MIMM-Chocolate and Friends

Date: February 16, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Monday. Who has the day off? My weekend has certainly been marvelous so far!

Marvelous is..

Oatmeal! x2. Banana oats topped with strawberries, sun butter, and a dollop of plain yogurt.

Marvelous is…

An iced chai! I had every intention of spending the day working at a coffeeshop so I got a big chai tea! The only problem was that I for somer reason woke up much too early that morning and could barely keep my eyes open so I left for a nap…whoops. There went my productivity!

Marvelous is…

Trying a different dining hall for lunch! It was actually really good! They had about 9 types of cream cheese, which looked homemade. I tried the cinnamon raisin, triple berry, basil and olive, and chive and onion.

Marvelous is…

A dessert party! My sorority had a Valentine’s themed party on Saturday, so I got to dress up and eat delicious things. Fun fact-there are 3 girls in my sorority who seriously want to go to culinary school-let’s just say that we eat well!

Marvelous is…

A kick butt run! There’s no question I’ve gotten in better shape and faster in the last few months. I did the same run I’ve done a couple of times before-it’s one of my absolutely favorite places to run because it’s SO pretty! There’s a fairly big hill in the middle-the last time I was proud I kept my pace until 11:00 for the hill. I ended up powering up the hill around a 9:00 pace! And it wasn’t death!

Marvelous is…

A reunion with my best friends from high school! We actually went the same place the same weekend last year! (Sadly, it was the last day before I was sick for 2 months…)

Last year:

This year:

(Excuse my sweaty-just ran self)

But more importantly-the delicious food! We couldn’t decide between sweet or salty, so we got pancakes for the table to share.

Marvelous is…

Relaxing at home! I spent the day lounging around with these guys and watching the Olympics.

Things are going to get crazy starting tomorrow because I have loads of studying to do and a crazy amount of stuff to do this week!

Marvelous is..

Homemade chocolate for my family! And heyyy I finally took down the recipe for those interested!

Ingredients:

2 T coconut oil

2.5 T maple syrup

1 t vanilla extract

2 T half and half

1/2 c cocoa powder or cacao powder

1. Melt the coconut oil and maple syrup in the microwave, about 30-40 seconds and blend well. Then stir in vanilla.

2. Stir in cocoa powder and half and half (if the half and half is very cold, you may need to heat the mix up a bit).

3. Chill in the fridge on wax paper, or grab a spoon and enjoy!

Marvelous is…

Visiting my home Crossfit tomorrow morning! Yay!

What did you do this weekend?

Ready to Run

Date: September 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I can’t believe I’m going to be living in my dorm in a week. Where did the summer go? Since I’m pretty local, I’m going to do kind of a “rolling” move in. I have a ton of stuff in a storage unit, so I’m going to take all that on Thursday, and then move in completely on Saturday. And then wake up Sunday and do the brutal run I have planned for myself. It’ll be my first hilly long run.

Let’s back up a little bit. Let’s talk food. And workouts. I cleaned up my eating habits a lot since coming home from vacation, and have been hitting it pretty hard on the exercise front. And I can definitely see and feel the difference. It’s incredible what healthy eating can do for you! I’m concerned though that I’ve given myself too much energy as a result because I can’t fall asleep at night! But that could also be jet lag. So here are some eats.

A salad with spicy avocado hummus, avocado, onion, tomato, and a runny egg. I’m loving the hummus salads right now.

Caesar salad with grilled chicken. I’m trying to see how many different types of chicken salad I can eat.

Sunflower seed butter on toast, plus a white nectarine from what will probably be my last farmer’s market visit in a long time.

A new fall recipe for you guys! Baby Pumpkin Pie.

Other things:

I’ve still been having the same foot issues when I run longer distances, despite the inserts for my shoes the foot doctor recommended. SInce I haven’t had full feeling in my toe since my race over a month ago, my mom has been insisting I see the foot doctor again. I finally took a look at my inserts and realized they weren’t taking pressure off the right spot, so I made an appointment. I’m getting expensive (booo) custom made inserts that are supposed to solve the problem. Yesterday, I got the mold of my foot taken, and I should get them in about 2 weeks. However, I still have 2-3 long runs before then. I decided to try my hand at carving out a hole in the base of some old inserts to try and relieve some of the pressure. DIY at its finest.

