Thursday was my first day teaching spin for the quarter, and I taught both a noon and a 5:30 class back at my undergrad university. It was weird being back, and hanging around campus that afternoon. There are a bunch of new dorms, and things are slightly different! It felt good to be back to my classes too. Both were either full or nearly full!

I brought chocolate milk to drink immediately after the 5:30 class, but even with that I felt like I was struggling to make up the calories all night. My body needed more calories than my stomach could fit! For dinner, we made a stir fry using a ton of our CSA veggies. I don’t know why I don’t do stir fries more often!

Friday morning I was up at 5am to get a quick workout before my flight to Knoxville. My legs get really achy after sitting for so long if I don’t move a little bit in the morning. I did some quick weights: 4 sets of 4 deadlifts, going slow on the way down, at 155#, then 4 sets of 6 single leg squats and 6 pistols. I finished with some weighted planks. In and out really quickly!

I packed leftover stir fry for the plane, which was perfect. I had a 45 minute layover (both ways) so there was lots of running through the airport. My flight from ATL to Knoxville ended up leaving a little bit late, but I finally arrived in time to drive down to Market Square and eat a Subway salad.

Not a bad view from the hotel!

Luckily I didn’t have a terribly early morning. Check out this view!

I found that I knew my way around Knoxville just enough to be frustrated that I was constantly getting lost. I had the same issue this summer: Google Maps does not get along well with Knoxville.

Once my morning activities were done, I headed to the gluten free bakery hoping to snag a gluten free biscuit, but as I suspected, they were long gone. I settled for a delicious GF quiche. I can’t even remember the last time I had quiche.

I spent a few hours relaxing in the hotel. I forgot how many emotions I had attached to Knoxville, and all this travel has been sort of exhausting. Finally, I headed out for a 3ish mile run.

I cleaned myself up and then headed to Market Square for dinner. I was within walking distance, which was so nice! I always feel so awkward eating by myself, but I wanted some actually good food so I decided to sit at the bar and watch football. I started with a Lager.

And then got a cranberry kale salad with feta and rotisserie chicken. So good.

On the way back to the hotel, I picked up a durable looking toy for the psycho pup at a cute little pet shop.

Back at the hotel, I watched more football and snacked on some carrot cookies (which I packed), and a Klondike bar. I don’t think I’ve ever had one!

Sunday morning I was up bright and really freaking early. 5:30am EST. I made it to the airport and back home on my flights no problem (with some airport running, of course). It was weird to arrive in SF at noon! Since I’m becoming oh so familiar with the layout of SFO, I took a detour to another terminal while waiting for my bag to pick up the BEST GF cookie, chocolate chip sea salt. SO GOOD.

For dinner that night, we made spinach and goat cheese bisque.

And with that, another trip was done! I finished booking all the details of my next couple of trips, and to be honest, my head is spinning. I’m excited but exhausted to think about it! Thankfully, I have a free weekend until I’m off to Boston!

As 2016 draws to a close, I encourage everyone to take a moment and look back on the good times in 2016. What’s done is done, but we can shift our mindset. Don’t let the negatives wash out the positives for 2016. Life really is filtered by whatever attitude you take on. I challenge you to look back over the past year and find 10 of your “best moments.” 10 times that you were exhilaratingly happy, times that you were proud, times that you felt loved. Let go of the negativity and hold these 10 best moments close to you as we hop into 2017.

For inspiration, here are my best moments.

A fantastic night with a best friend resulted in a victory in which we won expensive wine.

I finally made it out to some Stanford baseball games. One of my big college regrets was not going to more games, so I made it happen in my final year.

Doing better than expected in the Crossfit Open. I didn’t rank super highly by any means, but I made some big breakthroughs in Crossfit and I think they started to come out in the Open. Plus, good workouts with good people? Always fun.

Going to Seattle for spring break with some of my best friends, and especially this night. I had dark beer for the first time and the beer I had was the best I’d ever had. Still on a beer kick since then!

Running the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in DC. This race was a dream for me to run, and I was so excited to get in through the lottery. I may have been slightly sick, had a broken foot, and run in sub-freezing 50 mph wind, but it was all totally worth it.

