I finished my last final Wednesday afternoon, and was almost immediately on puppy duty-she came to school and got to meet all my friends!

I didn’t actually move out of my dorm until yesterday though.

Moving out is always fun….I always forget how much stuff it actually is! I managed to be pretty efficient though-I think the whole process took 4 hours, which seems like a long time but could be much worse.

First item of business back was a workout at my home Crossfit! I have a feeling I’m just going to be really sore a lot of the time these first few weeks. The stuff we do there is harder. Thursday’s workout was rope climbs, ring rows, and bent over rows, and then the following WOD:

10 rounds:

10 push jerks

10 hand release push ups

10 knees to elbow or V ups

My arms are still so sore 2 days later.

Here are Thursday’s meals. I’m trying to balance my meals more with protein, carbs, and vegetables.

The dining hall was closed so a sort of random breakfast-formerly frozen mashed sweet potatoes, and cottage cheese with sun butter and blueberries.

Lunch was a Trader Joe’s salad with chicken, dried cranberries, kale, broccoli slaw, and sunflower seeds.

And finally, my first dinner home was guacamole salad with a side of brown rice/quinoa.

On the way home from Crossfit, I picked up some Greek yogurt bars. The verdict? Good! Light and perfect for summer, and not too sweet!

I have another post with some SF adventures to come!

Food+Fitness

Breakfast:

I’ve had nearly the same breakfast every day of break-sunbutter on toast plus fruit of some sort. We’re sort of overloaded with fruit right now! I still have persimmons from my roommate, plus we got shipments of both pears and oranges! For some reason, I always want sun butter on toast when I come home, but I NEVER have it at school!

A little while after breakfast, I went for a 6 mile run around my neighborhood. Here’s the thing. I live on a hill. There are no flat runs around here; it’s just a question of which hill I want to run up! This run was definitely hard. The last mile included a STEEP climb! And the last hill run I’ve done was….my SF race in September. Whoops. So something to work on!

I refueled with leftover chicken and roasted cauliflower, and then whipped up some more holiday cookies.

I made my healthy polka dot cookies again, but instead of using mint chips, I split the dough into 2 parts and added chocolate chips with a mint center to one part, and chocolate chips filled with caramel (these things are crazy good!) to the other half. It was a nice change!

It’s really nice to have some healthy holiday cookies around for when the sweet tooth strikes!

This evening, I taught another spin class! It was a great class-everyone had great energy and it was a lot of fun! I did run into an….interesting…problem in the middle of class. The gym I teach at is a sort of warehouse with a big open garage door type thing. Apparently there were some people in the park right next to the gym smoking an…inebriating substance…and the smell was pretty strong in the gym. I was going to close the big door, but before I could a lady got off her bike and took care of them! So that was a new experience to have while teaching a class!

I definitely felt the morning’s run while I was teaching though! I haven”t done double days in a while so I’m not quite in that kind of shape I guess! On the first hill, I was a little overly ambitious with my resistance and it was killer! I didn’t want to obviously drop my resistance while encouraging people to keep going, so I was pretty out of breath for that part of the hill! Lesson learned.

After class, I was more than ready to dive into dinner. We made my Guacamole salad with some chips and salsa, plus a few cookies for dessert!

Me legs are so shot now though! You know that feeling after a really hard workout where your quads just ache? Yeah…

Have you ever taken spin? How was your first class?

In other photo worthy food news, I’m enjoying the last of the summer’s figs! I LOVE figs, and I’ve had a lot of fig eating to cram into the last 2 weeks I’ve been home in CA. Yesterday morning, I enjoyed them with fancy vanilla yogurt.

If it’s in a jar, it’s automatically fancy. Fact. But then the jar was tiny and I couldn’t fit enough figs in, so I poured everything into a bowl and topped it with sun butter. Perfection.

Minus the recipe, nothing has really been photo worthy. This may have something to do with a new Costco purchase-sea salt caramel and chocolate pretzel clusters. Oh yes. Buy them. Or don’t. It’s a huge bag and so, so addictive.

One thing photo worthy I suppose is my shoes.

I think I kind of like that model of shoes, you think? I decided to take a family photo because my oldest two pairs are going off to the Goodwill. I actually got a new pair when I went to the running store because my foot doctor told me I needed good shoes. After a full running/walking/shape of my foot analysis, they brought out…the same shoe I’ve loved for years. Seriously-I’ve worn these shoes since my sophomore year of high school (almost 5 years if you’re keeping track). I had no idea they were the same model when I got my first pair of this year’s version, and was shocked to find the new shoes I had loved were the same as my old ones I loved! I’ve had at least 3 running store workers analyze me and pick out the same shoes so I think it’s safe to say they’re good for me!

Ok. I promise I’ll get to the recipe now! This recipe is a knock-off of one of the Sweetgreen’s salads I had all summer. I don’t even feel a little bit bad about copying their recipe given the nearest Sweetgreen is 3000 miles away. This salad is based off of the Guacamole Greens salad they had, which was the one I got most often. I tasted like fresh guacamole!

Here’s their version:

And mine:

Guacamole Salad

Serves 3

Ingredients:

8 oz cooked chicken (two small breasts)

1 medium tomato

1/4 c chopped cilantro

1 small red onion

1.5-2 avocados

1 c crushed tortilla chips

3 handfuls of lettuce

For the dressing:

3 T lime juice

2 T olive oil

1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

Shred the chicken, mash the avocado, mix up the dressing, and toss all ingredients together.

Throw on a sombrero and enjoy!