However, I didn’t get a chance to try them out before tomorrow’s 10 mile run, so I’m really hoping it will help. Hope for a more comfortable run, combined with a few light workout days has me more than ready to tackle this run. I forced myself to take yesterday off of Crossfit because I had gone 4 days straight and on Thursday my legs were donezo. Now, I feel much more rested and have an excess of energy!

Today, I also did a little back to school shopping to avoid the dust storm going on in my house as a result of my parents cleaning everything out. I really want boots so I can wear workout pants all the time and pass it off as acceptable. I didn’t find the ones I was looking for though. Fashion question-do black boots go ok with black leggings?

Naturally, I didn’t exactly stay on task.

When I get the new laces for my new shoes, these will match PERFECTLY. I admit it, Nike shorts are my weakness.

Here are some other things I picked out:

I’m in love with infinity scarves right now. I’ve vowed not to wear regular scarves anymore, because I can never figure out how to wrap them and make them look good. Speaking of which, I started knitting my own infinity scarf! So we’ll see how that turns out!

I’m sorry this post was all over the place-I had a lot of random things to talk about.

What’s in your back to school shopping bag? What are you looking forward to most about fall?

WIAW-Summertime Loving

Date: August 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! That means-you guessed it-another edition of What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Jenn.

By the way, did you guys see her chocolate chip banana bread recipe? It looks AMAZING! I was going to make it but was short a ripe banana, and my dad may have killed me if I made it ~~and ate it all~~ while he was out of town.

But now onto what I actually DID eat!

Saturday lunch-leftovers. Sloppy joe meat (with turkey) in a lettuce leaf, plus leftover sweet potato wedges.

ANOTHER fruit bowl. I’m kind of obsessed with these. The best ones include bananas and peaches. WIth or without peaches though, there needs to be a tangier component than just banana-like berries or even apple in a pinch. Topped with crunchy sunflower seed butter for some healthy fats.

I also tried a new chobani flip-vanilla with corn flakes, honey oats, and praline pecans.

I paired it with a slice of veggie pizza and broccoli. My overall opinion? A little boring. And corn flakes+yogurt are not a great combination, just because they got super soggy.

Since over the weekend I was still on my no sugar challenge, when my parents broke out the peanut butter cups, I decided to make my own no sugar version. I heated up unsweetened chocolate and coconut butter (unsweetened chocolate is really hard), and then filled mini muffin cups first with the chocolate, then sunflower seed butter, and then topped with chocolate again. I also added a touch of sea salt to the top-to make them gourmet of course! I wouldn’t recommend using no sweetener if you aren’t use to the taste of unsweetened chocolate, but this would work just as well with dark chocolate.

One thing I love about summer is going to Farmer’s markets. I love tasting all the fruit-especially peaches. White peaches or nectarines are by far my favorite! However, fruit is not the only amazing foodie find at Farmer’s markets. Have any of you ever gotten kettle corn there? It’s the best kettle corn ever. When you get it, it’s so hot and crisp. What better to munch on while browsing the produce?

I do love my fresh produce though too. Some highlights-white raspberries and butternut squash hummus! I love topping salads with hummus, and I prefer less sharp hummus for this. Butternut squash worked just perfectly!

Also from the Farmer’s market-artichokes and corn. I also had a grilled portabello mushroom, but sadly we could not find any at the Farmer’s market.

Also-a side note: I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I haven’t posted many pictures of my breakfasts lately. That just means they’ve been super boring and/or really quick and early in the morning. For example-this morning I grabbed a Thinkthin bar before Crossfit. And as much as I’m sure everyone wants to see the same picture every other morning….

So far this week my workouts have been good ones. Monday was my first run of half marathon training 2.0. It took me about 3 hours to get going…but hey, I still did it. I realized I haven’t A) done that run in my newer shoes and B) done that run since the beginning of my first half marathon training. I did a 3 mile run in my neighborhood. It’s pretty hilly, so it was great practice for the hills of SF. It’s a run I’ve done a million times throughout high school. I did it once, at the very beginning of my training, and was DYING. I was in pretty awful shape at the beginning of my training-after recovering from Mono a month or so prior, I never really got back into running shape. Well, the run was sooo much easier. It’s good to know the 10 weeks of training I put into for my first half helped me be in better shape.