Going to a beach house with some good friends. It was so great to spend time together, get off campus, and unplug (no cell signal there).

Not letting the boot hold me back. I tried to have fun with it and do all the same fun activities with it. I put lights on it. It was my pal, my trusty sidekick. Always find the positive in negative situations.

This is one of the moments where I was just so overwhelming happy. I had a little graduation party during the last week of school, and everyone I care about came. It was incredible. There was a school tradition of walking around campus as a giant group on the last night of the year, ending in the fountain. I had never been since I would usually go home earlier than that, and everyone wanted to go. I had just gotten my boot off and could barely walk, and surely couldn’t make it all the way across campus on foot. My friends literally took turns carrying me across campus. So grateful for them.

Visiting Emily in Nashville when I was living in Tennessee. I had such an amazing time, and it was great to see a friendly face and catch up after some time living alone, plus getting some solid life advice.

My time in Knoxville was incredible. I think one of the best moments was leading an alpaca around, although I don’t have pictures of that for confidentiality reasons. It was one of those moments where I just thought, “this is so freaking cool.” When I came home, I felt like a completely different person thanks to all my experiences there. And it got me even more excited about my future career path.

Coming home from Knoxville and seeing old friends, and getting a good look at this view. I love my city.

Doing something I never thought I’d do: go to a country concert. After living in Tennessee for 5 weeks, I felt pretty qualified to attend a Florida Georgia Line concert in St. Louis. I went alone, but still had a blast. Made me miss TN!

The Giant’s wildcard win, which was incredible and allowed me the chance to take a trip to Chicago (my first time there!) to see my home team play in the playoffs. We can also toss in our Game 3 victory which was the biggest roller coaster of emotions and kept me up past 3 am.

Bottle feeding young goats at Grant’s Farm. Or even just being surrounded my goats. I love goats.

Running the Halloween Race in St. Louis. It was my grand return to racing post-stress fracture, and it’s always fun to do races in new cities.

Yindi (Tasmanian Devil) playing with a pumpkin. This made my morning, my week, and my year. This was the only thing that was going to cheer me up the day after the election.

Wine tasting in Missouri wine country with my fantastic coworkers. But seriously, my zoo buddies were incredible and I miss them dearly!

And finally, having the opportunity to spend hours a week with this fantastic creature. I miss Kali!

What is one of your best moments?

Let’s catch up! I’m back in California. But let’s take it back a little bit for some food+fitness+life, shall we?

Tennessee Food

I finally improved the appearance of my new favorite breakfast a little bit. It’s just a sunbutter+blueberry sandwich, soaked in 1 egg white and then baked in tinfoil! Super easy and delicious, and the egg adds a little kick of protein. I ate theses with copious amounts of watermelon.

There was a Wednesday night Farmer’s Market with tamales. I had a delicious sweet potato tamale the week prior and was hoping for another one, but I was on the later so so cheese was my only option. Still delicious! On the side was one of the weirder things I’ve eaten. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic on lettuce leaves and then dipped them in guacamole. It was just too much lettuce…

I’m a pretty big fan of Publix now. It was the closest grocery, and had lots of great healthy+GF options. And gourmet yogurt. This and the bananas foster yogurt was delicious!

I had one last honey lavender iced latte at K Brew while finished up the first draft of my essay!

Tennessee Life

On my last day, I got off pretty early. It didn’t take me long to decide what I wanted to do. I went to Ijams one last time for a little hike by the river. I took a slightly different trail than the previous time and explored some different areas.

And then Saturday I was homeward bound. What is crazy? There was literally no line going through security in Knoxville. As in, I was literally the only person.

California

My favorite cookies ever happen to be at one of the places in the SFO terminal. I was hoping the entire 5 hour flight that 1. I would happen to pass it and 2. they would still be open! It turns out, the place was right by where I exited security, so I picked up a spicy cinnamon GF cookie. I think I preferred the non-spicy version I tried previously, but this was the only option.

To be honest, it feels weird being home, especially the first day or two. I feel like I was worlds away, and came back a different person. I had so many new experiences in Tennessee, and I did so much in a short time. To be honest, I’m glad I’ve moved on to new things instead of moped around about how I was going to miss my undergrad. At first, I didn’t feel ready to go to TN so soon after graduating, but I think it was for the better.

