, I did some Outruns, were were group runs mixed with bootcamp stops. I thought it would be fun to do it here, so I created a little workout for us. We started at the Ferry building.

And then ran on the Embarcadero towards Fisherman’s wharf. We covered a total of 3 miles, and stopped every half mile for a bootcamp session.

These were our stations:

1. 6 minutes: 1 min each 2x of jumping jacks, mountain climbers, and plank

2. 5 minute AMRAP: 5 squat jumps, 10 lunges each side, 10 plank dips

3. Abs (I’m still sore from this one): 6 minutes, 1 minute each: plank, Russian twist, bicycle, in and out, plank, Russian twist

(Meeting a friendly dog mid-plank.)

4. 3 sets of 10 squats

5. On a bench, 3 sets of 10 each: push ups, step ups, dips

The whole point of starting at the Ferry building (besides the fact that it was flat) was to grab lunch there afterwards, and we were more than ready post-workout! Since I’m not eat gluten right now, I was excited to see a Gluten-free cafe!

I got a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on a gluten free roll. It was an absolutely beautiful day in the city, so we enjoyed lunch outside with a view.

We stopped at an ice cream place for dessert.

The secret breakfast is their most famous flavor, but I went with salted caramel cacao nib, which was delicious!

I also picked up a gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip muffin to go from the cafe.

That evening, I went to a Giant’s game with my dad-my first of the season. We have the prettiest ballpark.

Unfortunately, we lost, but it was still awesome to be back there! Also-how cool is this-we now have a garden, with an avocado tree!

They have two food vendors there, and I was able to watch the game while enjoying an asparagus salad with truffle oil, and a gluten free flatbread with roasted asparagus.

SO good!

Hopefully next time we bring home the win!

What was your last workout?

Do you watch baseball?

Giants Parade 2014

Date: November 3, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Wow, long time no blog, huh? These past few days have been absolutely crazy for me! Lots of fun packed into the weekend, and then lots of homework!

I currently am on Day 3 of having no voice. I’m starting to wonder if it will ever come back…Strangely enough I probably appear to be sort of dying, but I’m 80% sure I’m not even sick. I think I had a tiny baby cough from allergies, and then I went home for a few hours yesterday and hung out with my cat (who I’m allergic to) and have been sniffling like crazy ever since. And oh, my voice. I have never so completely lost my voice before. It’s weird because my throat is totally fine. My voice is just gone. I think it was well earned though. Between screaming like crazy during the Giants parade and then Halloween, I think I’m all screamed out!

Friday was just an amazing day. I can’t remember the last time I had as great of a day. I saw almost all of my favorite people! The Halloween recap of Friday will be a separate post. Let’s talk about the parade!

I didn’t go to either of the last 2 victory parades, so I decided I had to make it work for this one.

I woke up at 6am to leave at 7am for a 12pm parade.

My beautiful outfit:

Transportation was complicated. Bike to bus to train then walk a mile to meet up with a friend from Berkeley on the parade route.

I met up with her around 9am. She had been there since 8, and scored us some prime spots. Seriously-we could not have had better spots. For one thing, we were SITTING! We sat on top of a newspaper dispenser, so not only did we have seats, but we were right at the front and higher than most people! It was amazing!

It was also wet. 3 hours of just sitting there, getting rained on. I had a rain jacket, but that did nothing for my legs or feet!

By the time the parade started, we were FREEZING and SO, SO wet. But I could not have cared less. It was AMAZING.

To give you a sense of how close we were.

Commentators^

The first float of players^Crawford+Belt

And of course, the World Series MVP:

And the trophy!

It was so, so amazing. It was also less rowdy than I was expecting, although we were also above the crowds. The area I was watching from seemed to be mostly families!

Getting down from our perch was interesting. It was about a 4 foot drop, and our legs had been immobile and freezing for 5 hours. We couldn’t walk at first because our legs were rubber!

Ignore the crazy hair.

Instead of braving the subway traffic, we stopped in the mall nearby for some lunch. AKA warm soup. AKA the best, most amazing thing ever. I didn’t even care that I spilled it all over myself and then smelled like chicken for the rest of the afternoon!

It was such a great experience. I’m so glad I finally put other things aside to go!

Halloween recap coming soon. 🙂

A Day In The Life Fall 2014

Date: October 22, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s been a looong time since I did a Day in the Life post! (See my last one here! After looking over it, my quarter is definitely much saner!)

7:05 Alarm goes off. Jump out of bed and remove my foot straightjacket.

It’s a night brace for my plantar fasciitis. It really helps, but I feel really constrained so I typically wear one at a time to give one foot some freedom.

I wake up grateful that my feet are feeling good! They were bad yesterday.

Heading out for a run. I have trouble getting out the door on time this morning. My route takes me 2.5 miles more or less up a gradual hill, and 2.5 miles back. It feels pretty good. The plan was 6 but I’m short on time and the turnaround works better this way. I think about how much I miss running in DC. 2.5 miles there would take me from my house in Georgetown to the monuments. Here, it takes me…up a street.

