Cuteness, feat. my the kittens my friend is babysitting, my sister’s new kitten, and of course Rina (who sadly has not been feeling too well lately, but seems better today thankfully!)

The great thing about vet school is you are always surrounded by adorable animals.

As for my costume, I did something new and different this year! I’ve been a baseball player a majority of the last 10 years, so it was time to switch it up. I was a Tasmanian Devil! Are me and Yindi twins?

We had a vet school Halloween party this weekend, so that was my chance to get dressed up!

Since this is a fitness blog or something, in terms of workouts, this past week was more running than normal, Crossfit, and weights on my own. Plus a soccer game! I’m getting stronger with weights, which is awesome. I’ve been pushing myself more on cleans at Crossfit, and I’m seeing and feeling it pay off!

Unfortunately, I’m having pain around the bone on my ankle when I run. I traced it back to starting right after a run where I both wiped out and then rolled my ankle, so I’m not sure what is going on with that, but it’s still bothering me a month later, so I’m going to take the whole next week off of running and see if I can work it out! The stinky part is I feel like I’m getting into much better running shape with soccer!

Ok. Food? Food.

As you may recall, I got tons of apples last week, so that’s quite a theme here! Plus zucchini. Always zucchini. This week it was $0.69 a pound and they were HUGE. I actually think after I finish this batch I’m going to take a break and branch out to other foods.

Baking

I made a mini-apple breakfast bake for the week. I based it off of another recipe I’ve made before, but kind of winged it. I mixed up 2 eggs, half a cup of milk, and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then, I tore up 3 pieces of GF bread and put that in the bottom of a loaf pan. I poured my egg mixture over it, and then placed 2 slices apples on top. Finally, I topped it with about 2 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar.

I put everything in a pan the night before, and then in the morning, I put it in at 400 degrees while I went for a run. When I got back, it was ready! It baked for about 30 minutes.

My next project was Blueberry Zucchini Bread. The funny thing is, when I got my school laptop, when I opened Safari when I first got it, one of the “favorites” bookmarks was a recipe for blueberry zucchini bread that I swear I’d never seen before. Well, it looked pretty good, so I finally had to make it happen! I made a few adjustments: I used 1/3 of a cup of both the sugars (2/3 total) and reduced the oil to 1/3. And my zucchini was a little bit larger than what it called for. It came out great!

Finally, tonight I made a super simple oat flour banana bread. After eying this recipe on Instagram, I made it happen. Healthy 5 Ingredient Flourless Banana Bread. This recipe would have been super easy if my blender was a single person blender (aka tiny) so that was interesting. I added 2/3c of chocolate chips, and then topped it with an additional banana for style points.

I really love the texture of oat flour based breads, and this was delicious!

Breakfast

This is the only one I have a picture of. I got unsweetened apple butter last weekend and it’s AMAZING. This is cottage cheese with apple butter and sunbutter.

Lunch 

Subway salad. I learned that the carved turkey is seasonal, and it’s back! I get my salads with carved turkey, provolone, and oil and vinegar, salt and pepper as the dressing.

This may be my last peach salad! I also LOVE the Trader Joe’s cranberry chèvre, especially in salads. I used some grilled chicken from the freezer this week.

Same thing, but with Bosc pear.

Chicken, fig, and goat cheese salad. Lately I have been packing rice cakes with my salads at lunch, but they really don’t keep my full. I recently transitioned back to crackers and it makes a noticeable difference!

Yesterday I went to Panera to study, and I had a bowl of the butternut squash soup. It tastes like fall! We’ll forget the fact that it was 85 degrees outside. I brought some rice cakes to eat with it, and had an apple on the side.

Today’s lunch! I wanted something light before my soccer game so I made a variation on the weird salad I do, and it was really good! Lettuce, American cheese, guacamole, a drizzle of ketchup, and an egg. No shame.

Dinner

My favorite Trader Joe’s Salad! It kale kale, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and chicken.

This was a weird combination of flavors, but I was STARVING and didn’t want to take the time to bake tofu. I had zucchini noodle with butternut squash pasta sauce, and teriyaki tofu on the side.