Sunday, I dove right back into things. First, I went to a spin class at the local studio. Then, I made amazing banana bread. I used my tried and true recipe, and separated it into two halves: one plain, one with raspberries and chocolate chips.

For dinner that night, I was back to the soup+avocado toast grind. Butternut squash chicken soup.

That evening, I met up with my college roommate for the Panic at the Disco+Weezer concert. I’ve grown particularly obsessed with Panic over the course of the last year, so when I was able to make the concert work given my travel dates, I was excited! Honestly, I could care less about Weezer. I probably haven’t listened to them since middle school, but liked them well enough then.

It was a great show, but we had seats on the lawn so unfortunately we were pretty far back. I haven’t been to many concerts lately, but the concerts I’ve been to I’ve always been able to be closer to the action. Maybe next time!

I enjoyed Weezer as well, and found I knew more songs than I realized.

In terms of workouts, I’ve been going back to my home Crossfit. We tend to do more barbell movements there, and I’m already feeling this morning’s workout! For strength, we did back squats. It was supposed to be 5 sets of 3 at 90%, but since I lost a ton of strength with my foot injury, I did 5×5 at 70%. I’ve squatted some since my injury at the TN Crossfit, but it was pretty low volume. So I’m going to be feeling this. The WOD was also a heavy one: 15 Min AMRAP of 10 hand release push ups and 5 deadlifts, which I did at 155#. While my squats may have gotten weak, my deadlifts have progressed because it was one of the few movements I could do for a while! I made it through almost 12 rounds.

I also went back to teach spin on Tuesday! I’m subbing as much as I can in the few weeks I’m home. I saw a ton of regulars, which was just so fantastic.

And finally, wrapping up some food for the week.

When my roommate came, she brought a ton of AMAZING peaches! They don’t last a long time because they’re perfectly ripe, so we’ve been eating them like crazy. No problem for me! I had a peach+nectarine for breakfast the other day, with a side of banana bread.

Yesterday I had a cappuccino with a really delicious cranberry oat bar to fuel an essay brainstorming session.

And finally, the best thing.

We made Brazilian Cheese Bread! I got the idea from Alison. It’s made with tapioca flour and cheese, and is naturally gluten free. I used this recipe. They came out beautifully, and it was a super fast recipe!

We served them alongside Grilled Peach and Goat cheese salad, which was amazing with the fresh summer peaches.

What have you been up to??

This is also my last week in Knoxville. I have a crazy couple of weeks ahead. I don’t think I mentioned this here, but this fall I’m going to St. Louis to intern at the zoo! And my start date got moved up. So. I will fly back to California on Saturday. Then, I have 3 weeks to finish vet schools apps and figure out housing/logistics for St. Louis. AHH. So much to do!

But instead of worrying about that right now, let’s just sit back, relax, and check out today’s food.

At 5:00am, pre-Crossfit, I had a few bites of cereal. Now that I’m getting used to being up so freaking early, I can tolerate a little something pre-workout.

The workout kind of stunk. We did EMOM for 8 minutes of 3 overhead squats, slow on the way down. The workout was a 30 minute AMRAP of 800m run, 20 UNBROKEN wall balls, 20 pull ups. I got through 3+ sets. For the pull ups, I did the first 10 with no band, and the second 10 with a band. Because that’s a lot of pull ups.

Breakfast: A fantastic idea, with poor execution.

I’ve been into having granola bars (Luna) for breakfast lately, but I’ve also been having them for a snack so I wanted to mix it up. And I haven’t been feeling yogurt at all. But I have been into sunbutter and jelly. So I made baked sunbutter+blueberry french toast. Basically, the night before I made a sandwich of sunbutter and blueberries, and soaked it in an egg white in foil. While I showered this morning, I threw it in the oven. It was great until the egg totally stuck to the foil taking it out. Whoops. I’m not sure if I didn’t buy nonstick foil, or if I didn’t use the nonstick side…realistically I probably just bought cheap foil…either way, it tasted good! Plus cherries on the side.