Confession: the whole time I was climbing the big hill I was think “I’m scaling this hill, just like Spiderman.” #facepalm

I refueled afterwards with an iced chai tea latte. A weak iced chai tea latte-because who has time for something to ACTUALLY brew fully?

When I make my chai tea lattes, I brew the tea directly into the almond milk, which I heat up. Since I’m adding ice, I find it gets too watery if I brew it in water and then add milk.

Aaaaand one last piece of deliciousness to leave you with. Remember how I said I wanted to bake Jenn’s chocolate chip banana bread but was a banana short? Well, I wasn’t just going to let a good banana go to waste. Or a good craving for chocolate chip banana bread to go to waste. Instead, I whipped up a concoction that turned out to be a pretty awesome banana chocolate chip custard. So let’s go with that.

I don’t have the exact recipe. But there’s only one solution to that-I’ll have to make it again and measure it out! I kind of just poured and mashed, but I used 1 banana, liquid egg whites, a dash of salt and baking powder, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

Have a great day everybody! I’m sorry this post was a bit disjointed-I was a bit behind on food posts so I kind of just threw it all out there. I’ll leave you with some kitty love.

I really wanted to take a selfie with him-because I’m cool and take selfies with my cat…but I didn’t get quite that angelic facial expression…

Do you love microwave cooking as much as I do? What’s the best way to train for a hilly race? Favorite summer produce? Anyone else take selfies with their cats? Please?

Training Part Two

Date: August 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guess what everyone?

Tomorrow is Monday. Which means….training starts! I am sooo excited. I can’t believe it’s only been 2 weeks since my first half marathon…and it’s 9 weeks from my second! Since I consider myself a seasoned half marathoner (hah) I’m going to go about my training a bit differently. Since I know I can put the mileage in which was my only goal for the last half, this time I’m doing speed work…and hills. Lots of hills. Hills on hills on hills. My run tomorrow is 3 miles around the neighborhood. Which means about 300 feet of elevation climb. It actually made me feel a lot better realizing the hills I’ve run around home for years are comparable to the hills of the race….

Anyways, I thought it would be fun to reflect on my training from my last half.

Lots of running….

Lots of shoes necessary to get through my training.

Compression socks to hold my legs together after long runs (I swear that’s what it feels like they’re doing!)

Fun places to run.

Post-run fuel. (I may have eaten this whole thing-more or less-after my 12 miler.)

Pre-run fuel.

Moral support.

Roller of death.

Tan lines to prove it.

Pre-race day jitters. (And let’s be honest-whole time of training jitters.)

Finish line ~~pain~~ bliss.

And enough craziness to do it all again!

Happy running friends! Here’s to another fun 9 weeks!

MIMM-Hills, Sweets, and Pigeons

Date: August 12, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Happy Monday! Today is going to be a big studying day-I have my health Psych final on Wednesday and I have a ton of reading to do! Since I have so much fun to share with you all, let’s make it a MARVELOUS Monday!

Thank you Katie, as always 🙂

As promised, Saturday night held delicious cake. My sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner to celebrate his birthday. They came straight from their run-they got lost and ended up running 17.5 miles. Craziness! We went to our favorite local fancy restaurant. I even wore a dress-who am I?

The happy couple, and the delicious food. For my main course, I ordered salmon on a bed of couscous. It was superb.

For the birthday cake, we made German Chocolate cake. It’s delicious, but so, so rich.

More marvelousness-my first attempt at coconut yogurt.

I’m thinking this collage would look better if I waited enough to take a picture before digging in…

I mixed together unsweetened coconut, chia seeds, and vanilla kefir, plus a drizzle of maple syrup. Since I didn’t have any vanilla yogurt, just kefir, I added the chia seeds for thickness. Overall, this was pretty good. I think it’ll work better with regular yogurt though.

Sunday marvelousness?