More zoodles with butternut squash pasta sauce, and a scrambled egg on the side.

Check out how many zoodles this one zucchini made!

Zoodles with smokey seasoning, Trader Joe’s Harvest salsa, Mexican cheese blend, and avocado. Scrambled egg+1 egg white on the side.

Zoodles stir fried with garlic and soy sauce, and then topped with teriyaki tofu.

Dessert

This was a masterpiece. Baked apple (microwaved…I’m impatient) with cinnamon, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce.

And apples with caramel sauce. YUM.

It’s always weird to me traveling and then coming back. I always imagine a ton of different realities for myself. What if I was living there? What would my life be like? This trip was definitely some of that—I was really close to a college I got recruited to for softball for undergrad. I even went on an overnight recruiting visit there! (Which I had totally forgotten I had gone on until my mom reminded me!)

My layover was in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, and I actually found some good options. I got a caprese salad with chicken, artichoke hearts, olives, and fresh mozzarella.

Dinner in SoCal was really exciting though. I was looking at nearby places and discovered one of my favorite East Coast chains was 10 minutes away! Le Pain Quotidien. I went there twice on my trip to DC for the Cherry Blossom race.

I got the grilled chicken and mozzarella tartine on gluten free bread. Their GF bread is really great and seedy. Lots of texture.

Man, I missed California food. And dessert? OMG. Best thing I’ve eaten in a REALLY long time. I have had essentially no non-packaged GF baked cookies since coming to St. Louis. But there was a pie place in SoCal, I Like Pie, that offers a daily GF option.

Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for this (I was expecting it to be dry) but it was insane. It was a mini cherry pie.

I brought it to the hotel to eat during baseball and was still really full from dinner, but couldn’t stop eating it. It was so buttery and moist, with delicious cherry filling. The crumb top was of course amazing as well.

I went to bed with a VERY full but satisfied belly!

Monday morning I went for a run first thing. Well, technically I waited around for it to get light out first. The neighborhood of my hotel was borderline sketchy, and safety first!

You know you’re in SoCal when…

Scenes from my run:

Afterwards I sat down for a hotel breakfast. For some reason egg sounded good, so I had some egg substance with a mini blueberry chobani and honey nut Cheerios. How much nut is actually honey nut Cheeries? It says it contains “natural almond flavor.” I guess we’ll find out haha.

For lunch, I picked up some chicken vegetable soup the previous night at Le Pain Quotidien, which came with more of their delicious GF bread.

You better believe I did my research for dinner as well, and it did not disappoint. I went to Last Drop Cafe in downtown Claremont. I got the vegan sandwich on GF bread. The sandwich had all kinds of delicious veggies and dressing, but of course what won me over was the avocado.

Even better? It came with a cookie, and they offer a daily GF cookie option. This was a pumpkin snickerdoodle (!!!) which was the perfect way to celebrate Halloween! OMG so freaking good.

To continue the Halloween celebration through food, since the cookie was small, I decided to get some froyo—pumpkin froyo!

With some white chocolate raspberry and chocolate. Topped with mini m&ms and some hot fudge.

I love cute little downtowns:

I was a little sad to spend my favorite holiday alone in a hotel room, so I tried to quell the feelings with some chocolate from the hotel. And then food network holiday cake competitions which made me want more chocolate, so a Luna bar would have to stand in for a chocolate gingerbread haunted house.

This was my Tuesday morning:

Yayyy for 6am flights! I actually woke up before my alarm. Go me? I guess 3:55am pacific time=5:55am central time which=late for Crossfit.

Apparently getting to my gate super early is becoming a habit for me…plenty of time for breakfast though! I had a bar that I brought, and supplanted with “fruit.”

Lunch in Dallas was also good. I found a Southwest salad (with avocado!) plus part of a GF brownie. Yum!

I made it back to St. Louis in time for Crossfit.

Sidenote: I don’t understand St. Louis weather. It was 85 degrees when I got back. How is it over 20 degrees colder in SoCal than Missouri in November?? And how can it be 40 one day and 80 the next??