Lunch:

Super simple. Salad with lettuce, tomato, chicken, and Bolthouse Farms Creamy Garlic. Quest chips. I actually really like these! Also more cherries, which are shown in the snack picture:

Snack in the afternoon was the above pictured Luna!

After I got off today, I hit the grocery store for what I hope will be the final time. I’m REALLY trying to have nothing left!

While making my meal, I snacked on watermelon, as per my usual dinner making snacking habit.

And ate the last couple slices of zucchini in my fridge.

Dinner:

Currently loving this salad. Lettuce, tomato, corn, cheddar, and avocado tossed in lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper, topped with BBQ chicken.

Dessert:

Still loving these salted caramel froyo bars. It’s a nice healthier alternative!

And a little later on, half of this bar. I tried them for the first time last week, and I’m on board!

And just for fun, I have a few scenes form yesterday’s (short) run. Thankfully the heat doesn’t bother me (and it was only 1.5 miles), but it was weird having my breath be cooler than the air. I’m going to miss Knoxville!

Only a few more days!

It’s my last weekend in Knoxville. I had some things I had been wanting and planning on doing this weekend, but things fell through and that really threw me off. Instead of moping however, I decided to take myself out this weekend: to spend a weekend by myself, doing things I want to do, having a good time, regardless of whether it is generally socially acceptable to do these things alone. Because why not enjoy my last weekend here? I came up with a pretty full schedule!

I got off pretty early on Friday, but I came prepared with my laptop and headed straight to a local coffeeshop to work on my vet school personal statement essay. I have a decent idea of what I want to say, but it’s a matter of putting it together. I decided it was essential for me to write this in a relaxed, low-key environment, so I’ve been working on it here and there the last couple of weeks. Again, embracing the slow Southern lifestyle!

Next, I headed to Panera for dinner, where I got my favorite: half Fuji apple chicken salad. I also packed some crackers to go with it!

Next on the agenda was a night exploring a little bit of downtown. This was one of the things I was most worried about feeling awkward doing alone, but I decided to just go with it; why not, right?

I picked out a place with rooftop seating, and a live band. I figured I’d feel less awkward with live music.

I ended up having a great time. When I walked in, the Giant’s game was playing on the TV, which was the most amazing thing for me. I sat down to watch it, chatted with some nice gentleman from Colorado, and then headed downstairs to see the band.

And was home all by a reasonable hour!

On the schedule for Saturday morning was a Crossfit workout. The temperatures were supposed to be pretty scorching this weekend, so I was expecting the gym to be a hell-hole since there is no AC. It actually wasn’t bad!

The workout wasn’t super hard, but it was a fun one! It was a partner circuit workout, that included stations like “conversation wall sits,” complete with conversational topics, ball throws, and a mini game where you had to race your partner to 50m on the rower, and you had to do as many burpees as you went over by, which was hard! My closest was 52m on the last round!

From there, I went to the farmer’s market at Market Square. It was much bigger than I was expecting!

I actually found several places with GF baked goods. I picked up a mini loaf of lemon poppyseed bread.

And for lunch, I grabbed a vegan (sweet potato and collard filled) blue corn tamale, and some mango lemonade.

I walked around downtown a little more before heading back to cool down a bit before making a trip to the zoo. I had actually visited the zoo briefly as part of my summer thing, but I wanted to get the full walk around! It’s a really nice zoo—they even have camel rides!

After the zoo, I made a simple dinner. I threw an ear of corn in the oven, and then had a veggie burger and avocado toast.

My last item on Saturday’s agenda was a baseball game. I went to a Tennessee Smokies game. The Smokies are a AA affiliate of the Cubs. This has been on my to-do list since I got here! The stadium was really nice, and I got great seats.

It felt so weird to go to a baseball game in a dress…in SF, I would be bundled up in layers upon layers, and still be freezing! Although as I arrived, there was a thunderstorm, and the game was delayed about 30 minutes! After that though, it was a nice night.

Dippin’ dots are actually one of my favorites…only the chocolate though!

Unfortunately the Smokies lost, but it was a close one!

