So-let’s back up shall we?

Friday morning I did my first real post race run! My foot was feeling much better, so I went to spin and then ran straight afterwards so my foot would be maximally warmed up. I ran 4 miles, and it felt pretty good! It was really good after 2, so this is progress! I wish I had brought my camera-it really feels like fall now I had the same impression last year-one day it’s summer and the next it’s fall. I can’t even explain what feels like fall-it’s still been 80 degrees and warm! Maybe it’s the angle of the sun? Everyone who leaves the East Coast to come to CA complains about lack of seasons-but if you look closely enough, they are definitely there. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived here for 20 years and I’m familiar with the subtleties of the the chaining seasons, but it excites me!

Post workout I had a chocolate mint protein shake.

This was milk, a frozen banana, chocolate designer whey protein, cocoa powder, fresh mint, and a pinch of xyatham gum. It was just ok-there was a little too much xyatham gum and a little too little ice so it was a bit slimy and not quite cold enough.

For lunch, I had leftover macaroni and cheese, purple cumin roasted cauliflower, and some figs.

Later that afternoon, I headed up to Berkeley to spend the weekend with some of my best friends from high school. Almost all of my high school friends go to Cal! They’ve all been in school for 3 weeks now, which is crazy because I don’t start for another week!

I stayed with one friend the first night, and two others the second night.

Saturday, my friend took me on a hike that overlooked the bay. It was so beautiful!

We also passed this road sign:

(Reads: Godzilla rampant in SF)

Only in Berkeley.

After cleaning myself up, I met up with my other friend for a late lunch of a veggie sandwich from a cafe near her apartment.

After spending a couple of hours catching up with her and another friend, we went out for dinner and dessert. We went to Fenton’s Creamery, which actually appeared in the movie Up!

(Source)

For dinner, we all order the CA Avocado burger, although mine was in turkey form.

This was delicious and so, so messy.

The main event though was dessert. This place was famous for their sundaes, and I’m not about to pass that up! One of my friends comes here quite often, so she was able to point us in the correct direction. We got a monstrous brownie sundae with chocolate ice cream and health bar ice cream, all topped with hot fudge and whipped cream.

We split it 3 ways, and all left bursting at the seams!

We had a great time catching up. When I’m with them, it’s like nothing has changed and is so, so refreshing. Can you believe we’ve been friends for 9 years? That’s basically half my life!

(8th grade grad)

It was such a fun weekend. I loved seeing them, and I’m actually feeling about ready to go back to school!

Do you have any long-term friends? 

A lot of people are doing reflections on the new year posts, but to be honest, I just don’t see the need, since I basically did the same thing for my Blogiversary. I’m also not really doing New Year’s Resolutions this year. I have some general goals and ideas of things I want to do or change in the future, but it’s more of a concept and the fact that I have no idea where my future lies in terms of exercise.

(Not relevant but I had to share this picture.)

I could set running goals, but I really don’t know what my running future holds. I want to PR a 5k this winter. I’m signed up for a half in April and am planning on one in the summer. But here’s the thing. I’m REALLY loving 5k training and speedwork and running fast. It’s fun. And right now it’s a little hard to look past the constant pain in my feet. I have tendonitis in my achilles, which is straining my feel and part of my arch, which is really painful. And that doesn’t include my mystery pain and numbness that comes with longer distances. I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks to hopefully begin treatment, but once again, it’s hard to look past this issue which for some reason popped up in the last couple of months. My 10 mile run a couple of weeks ago was painful and pretty much demolished my feet. In addition, I’m starting to get serious about teaching spin, and I have no clue where I want my weight lifting to go. 

But let’s back it up a little, shall we?

Yesterday morning I went to an abs class, which was really hard and I’m currently suffering from the aftermath. Then, I took some of my high school friends over to my college campus for a hike.

We tried to eat lunch at a couple of places on campus, but everything was closed. We ended up going off campus and making an amazing discovery-a little place that was pretty much an Indian food version of Chipotle! You could choose a bowl or a burrito type of thing, and choose rice, meat, sauces, and veggies.

My masterpiece was a bowl with brown rice, chicken, tikka sauce, yogurt sauce, date sauce, and veggies. So delicious! 