At Crossfit we did 1 rep max sumo deadlifts, and I fit 220 pounds. It was probably the slowest deadlift I’ve ever done but I got it up! For the WOD we did Annie with some push ups added in. Annie is 50-40-30-20-10 of double unders and sit ups. My double unders have seriously gotten so much better over the past year.

And how I’m blogging with the kitties and baseball I can’t believe I’m only in St. Louis for 2.5 more weeks though!

Where is your favorite area to eat?

Friday morning started the way it normally does, with Crossfit. We did back squats, for long sets (which stink). Then an EMOM of 5 burpee pull ups on even minutes, and 10 wall balls on odd.

I had a festive breakfast afterwards—pumpkin yogurt with cinnamon granola and sunbutter.

For lunch, I made a salad with hummus, goat cheese, champagne vinaigrette, and a microwave egg because I’m not cooking in the morning. My new tip for microwaving an egg is to rub a little olive oil on the bottom of the bowl, because the egg slides out much more easily then! Plus crackers.

This was my afternoon:

After work, my coworkers and I had plans to go to dinner and then to a haunted house. On the way to dinner, we got stuck in insane traffic. What should have been a 10 minute drive turned into over an hour of standstill.

After sitting for an hour, I was texting my mom asking if she knew what was going on (I heard it was something political) and apparently Joe Biden was there? I asked where the event was, and she told me “The Pageant.” I asked my friend where that was….and she pointed right up. Apparently we were right in front of it!

When we FINALLY made it to dinner, this was so necessary:

We went to Seoul Taco, which was a Korean-Mexican fusion. I got a bowl with chicken and brown rice; there was no fusion in this though—it was all Korean flavors!

So good!

Then, we made our way to Creepyworld, a haunted house. I had never been to a really legit haunted house, so I didn’t really know what to expect, or how I would react!

We waited in line for 1-1.5 hours before finally going in.

This was intense! It took us over an hour to walk through everything! It was really cool. There were 12 different areas with different decor. There were plenty and people and props ready to jump out and scare you! I had a good time, but apparently I’m not too easily scared!

But what was supposed to be a reasonably early night turned into a 12:30 bedtime. My alarm felt far too early before my 8am spin class on Saturday!

Before spin, I had a bowl of Cinnamon Apple Cheerios. I’ve never been much of a Cheerio person, but I’m loving them pre workout right now!

Class went well! Afterwards, I made a Flapjacked muffin and had some fruit on the side.

And then, I was off to see my zoo friend play lacrosse! Somehow I forgot to take any pictures. I’ve never watched lacrosse before and it was fun to watch! She of course rocked it too, even though they lost (it was a close game!).

On the way home from the game, I got some groceries to prepare for my night and for my trip. And because I had no vegetables.

For lunch, I had an egg white scramble with spinach and laughing cow, and avocado toast.

I spent the afternoon packing and doing chores, and prepping sangria.

Here we have jazz apples and raspberries soaking in vodka.

For the wine, I found Robert Mondavi on sale. Remember when I visited that winery in the spring?

We had such a hard time opening the bottle with a pocket knife corkscrew. And then opening the martinellis.

For the sangria, I mixed the fruit with Sauvignon Blanc and sparkling apple cider.

I was adamant about dressing up.

Unsurprisingly, I was a baseball player. My friends were a lax bro and a rugby player. Then, it was on to haunted house number 2, Darkness in Soulard.

I thought this one was scarier than the last one, although not quite as extensive. There were lots of well hidden people ready to pop out at you, and the scariest part was it was so hard to tell what people/bodies were real or fake!

The next stop was Ballpark Village.

There was an event going on, and we just wanted to watch baseball/hockey, so we didn’t end up going in. Instead, we opted for froyo (or in my case, frozen custard) at the fudge place.

And then we headed back to my friend’s place to watch scary movies. I was home by 11!