I had a pretty relaxing Sunday pre-Crossfit, involving Grey’s Anatomy (as much of this weekend has had). Every other Sunday, my Crossfit does “Girls Doing Girls,” a female-only glass where we do one of the benchmark girls workouts. I had originally planned on not coming and doing spin instead, but 1. I was feeling Crossfit and 2. my foot has been bothering me a little bit lately after standing a lot this past week and I didn’t want to clip into the flimsy spin shoes. I also thought it was going to be too hot at the 11am class time, but it hasn’t been too bad!

For the workout, we did Nancy, which is:

5 rounds:

400m run

15 overhead squats (Rx is 65#)

My foot felt fine for the running, which was good. I chose to just do 45#. It’s easy to forget, given my broken foot, that my shoulder still isn’t as strong as it was pre-injury. I went from babying my shoulder up to a point where I was able to do everything, albeit light, to having a broken foot and forgetting about any shoulder issues. But the reality is it isn’t as strong as it once was, and I hardly started doing overhead squats before I broke my foot. Plus, this workout kills your wrists. I think I did it, or something like it, once at 55# and that was awful. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I used 45#. It was a good one; I was able to do the squats unbroken, and finished in 18:17, dripping sweat.

After Crossfit, I headed to Subway to pick up lunch. I haven’t been there in a very long time, and I have a lot of gift cards there! I love that you can make any sandwich a chopped salad now! I used to live off Subway back in my softball days where I was at a tournament every weekend.

Also, if you’re into volume, you get a lot of bang for your calories with these salads! I got mine with turkey, provolone, tomato, cucumbers, olives, and oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. Plus some baked chips on the side, for old time’s sake.

I took my salad to go and drove across the river to Ijams Nature Preserve to go hiking.

It was so peaceful out there, and just what I needed! So quiet. It was a beautiful day too, hot but nice in the shade.

Apparently it was  Pokemon hot spot—I saw several kids catching Pokemon there!

That being said, I think it was 96 or 97 degrees out (36 degrees celsius, according to the car), so I was definitely sweaty by the end.

Not that I needed an excuse for froyo…

Menchie’s is growing on me. I like that they list allergens, and have healthy options. Plus they have hot fudge, although I didn’t get any today. But chocolate covered strawberries? What?? For my ice cream, I got salted caramel and milk chocolate.

The rest of the evening involved Netflix and dinner.

This is a totally random dinner, but I made it last week and enjoyed it. Zucchini, cheddar cheese, eggs over easy, and guacamole.

After dinner, I headed downtown to try and work on my vet school essay. I wasn’t in the right inspirational headspace though, so I made an outline of what I have left to say and called it a night.

I can’t believe this is my final weekend here! I feel like I’ve been here forever, but also like no time has passed. Strange how that works!

What did you do this weekend? Do you ever take yourself out?

I have a few scenes from my run. I made it 2 miles! That’s the farthest I’ve run since my stress fracture, and while it felt good, I don’t think I’m quite ready to go further yet.

So why not another weekend recap?

This weekend my parents came to visit! Which of course meant we got to eat lots of good food!

Thursday night, we met in Market Square and went to Trio. I got the Trio salad, with added roasted chicken. The salad had portabello, brie, and blueberry balsamic. Their chicken was super tender and delicious as well!

We then went to Rita’s for frozen custard. I went with chocolate and vanilla swirl.

Friday night after I got off work, my parents picked me up and we headed back to Market Square and hit up Cafe 4, which had been on my radar.

I had a really delicious salmon, beet, and goat cheese salad. My family also split cheddar grits. I love grits!

For dessert, we split a slice of flourless chocolate torte. I’ve actually been super impressed with the gluten free options in Knoxville. A lot of menus have things labelled.

We walked around downtown a little bit before calling it an early night. I definitely didn’t get enough sleep the previous couple of nights, and was feeling it!