We family and I drove up to San Francisco to scout out the route for the Nike Women’s marathon. On the way up, we stopped for sandwiches.

The first half of the course is almost identical to the first half of the Giant’s Race, but instead of starting at the ballpark, it starts at Union square and heads downhill. The difference comes around mile 6 when, instead of turning back like in the Giant’s Race, we climb. A freaking. Huge. Hill. The worst hill is Mile 6, with the peak at Mile 7. Imagine the hills of SF, and how high they are. Now start from sea level and climb to that height in a mile until you’re at the top of everything. That’s a brutal hill. To be fair, it is a really great view. But somehow I don’t think I’m going to be thinking about that at the time…

After the peak, there’s a significant downhill. As in, you have to slow down to go down unless you want to go head over heels. I personally thought that was by far the worst hill, but according to the elevation chart the next one was equally significant.

The verdict? I have a lot of hill training in my future. And this is really not a good race to try and PR. Apart from the hills, apparently the first few miles are super crowded with walkers, so I can’t really get ahead on my pace. But I’ll train for a 9:30 pace in my tempo runs and see what happens.

More good news-we’re going to stay at a hotel the night before the race. It’s literally at the finish line, so my parents can drive me to the start and then wait at the finish line. AND, we got the last 2 rooms (for my sis and her bf too). Score! Transportation was going to be a big issue!

Marvelous-amazing ice cream. Since we were in the city, we stopped at Smitten, a place that makes nitrogen ice cream from scratch in front of you.

There was a pretty sizable line when we got there-and it wasn’t exactly in a building. The store was kind of out of an old shipping crate. Very hipster, if you ask me. But let’s just say there was a reason for the line.

I spent the entire time in line debating about whether I should get salted caramel ice cream with TCHO chocolate sauce, or TCHO chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce. My dad solved that problem by ordering an extra chocolate in a cone for the family to share (pictured above).

OMG.

That was BY FAR the best ice cream I’ve ever had, ever. Without a doubt. I was IN LOVE with the chocolate ice cream-I would order that instead of the caramel next time. It was the smoothest ice cream I’ve ver had-apparently flash freezing with the liquid nitrogen prevents any ice crystals. It also had a hint of salty flavor. I could eat that every day. And, the cone tasted like a crunchy, light sugar cookie. If you’re ever in SF, you need to try this place! Order the chocolate 🙂 Plus, TCHO is the SF chocolate.

The salted caramel was excellent as well. Just not quite as good as the chocolate. But just look at that!

Yummmm.

We sat on a bench inside (ish) the store to eat. The pigeons were awfully…’friendly.’ They would just walk over you feet to get to crumbs. So glad I wasn’t wearing flip flops-one decided to take a bite out of my shoe!

Marvelous is…grilled peach and chicken salad.

Marvelous is….cats. I petsat for one of my neighbor’s two cats for almost two weeks last summer. One time, when they were supposed to be taken care of by someone else who didn’t do it, they came and waited at my house. Well, yesterday, an entire year later, they came and waited at my house again. I’m not sure who was supposed to be feeding them, but they remembered me from a year ago! Crazy!

Marvelous is…rowing workouts. I’ve been trying to work them in again. I did a really short one before spin yesterday, and I did 12×2:30 today at differing speeds. It feels good to get back on the erg again! Maybe this is why I had a rowing dream last night. But last night I also dreamed about softball and Crossfit-those three things pretty much sum up the last year of my life, from beginning to end. Wow.

Marvelous is…a new challenge! I’m taking a 7 day no sweets challenge! I kind of love doing these. I was thinking about doing one earlier, but….I didn’t really want to. I guess when I don’t have a problem overeating sweets I have no desire to do a reset, but lately, it’s been feeling like it’s time, and I’m ready. I’ve started eating desserts out of habit, not because I want to. This will give me a good opportunity to really rethink what I’m putting in my mouth. And as you can see, I wanted to wait until after that ice cream!

Ok, that’s that for what’s marvelous! Have a great day!

Have you ever had nitrogen ice cream? Any sports you miss? Bird fears? Has anyone run the Nike Women’s Marathon in SF? I would love advice!