Can I confess something? I really can’t bring myself to root for the Cubs. I really want to root for them. I do like the players. But in my heart I can’t. I hate being a sore loser, but after being the lone Giants fan in Chicago, it’s become ingrained to fervently root against them.

Oh well. I’m still enjoying watching the World Series!

What were you for Halloween? Who are you rooting for?

Happy mid-week/almost Friday! I thought I’d do a workout/zoo/food update here today spanning yesterday and today!

Yesterday morning began with Cinnamon Apple Cheerios and Crossfit, as per usual. For strength we did max weight for pull ups. LOL. I can’t do weighted pull ups. So I worked on strict pull ups. I sort of got one! Just a little kick at the end…getting closer! The WOD was 100 double unders, 80 kb swings, 60 goblet squats, 40 hand release push ups, and 20 pull ups. Plus 100 V ups at the end (which I’m sore from because I’ve been entirely neglected abs. oops).

Breakfast was one of my favorite fall breakfasts, and in my opinion, the best use of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter.

Cottage cheese with pumpkin butter and sunflower seed butter. I love that sweet and salty!

And zoolife: fall is full swing here in St. Louis. Zebras eating fall leaves? Too cute!

Lunch: All summer and fall I rocked the goat cheese, peach, and chicken salad (with balsamic). Peaches are pretty solidly out of season now, so I’ve switched it up with apple and Irish Cheddar, and now, Bosch pear, chicken, and parmesan, with Champagne vinaigrette. Plus GF crackers on the side.

For snack, I had my typical Luna bar, plus some candy that has been finding its way into the lab.

After work on Wednesday, my coworkers and I stayed afterwards to go to Boo at the Zoo. The Zoo does not hold back on decorating, and Boo at the Zoo is an opportunity to see everything lit up at night. I apologize for the photo dump.

I was STARVING by the time I got home. I cooked up a fast dinner of a salad with champagne vinaigrette, an over easy egg, goat cheese, and hummus. Plus buttered GF toast on the side.

For dessert I made another pumpkin microwave bake. Semisweet chocolate chips, pumpkin pie filling, egg whites. Plus a pumpkin cookie.

This morning (Thursday) I did a 3 mile run. Nothing crazy. 9:45 pace which is average/easy effort. Right now I’m not really doing more than 3 miles because both feet sometimes start to feel weird things with more than that. I’m accepting that I can’t run long right now. I spend a ton of time on my feet all day and walk miles and miles around the zoo, so I realize I can’t stress my feet with longer runs. Not worth risking another stress fracture.

Breakfast was a flapjacked muffin and blueberries.

When I was getting ready for my run, Scooby and Yoyo were rolling around play-fighting. I guess they got over it, because when I left for work, this is how I found them:

Can we take a moment to appreciate my other 2 babies?

She walked out of the den with straw stuck to her face!

Lunch was an exact repeat of the previous day.

So our polar bear is playful. I walked up today to find a brown polar bear. Looks like someone is pretending to be a brown bear for Halloween! I had to keep explaining that yes, he is a polar bear. He’s just extremely dirty. Oh Kali.

And then he jumped into the water, creating a cloud of dirt.

For snack I had one of these chocolate chip granola bars. They’re actually really good. They remind me of a donut for some reason that I can’t explain.

For dinner, I made a pretty mediocre grilled cheese. I was using frozen bread. I thawed it in the microwave but I guess not enough. the cheese didn’t get melty enough in the middle. My kale salad was also mediocre because I didn’t have enough lime juice left.

t

I feel like this evening was one of those days I had a bottomless appetite. I made another pumpkin pie thing for dessert and had a few pumpkin cookies. I kept expecting to get full and I kept not. But now sort of regretting that because I’m finally feeling eating all that food at once! Do you ever have those bottomless days?

That’s all I have for today! I have a busy few days ahead! I have Halloween festivities followed by more traveling!

What’s the magic tip for making grilled cheese?

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?

5:45am: Wake up. My alarm isn’t for 20 minutes. I probably need more sleep but eh. Get out of bed 10 minutes later.