Saturday morning, my parents slept in while I went to Crossfit. The workout was a partner AMRAP. It started with a 400m run then:

29 Minutes

7 burpees

13 goblet squats

19 sit ups

8 pull ups

7 box jumps

And no, I really don’t understand the numbering scheme. My partner and I switched off rounds. I am so impressed with how much my foot has improved in the past 3 weeks. I can do pretty much anything now. On Saturday I did 20″ box jumps for the first time (I had been doing 16″). For my burpees, I’ve been stepping back and forward. On Saturday, for the first time I started stepping back and lightly jumping forward! (It might be a while before I slam my foot into the ground by jumping back). My pull ups have also drastically improved. Now, I just do the WODs without a band for pull ups. Without questioning it. I didn’t do most of the sets unbroken, partly because my hands got slippery on the bar, but I did do one set of 8 continuous pull ups. A couple of months ago (or less), my max was 4! I felt really strong and fit out there during that workout. Since coming here, I’ve stopped babying my toes to bar and pull ups, and I’ve realized both how strong they really are, and have seen them get stronger. I feel really good, and really fit out there in my workouts. And I finally feel healthy, like a whole (non-fractured) person. That being said, don’t ask me how fit I feel when running! Still working my way back into that…it’s not easy to get back into, but I’m putting zero pressure on myself, and I have zero expectations.

For brunch, I took my parents to a gluten free bakery/market. We all had egg and cheese biscuits (although theirs had bacon).

After lunch, we drove into the Smokey Mountains.

It was a tad rainy. We got out at the head of the Appalachian trail to hike, and ended up getting back into the car and staying there for a little while while the worst of the storm passed.

It was pretty cool to be hiking there. Only 2,000 miles to Maine!

The scenery was beautiful!

It was a great afternoon trip. We DID the Smokies! (As my mom said!)

For dinner, we headed to Market Square yet again to try another restaurant on my list, Tupelo Honey Cafe. This was recommended to me by somewhere I went to Physical Therapy with when I was working on my foot!

We started with spiced and and grilled Okra, served with buttermilk ranch.

For my main meal, I got a side salad with Tupelo Honey Vinaigrette, and corn soufflé. The soufflé was delicious, and I would love to try and recreate this at home!

We got back on the early side, so once at my dorm I began laundry and Facetimed my college roommate. It was so good to catch up with her, even if the signal was sketchy! It’s amazing how much there can be to share about just a few weeks!

The next morning, I let my parents sleep in (West Coast time) while I went to a spin class. HELLO cardio. In terms of exercise, Crossfit has been my method of choice (and really my only option) for the past few weeks. I lost most of my cardio endurance with my broken foot anyways, so it’s been a little rough! I’m subbing spin classes the week I get back to California though, so I need to get it together a little bit!

I actually made my own lunch while cleaning up and throwing in some more laundry. it involved avocado toast, watermelon, and BBQ chicken over salad.

We met up again so that my mom and I could get pedicures. Mine were looking rough—I am pretty bad about my my nails. I tend to get a pedicure with my mom about once a quarter, and then leave that polish on until the next time. It had been extra long this time because my foot was too broken for a pedicure! I went with deep red.

Afterwards, I kidnapped my parents to help me work on my vet school apps. We went to K Brew, my favorite coffeeshop here, for Lavendar Honey Iced Lattes. (Yes, they are as good as they sound.) I have a pretty good idea of what I want to write my personal statement on , but we brainstormed a few more ideas. I think for my writing process, I need to get it down in a low stress, relaxed environment, so I’m hoping to find somewhere nice to hang out next weekend and get started on it. Everything feels slower and more relaxed here in Tennessee, and I know a return to the Bay Area is going to feel like a sack of bricks to the face.

We headed to Panera for an early dinner of a Fuji Apple Salad for me. Love that!

Then, it was time to say our goodbyes!

Thank you guys for coming to visit!

(Also—how crazy is this. This was my entire tank. That would take me 300 miles. In the Bay Area, $15 gets you like 2 drops of gas…)

5:40am: Alarm goes off

I get ready for Crossfit. This involves eating a bit: half a slice of zucchini bread (the last of my minimal freezer ration that I brought from home) and a few GF cheese filled crackers (SO addictive).

I’m not normally one to workout in just spandex, but workouts have been SO sticky with the humidity. The gym is unairconditioned an dust holds heat, so it’s gross even at 6:30am. When I wear shorts, they just stick to my skin and make it hard to move around.

I actually end up taking less time than I allotted to get ready. It’s only 1 mile away too.