I had to wear long sleeves! It was cold this morning! I think about how hard it will be to get out the door in a few months, but it’s fine once I get moving.

Not the fastest time, but it was up hills and felt better than last week!

9:00am Go to breakfast. They had roasted cauliflower with the eggs! I get a small bowl of eggs+veggies, plus my usual yogurt bowl with sun butter and pears. It seems like a lot of food, but run days make me hungry!

I contemplate getting coffee. My decision is made for me when the dining hall is out! I decide that taking back some roasted veggies for lunch will save time in my lunch prep, and I’m still running late.

9:15 Pack up lunch and back pack, and then shower and get ready.

9:52 Walk out the door and refill our candy bowl.

Bike clear across campus to my first class.

10-11:50 Developmental Neurobiology

We talk about synapse elimination in the spinal cord.

12-Lunchtime! Contemplate getting coffee because I’m dragging a bit, but decide against it.

Lunch is mashed sweet potatoes, roasted veggies from this morning, and precooked lemon pepper chicken from Trader Joe’s. I was impressed and surprised by how lemony the chicken was.

Also here’s my outfit. Jeans. Moccasins. Long sleeve shirt+scarf. It’s fall my friends.

12:30-3 I did work. Normally I’d have a Chem section in there too but since we just had a midterm, there wasn’t much material to go over.

I spent some time working on Wednesday’s post.

I also watched Monday’s CS lecture. On Mondays I have overlapping classes, but one of my lectures is filmed so I watched the lecture today!

~3:00 Head over to CS lecture. This class has 700 people in it, but luckily in week 5 people stop going to class so it’s easy to get a seat!

4:15 Return to dorm. I need a nap! Dinner doesn’t seem like it will have a ton of substance so I eat a bite of blueberry vanilla goat cheese.

I then change into leggings-GOTTA SUPPORT THE TEAM-and crawl into bed until 5:00 when the game starts.

5:00 Alarm goes off. I just up and run to the dining hall to grab dinner before first pitch at 5:07. Dinner looks better than expected.

A piece of quesadilla, salad, roasted carrots, a little cilantro brown rice, some dry chicken.

Then-game time!

Between innings I run back to the dining hall to return my dishes and grab a bowl of ice cream with hot fudge.

Continue watching the game and work on pre-lab during commercials.

Game ends around 8:45. Sadly we lose. We’re now 1-1 for the series but we’re headed home!

8:45-9:15 Work on this post and chat with a friend. She learns about this blog and wants to follow it.

9:15 House meeting. Only a couple of announcements, but they bring in Sprinkles Cupcakes! I haven’t had many sweets this week so I don’t worry that I already had ice cream.

I decide that Sprinkles doesn’t compare to the other cupcake places in DC, although I swear the Sprinkles Cupcake I had in DC was better. And bigger…

9:38 Now. Typing up this blog post. I’m ahead on work so I’ll probably go to bed soon. I also realize that I’m almost certainly allergic to the Halloween candy that doesn’t contain nuts, but is packed and processed near so many nuts. Booo. I’ve gotten so sensitive!

It’s interesting to see this Day in the Life compared to the last one-my life is so much less crazy now!

What do you think of Day in the Life posts?

WIAW and Life Lately

Date: October 22, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Today’s WIAW is going up a little bit late, but that’s ok!

Today’s post will sort of be photo dump style. Expect more organization tomorrow-I’m recording a “Day in the Life” today!

Dinner on Sunday night was a giant Mexican salad with an obscene amount of avocado. I can count of one hand the number of times I’ve had avocado since coming to school….

Also a cheese quesadilla on top.

Breakfasts have been same old, same old. Which I actually like, because it’s nice to have a routine, but doesn’t make for the most interesting blog content. The other day there were bananas though, which was a nice change!

While this lunch wasn’t the most exciting, I loved how colorful it was! Mashed sweet potatoes, hard boiled egg, and broccoli.

Yesterday, I went out to lunch with my family. My mom and I split a chopped salad (see my version here!) and an arepa with gouda.

Dinner at the dining hall was meh. The roasted vegetables were great-the food I did get was good, but there wasn’t a protein source so my meal felt like it was majorly missing something.

I remedied that by making some chia pudding, eaten in front of the Giant’s game.

I left it in the communal fridge to thicken, and I feel like people probably judged me heavily because it looks pretty weird!

In terms of life things, I’m officially having a Halloween party! I’m a little obsessed with holidays, and I feel like if I didn’t have one, I’d be sitting around by myself on Halloween. I invited people yesterday, and have zero idea what type of turnout I’ll get. On the plus side, my high school friend is visiting, and she’s very artsy so she can help decorate!

Other life news: this gum. It tastes like love and happiness.

Also, I love my Giants and I love my friends.

SO HAPPY about yesterday’s game! I’ve planned my whole life around the games so it was great to get a win! So happy guys, you have no idea. Let’s hope we keep this up!

What have you eaten lately?