Start getting ready for Crossfit. Pre-Crossfit snack is Vanilla Cherry Bread from my freezer supply.

Plus gummy vitamins (of various types-I’m not overdosing!)

6:40: Leave for Crossfit which starts at 7.

It’s quite nippy out this morning. I’m not ready for those 30 degree mornings in the gym…

The workout today was a sprint workout that knocked us all out. Every 9 minutes we did the following: 150m sprint, 3 power cleans (for me-snatches for everyone else), 5 burpee box jumps, and 15 calorie row. We did this 5 times through. I finished each round between 3-3:20, so there was rest but man. The good news is that I did the heaviest cleans since my shoulder (85#) and it was no problem at all!

8:20ish-arrive back at the house. Crossfit ran a bit late today.

Pull some Halloween decorations from my car. How cute is this?

Then-breakfast. Here’s a look at the house fridge:

I grab a bite of leftover risotto because it’s delicious (several other bites occurred throughout the day) and because #carbs.

The main post-workout replenishment was fate yogurt with pumpkin butter. Perfect combo of protein+carbs.

8:45: Shower and get ready for the day.

Yes, I have pumpkin spice chapstick, and yes it’s fantastic.

9:15: Leave for my fake class. What’s that? When I dropped my Tues/Thurs 9am I decided to spend that time camped out at a coffeeshop or otherwise being productive. Usually I work on Microbio, but today was some reading for my Native American Literature class. Sidenote-this is clearly not a literary blog because #biomajor, but I want to post about this book at some point. Sometimes I’ll get decaf coffee, but I’m starting to come off my acid-reducer stomach meds and don’t think I need the acidity. Instead I bring the other half of my bottle of Kevita.

I spent 50 minutes there. And since this is DITL here’s my outfit. It’s kind of a big deal that I’m wearing jeans because I almost never do-I hate biking in them-but I was feeling them today.

10:25-Leave for first real class of the day.

10:30-11:50 Exercise Physiology. Today is gluconeogenesis and hormones for blood glucose control (which are actually one of my favorite things in all of bio-besides cows of course).

When I come out, I see that the leaves have turned more since Tuesday!

12: Lunch back at the house. Today I have cabbage stuffed with ground chicken, a couple of potatoes, and salad with pears. Plus avocado!

12:40-1:45 Lunch is finished but I spend time talking to my friend who ended up coming for lunch. That was my main nap time but oh well.

1:45-2:45 Eat a Luna bar, finish up some reading, and take a 25 minute power nap. My naps are necessary before my next class because it’s just that time of day. Grab another bite of risotto and a few chocolate covered raisins on the way out.

3-4:20: Native American Literature Class

4:30-5 Watch part of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I just started season 6). I’m supposed to carve pumpkins with my dorm and a friend, but no word from her yet.

5:00: Give up on my friend and go down to carve a pumpkin. She eventually comes. I love the smell of pumpkin-officially fall!

6:00: Dinnertime! I had vegetarian meatloaf, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, and glazed carrots.

Plus the insides of a key lime freezer pie, which was pretty melty.

7:00: I stayed with my friend until she finished her pumpkin, and then took one for the team to light our pumpkins in true college fashion for a picture. I stuck my phone inside the pumpkin. Worth it.

7:15: It’s been a long week, so I decide it’s finally time to watch Back to the Future II. (Because 2015-so weird!)

9:15-9:35: Start this blog post!

Then a meeting with my RA, most likely followed by some reading for my classes!

What did you do today?

In all honesty, I had no idea how many people would show up. We ended up having a great turnout! I mostly want to blog about the party because of the awesome refreshments.

In terms of snacks, the only think I made from scratch was popcorn balls. This was SUCH a struggle. The balls are made of popcorn, vanilla, marshmallow, and butter, plus some candy corn, just for fun!

The first batch of popcorn I burned. Fail. No fire alarms were set off at least! Then, the only microwave safe bowl we had was a cereal bowl…to melt an entire bag of marshmallows. I also had the worst time forming the balls-you have to grease your bands before forming them, and while I did do this, I guess I didn’t do it enough and I COULD NOT get the marshmallow off my hands!