6:20ish: walk in and start to warm up. We don’t do warm ups as a class; you’re responsible for doing your own beforehand.

Here was the workout:

When I saw tempo deadlifts, I knew it was my jam. I’ve been doing that tempo for deadlifts every week until last week for about 2 months, thanks to my foot limitations. The MetCon was sweaty and hard! I’m not fully functional at this point, so I did my jumps onto a 16″ box, and stepped back and forth for the burpees. I used a band for the pull ups. The second part was essentially a plank, on the hands. We went for as long as we could in the 5 minutes. I lasted over 2 minutes before resting, and I was pretty proud of how I did overall!

I left dripping and feeling like I accomplished something for my morning!

Upon arriving back at the dorm, I showered and got myself ready for making breakfast. Outfit of the day? Scrub top, khakis, hiking boots.

Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries, sunbutter, and vanilla cereal. I also snacked on cherries while I put it together.

8:30: Leave to start my day.

9:00: Begin the day’s tasks. I don’t think I should go into much detail but this week involves horses.

12:00: Break for lunch. I have more of those cheese crackers, plus a salad with goat cheese, mediocre blueberries, and chicken. I didn’t want to put my nectarines in my salad anymore because they’ve been crazy good lately and it feels like a waste!

I actually also ate my nectarine that I had packed for a snack. Oh well. I was extra hungry thanks to Crossfit.

I broke mid-afternoon to eat a peppermint Luna bar as well.

I actually had a lot of time to think about my vet school app essays, and I’m feeling good about my direction, which is important! I need to schedule some low key time to sketch them out a little.

6:30: Leave, as a giant storm is rolling in. It actually wasn’t as bad as it was projected to be, but there were flashes of lighting everywhere I looked as I drove back.

6:45: Arrive back at the dorm and throw some zucchini in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Scarf down some cherries and more of those cheddar crackers.

7:00 Phone meeting about vet school stuff while the zucchini cooked.

7:20: Throw a slice of GF bread in the oven to toast while I get the rest of dinner ready.

Nice and black, just the way I like them! (In all honesty I could and should have probably taken these out sooner, but oh well.)

7:30: Dinnertime!

Zucchini, avocado toast, chicken, and a veggie patty.

Settle down to eat with Grey’s Anatomy (I’m on Season 10). Dessert is a chocolate mint Yasso bar.

Throughout the rest of the night, I also have a GF blueberry muffin and part of a Bobo’s lemon popppyseed bar.

After finishing my episode, I do some vet school app stuff, watch a few youtube videos, and settle down to read.

Projected bedtime: 10:30-11. If I had work tomorrow I would probably be in bed sooner!

Let’s start with Sunday.

I started by hitting up Knoxville’s only spin studio, Turbo Cycle.

It was one of the classes where your stats appear on the screen, and this always makes me work harder! It was a tough and fun class. One thing that I didn’t love was that I didn’t have my own spin shoes. I’ve never actually used any other cycling shoes, but they didn’t make the cut of what to put into my crammed suitcase. Apparently mine have pretty thick and sturdy soles, so the shoes I used for that class made me a little nervous for my foot since I could feel the pedal more beneath me, but I was careful and it was ok.

Afterwards, I went to another highly rated coffeeshop to cool off with a decaf iced latte and to finish my book.

Back in my room, I made lunch.

Sweet potato noodles, spinach, cheese, guacamole, and BBQ chicken.

After lunch I walked down to World’s Fair Park with a new book in hand and explored the area.

After a while I decided that the ~95 and humid weather was not as pleasant in the shade as I was hoping, and headed back for a low key afternoon with my book and some netflix.

My outing that evening was froyo. It’s 5 miles to the nearest froyo! Worth it.

My 4th of July felt extremely American. My most American yet (although this one may be a close second). I’m in the South, my friends.

I started my morning with Crossfit, which was a Hero WOD.

Adrian

Seven rounds for time of:
3 Forward rolls
5 Wall walks
7 Toes to bar
9 Box jumps

Forward rolls? Not a thing for me. I did the sub, which was flutter kicks. I was able to knock out toes to bar pretty well. I’m getting stronger there at least! Box jumps? I did them! I used a shorter box (I think 18″), and was super careful. They felt good. I forget to mention it, but on Saturday I “did” my first burpees since my foot. I say “did” because I stepped forward and back. But we’re getting there my friends!