Then, we finally tried a fancy gourmet ice cream place called the Tin Pot. I sampled sweet cream with balsamic swirl, but ended up deciding on the San Francisco chocolate Tcho ice cream. Such a good decision.

All the ingredients were local, and the texture was insanely smooth. And in the cone was a little surprise-they fill the bottom of the cone with chocolate to keep the ice cream from dripping, and the chocolate at the bottom of our cones was still warm and gooey. 

That evening, I was off to Crossfit for Crossfit totals, with dreams of PRing. Crossfit totals is basically taking one rep maxes of the back squat, press, and deadlift. 

I haven’t done a ton of max lifting in the last year and a half, and I’m definitely lacking mentally here. It’s silly, but I get nervous for the lifts. However, after failing to PR my backsquat, probably due to lack of focus and losing some of my form, the nervousness turned to fire. I PRed my press my 10 pounds, and my deadlift by 30 pounds! For anyone interested, my total was 495 lbs, which is all the maxes of the three lifts added together. I’m really happy about this-I also feel that I would get a lot stronger at my home Crossfit. I may try the weightlifting class at my school Crossfit though. I love power lifting and I don’t think I get to do it quite as much at my school Crossfit. Anyways, this was a great end to 2013. It was funny-I only did a few reps of each exercise in the hour, and felt simultaneously like I was totally normal yet I was about to fall over. Lifting heavy is a strange thing! Dinner afterwards was a good one-turkey burgers with brussels sprouts and parmesan, and sweet potato rounds. 

This morning, I went back to Crossfit to tackle “Murph.” Murph is a hero workout, meaning it was named after a fallen soldier. Hero workouts are usually long and brutal. This one?

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

This might be one of my favorite Crossfit workouts ever. And I’m glad I was able to do it at home! There’s a lot of strategy involved with pacing. I did the first mile in 8:36, which I was super happy about because it felt good, and means my speed work is probably paying off! I broke the middle part into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats. The pull ups were with a fairly light band, and the push ups were form my knees since we have to touch our chests all the way to the ground! The squats made my legs very heavy by the end! I had to push hard to make the 45 minute cut off, and finished my last mile under 9:00, so that my overall time was 44:29. Another great workout conquered!

I spent the rest of the morning helping my mom take my kitties to the vet. Charlie is the biggest scaredy cat, and it was quite the task getting him into his crate. In the vet’s office, he hid in under the table the whole time. It’s so sad!

When we returned, lunch was leftover butternut squash soup with cheese and crackers. 

I guess I don’t want to set any fitness goals because I don’t know what my future holds. After my halfs, I may be done with distance running, at least for a while. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll run a marathon. I don’t want to torture myself through tons of long distances if my feet can’t take it! 

In terms of life goals, I guess I don’t see it as much as a new year, but more as a new quarter in school. In general, I just want to be more put together. I want my room organized, my homework always done ahead of time, productive hours in the library, healthy and balanced meals. I guess I also want to spend less time on my phone or the Internet-it makes me a little more unaware of the world, and my attention span is currently non-existent. I think I’d prefer to set aside a particular amount of time for reading blogs or social media, instead of having it leak into my life. 

As for tonight? My friend and I are going to San Francisco, which I am insanely excited about! 

Have an amazing night and be safe!

And of course, baking. I’m still unsure about posting the recipe because it was highly experimental. I liked it, but not sure that others would. I majorly modified my favorite pumpkin bread recipe and ended up with what I will call Gluten Free Coconut Pumpkin Pudding Bread. 

Last night I lifted weights (my gym at home is SO much nicer), and this morning I went to abs class and did a spin class on my own that I wrote up for myself. SO I guess you could say I did a spin workout, but since I want to be a spin teacher, I designed it in a class format. 

Breakfast was a smoothie with milk, spinach, mango, cherries, and strawberries, plus some of my baking experiment from the night before. And lunch and dinner at school consisted of leftovers from home! YUM.Now, I realize this post was really long, so yay if you made it this far! And I promise to be a better blogger and actually post as it happens so it won’t be so bad!

What is your favorite home cooked meal?