And then I made the mistake of using said hands to pick up candy corn…and then the candy corn completely stuck to my hands too! Despite the difficulty, the end result was delicious!

And now the rest of the food. We had ghost shaped chips!

And of course plenty of candy.

Here are some pics of the decorations. Excuse the blur, but you get the idea!

I think the most exciting part though was the punch. Of course, I had to go all out!

I wish I had gotten a better picture, but we had dry ice for the punch bowl! FYI for anyone doing something similar-the dry ice freezes over quickly. And then the entire punch freezes over. The punch ended up being a slushie which was cool, and I had to intermittently put in and take out the dry ice. So fun though!

So what was I?

I

I know, shocking, right? I was in full Giants-spirit mode on Friday!

Here’s my sis and her bf in their pirate costumes.

So adorable.

The party was so, so much fun. My best friend from high school visited me too, so I ended up seeing almost all of my favorite people! Another fun tidbit-I made a playlist for the party that included a random Halloween themed CD to which the track names didn’t appear on iTunes so I had no idea what was really on it. The Scooby Doo theme song is great party music, right? Haha, totally was not expecting that!

Overall, I could not have asked for our little Halloween party to have gone any better!

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

First, I freaked out over pumpkins. And of course pumpkin products. And while I’m mentioning that, I tried a pumpkin Oreo! It was ok. It didn’t really taste pumpkin-y to me but it wasn’t bad. It tasted like cinnamon graham crackers.

Then, I freaked out over this box my roommate brought in.

Yep, it’s the start of persimmon season! OMG. These are still very early but some are ripe now likely due to the drought. You guys. These are amazing. My roommate lives in farm country and brought back a ton last winter. I probably ate 4 a day. Obsessed.

Now, I’m freaking out over post-season baseball. The game is still going so I don’t want to jinx anything but GO GIANTS! I’m watching alone in my dorm lounge and I screamed so loudly when the grand slam was hit! I’m seriously so happy right now. Fingers crossed this game keeps going well. I’m a huge Giant’s fan and one of my summer highlights was seeing the Giants play in DC.

(AHHHH ANOTHER BASE HIT AND RUN AS I WRITE THIS!!!)

In other news, it’s October! Yay! I’m also obsessed with fall/holidays. My friends and I are thinking of throwing a Halloween party and I’M SO EXCITED! (Sensing a theme here?)

It’s also officially time to bring out the candy bowl.

In other, other news, who celebrated National Coffee Day? I started Tuesday morning with a beautiful latte (and proceeded to be on the edge of over caffeinated. I have zero tolerance now.)

And then that evening, my sister and I had a coffee date and took advantage of free coffee (in honor of National Coffee Day). I most definitely got decaf.

In terms of food, breakfasts have been yogurt bowls. This one had plain yogurt, maple sunflower seed butter (from the Farmer’s Market), and blueberries.

I also made it to the dining hall for lunch yesterday, and had a panini and salad.

And then today, I had class straight through lunch so in the afternoon, I stopped by a cafe and picked up a turkey, cranberry, and brie sandwich.

And my first pumpkin product of fall (I think). This appeared to be a pumpkin and carrot muffin.

In terms of fitness, yesterday evening was Crossfit, where we worked on cleans, and then did the following WOD:

15 minute AMRAP:

5 db push press

5 front squat (I used 95#)

200m run

12 pull ups

Then, this morning I was up bright and early for 7am Crossfit because it looked like a good workout and there was no way I was missing the game this evening for Crossfit.

The conditioning portion was 3 rds:

400m run

21 wall balls

18 push press

15 sit ups

It was a great way to start the day!

In terms of life, I can’t promise how much I’ll be blogging in the near future. I’m taking computer science this quarter for the first time, and it’s quite time intensive. Or more specifically, after coding for 4 hours straight hours, the last thing I want to do is spend more time on the computer. It’s bad. Once I’m working on something, I literally cannot stop. I dragged myself away last night after 4 straight hours to go to Crossfit, and when I got up I could barely see straight! I think this past assignment took me 12 hours. And that’s only the first assignment. Soo we shall see.