The Crossfit gym is decidedly un-airconditioned, so I was sweating buckets almost immediately. Lunch was a much needed green smoothie, plus a fuji apple chicken salad from Panera.

I spent the next few hours reading and doing laundry, before making the drive into the countryside to visit my college advisor’s lake house.

As a happy land dweller, I usually avoid water, but I was persuaded to spend some time in the lake, thanks to warm temperatures.

(Apparently Nike makes bathing suit bottoms that are shorts. This is my ideal!)

My floatie of choice was a paddle board. I’ve always wanted to try SUP, but there was a pretty strong current and I had no confidence in my ability to steer away from it if I actually got up. I stood briefly while hanging on to the dock. Baby steps! I spent most of the time just sitting on it, enjoying the beautiful day and the water.

I felt so AMERICAN. Floating in a lake, drinking a beer, eating ALL the appropriate BBQ foods.

I had a great time, and left in time to make it through the small and windy country roads with some daylight left.

It started to get dark right as I got back onto a main highway, and I saw a few fireworks being shot out a ways away. There is something so amazing and beautiful about seeing fireworks when you aren’t expecting to.

I made it back by around 9:30, and contemplated walking down to where I knew there would be fireworks, where lots of people were headed.

I walked a little ways before deciding I wasn’t feeling it. Also, I thought my room my have a decent view of some fireworks (yay for the 11th floor!), so I grabbed a treat at an open market (A candy bar. American? Probably.)

I arrived to my room JUST in time to see this:

What a perfect view!

And now it is time to head to bed—lots of early mornings ahead!

What did you to do celebrate the 4th?

Friday night I went to Central Burgers and Taps with some of the people I’ve met while here and their dogs. This is a very dog friendly city, and most places with outdoor seating allow dogs.

Saturday morning began with a Crossfit class!

I hadn’t done any intense exercise in a week, so it felt good to sweat! (And sweat I did—no AC!) We did about 1000 burpees, push ups, wall balls, and ab mat sit ups. Well, maybe not 1000, but over 100 of each! We did a deck of cards workout, where each movement was a deck of cards. The coach let the class choose, and apartment the class is full of masochists, haha! In all seriousness though, the people were SO nice. Some of the most genuinely nice people I’ve met in the Crossfit community. I wasn’t sure I was going to try to do a membership because the class time I can make is 5:30am (ouch), but I was won over!

Next up was a trip to the only gluten free bakery in Knoxville, for their Saturday morning biscuits! Benefit Your Life was a bit of a drive (apparently you can drive 13 miles on the highway and still be in Knoxville?), but totally worth it. I got an egg and cheese biscuit, and a strawberry, banana, orange smoothie.

Plus a chocolate chip cookie for later.

After cleaning up, I enjoyed my lack of schedule by reading a book for an hour or so before heading out to explore the city (i.e. plant my butt in a coffeeshop and work on vet school apps). I headed to K Brew, and had to try their special, a honey lavender latte.

I’m not normally a sweet coffee person, but this was AMAZING. I’m going to have to go back and try their cappuccinos too to really evaluate this coffeeshop!

I ate my cookie while working on apps. Necessary to make them a little bit sweeter. In all seriousness though, having such a low stress and happy environment makes them a lot less stressful.

I was there for about 2 hours before I headed down to Market Square to walk around. Apparently there’s a nice farmer’s market there Saturday mornings!

I then stopped at a salad and sandwich/burger restaurant for a turkey, avocado, and ranch salad.

Followed by frozen custard. Chocolate/vanilla swirl.

This was from Rita’s. Apparently there’s one near my house in CA that I have yet to try, but this was really good! (Shake Shack is better though.)

From there I drove around the area to try and get my bearings and ran some errands, before heading out again with the same people. We played corn holes, which I’m decent at but not as good as you might think, given my pitching background!

Today I have another full day to explore, and after my workout, I’m not sure what I want to do!

Have you ever been to Knoxville? Recommendations for me?