Also, my race was supposed to be this weekend. While seeing the emails makes me a little sad, I don’t regret the decision at all. My feet feel 1000x better and I have made plans that should make up for it!

Have you taken CS? Any advice?

Who’s excited for October? Baseball team you’re rooting for?

Workouts for Week of 10/28

Monday: AM- easy pace 5 mile hill run

-nothing too crazy, but I wanted to keep my running going a little bit in preparation for Saturday’s long run

PM- Crossfit: Strength was clean and jerks with a front squat

WOD: 300 jump ropes

30-20-10 kettlebell swings/ sit ups

300 jump ropes

I felt the jump ropes in my calves 2 days later!

Tuesday: AM- 45 minute spin class plus 1 mile treadmill run

-I wanted to get a mile in at a decent pace. It was harder than I expected. I have a lot of work to do before attempting to PR my 5k!

PM- Crossfit Strength was 3 rep max push press-I got to 100 pounds, and 2 reps at 105. 

WOD: 10 minute ladder (3-6-9-12…)

Push press/pull up

OW. Can I just say, OW. My shoulders are STILL super sore from doing a million and three push presses. I had every intention of working on clean and jerks Wednesday morning, but nothing overhead is going to happen for a looong time. My abs are even sore.

Wednesday: AM- Lifting on my own. I worked on dead lifts and cleans. I set a few goals for November, and some of those include PRing on my cleans and deadlifts, so those will be one of my bigger focuses. I also did some rowing and weighted planks. 

PM- I had every intention of practicing a spin class, but I was so sleep deprived I couldn’t see straight, much less make up a class on the go. I ended up calling it quits after about 25 minutes and going to my dorm to take a nap. The good news is I still worked up a pretty good sweat, which I take as a good sign for my ability to make up a spin workout. 

PM- Pumpkin carving! That counts as a workout, right…?

Thursday: AM- Crossfit. Strength was practicing Turkish Get Ups. I’ve done something similar in the past, which turned out to be more like half of a Turkish Get Up, but the movements still felt pretty intuitive. I was even able to try it with a (light) barbell, which is hard because you have to balance it with one hand.

WOD: 12 Minutes as many rounds as possible:

6 squats

12 weighed sit ups (overhead)

200 m run

I actually ended up getting the second most rounds! Go figure. 

PM Flag Football

Friday: Likely rest, maybe some abs or yoga

Saturday: Long run-we’ll see how long it actually turns out. I have a specific number in mind but we’ll see. 

Sunday: Probably rest, maybe take a tour of the NEW GYM OPENING ON CAMPUS TOMORROW. I’m so excited-it’s supposed to be super nice, and it will have an actual spin studio (not just some bikes thrown in the corner of the weight room…) and nice spin bikes that actually show speed. The current gym is literally right next to my dorm, and the new one is way across campus, so I probably won’t go there a ton besides for spin, but I’m hoping the current gym will be half as crowded! Also, I know the new gym will be having spin classes on top of the ones that are still going on at the old gym, so maybe this is an awesome opportunity since I’m getting certified soon?

Ok enough exercise talk. Let’s move on to the good stuff, some food from the past few days.

I think I put a little too much weight in the prophetic abilities of the amount of milk foam in my cappuccino. Yesterday’s? AMAZING. TONS of milk foam-going to be a great day. Today’s? Not so much. 

Someone shook my kombucha! Speaking of which, I need to get more…

Cottage cheese, spinach, and pesto- #strangebutgood or just #strange? I’m going to go with the latter-this was way too salty. Not a fan.

Love.

Mystery bread as a study snack.

Pumpkin soup take 2! This was really good! The pumpkin soup was kind of boring plain, so one of the twins suggested I add rice to it. I loved the idea! I went to the dining hall in search of brown rice, but all they had was a mushroom barley mix, which was absolutely perfect! I also added some grilled chicken and spinach-YUM.

The other day my mom brought me some pants from home and dropped them off in my car-but she really is the best-she also thought to bring me some other clothes-which I discovered lat last night as I was trying to muster up the energy to do laundry. The best care packages are the ones that let you put off laundry another day. But anyways, she clearly know me way too well because she included tons of dried fruit.

This coconut was really delicious! I’ve never had YOUNG dried coconut!

But she also left me THIS.

A caramel apple! WAY better than Halloween candy!

I wanted some protein on the side-clearly it was not overkill to eat a caramel apple with apple butter, right?

Cottage cheese. Apple butter. Sunflower seed butter. Perfection. I’ve actually hopped off the pumpkin train-I’m ready to move on to other fall items-apples, cranberry bread, and (soon) gingerbread. My roommate and I are currently drowning in apples from our CSA box. She brought a slow cooker, so we’re planning on chopping a bunch up and throwing them in there with some apple pie spice. Which would be awesome on yogurt. I’ve been wanting plain yogurt so much lately, and I don’t have any! Sad. 

My study buddy! Filled with chai tea. I was trying to decide if I should use almond milk or water to brew my tea in. Then I realized I’d have to get up and walk all the way down the hall to the bathroom for water. Guess which I decided to use? 

Spinach buddies! I was actually planning on going to the dining hall for dinner…and then I was browsing twitter and saw on the local news that my University has had some horribly outbreak of a “mystery illness,” some type of food poisoning and probably norovirus from the food at one of our dining halls. 51 students were sick, and some hospitalized. Umm, no thank you-I’ll stick to my room! I’m just mad I had to hear about this on the news-no one told us students about it!

So on that cheerful note, I shall leave you. Have a great day!

What did you do for Halloween? I’d love to live vicariously through all you guys!

So, without further ado-here is how you do Halloween-COLLEGE style.

1. Make your muscles scream with this workout!

This is definitely a shoulder burner. This is a WOD I did over the summer-the prescribed weight is 65# for the thrusters. JELLO ARMS. I swear I had every intention of doing this today, but I did a million and three push pressed last night at Crossfit, so anything overhead was NOT going to happen today. So enjoy this one for me! It’s a quickie-just add to the end of your workout for a little conditioning. Speaking of workouts, I’m thinking of occasionally posting weekly workout logs so you guys get a sense of what I’m doing. 

2. Make your friends scream. Don’t shower after said workout. (For the record, I swear I always shower before class!)

3. Want an easy last minute costume idea? Be Frankenstein. Try this workout!

You legs will be so sore I GUARANTEE you’ll be walking like Frankenstein. No costume needed!

Note: Best done 1-2 days before Halloween for maximum Frankenstein-walking effect.

4. How to avoid eating too much candy-alternatice title: learn how to create a black hole. Place outside dorm room in building filled with college students. It’s amazing how fast it disappears. 

5. Make a haunted house in your dorm room. Forget scary “eyeballs” and “brains.” My three week old dirty tupperware is MUCH scarier. 

6. Dress up as a 12 year old dressed up as a zombie and go trick or treating. (Ok, I’ve never actually done this myself.)

7. Make your own version of a “zombie run.” Why pay money to be in a race with zombies when you can create your own? SImply dress up as a zombie and chase after unsuspecting victims runners. You’re just helping them run faster, right? Best done at dawn or dusk. Or in the complete darkness of night. 

8. Use treats to your advantage. Passing out candy to your dorm? Make it count. Last year I passed out these-

On the surface, it clearly made sense since I was a baseball player and the Giants were in the process of winning the World Series. However, I also had the mission of converting everyone to Giant’s fans so this was my way of getting that whole “subliminal mind control” thing to work its magic.

This year? We passed out Halloween candy. We’re clearly trying to break the curve people! Sugar messes with you brain, right? It’s midterm season-I need all the help I can get!

9. Spend all night in the library studying. Which is what I’ll actually be doing. The struggle is real my friends. 

At least I have a friendly face to keep me company!

Have a great Halloween everyone!

Are you dressing up? What are you doing for Halloween?