I left after class on Tuesday and made great time! I got back just in time for happy hour with the pup.

For dinner, we got pizza. GF for me!

Wednesday morning, I was up early and ready to attack the day (…or aware of how much schoolwork I had…). I started the morning with a quick workout in the backyard with the uninvited help of Chloe. I did 20 minutes of 5 push ups, 10 russian twists (each) with a 20 pound med ball, and 15 squats.

It turned out to be a good one, and I was actually sore the next day!

Then, it was time to see the podiatrist about my ankle pain. It’s definitely not broken, nor a bone bruise. I’m a weird case but the diagnosis is an ankle sprain, and I have an ankle brace to wear. So TBD.

I spent the afternoon on schoolwork, catching up on some lectures. The first I watched in the car on the way to pick up my turkey trot bib (my mom drove), and the second I watched with a furry friend.

For dinner, we had Cooking Light’s Chicken, Apple, and Butternut Stew recipe, which we added spinach to and topped with aged cheddar. YUM.

Plus cornbread!

Thanksgiving morning started early with the turkey trot!

As you may recall, my ankle has prevented me from running for the past 3-4 weeks. Besides soccer (which was sketchy). So I had no idea what was going to happen. The above snap is referring to my plantar fasciitis as well which has for some reason flared up as well…So yeah, I had zero expectations and just hoped to finish in one piece!

The weather was perfect; nice and warm compared to what it normally tends to be!

Right on time, me and 22,000 friends were off!

Given I hadn’t run in a month, imagine my surprise when 8:10 pace felt really easy, and I casually was a few seconds off my PR? What?? Even better, my ankle was shockingly good. It started getting sore about half a mile in, then loosened up and felt good! So that was unexpected!

On the way home, I stopped by to meet my sister’s kitten, Ash.

Then, we got ready to head off to Napa!

When we pulled up the the hotel in Napa where we would have our Thanksgiving dinner, imagine our surprise when we saw this:

Turkeys! And definitely not wild, just hanging out on the front lawn. It actually turns out they’re fire refugees, and showed up when their home burned down in the wildfires.

Then, it was time to eat!

Plate 1:

Cheese, sushi, and most importantly, pumpkin soup!

Plate 2:

Mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce, heirloom carrots, and two highlights: purple polenta with green olive relish and roasted brussels sprouts.

Dessert:

Cheesecake, pumpkin pie, raspberry mouse cup, chocolate covered strawberry.

Friday morning, my mom and I did spa treatments, and then it was time for wine!

The first stop was the Bistro in St. Helena.

We shared a grilled artichoke, and then I had an avocado salad with fresh mozzarella and olive oil.

We did our typical St. Helena things, including a trip to the pet store, Woodhouse Chocolates, and a gluten free chocolate chip cookie split 3 ways for dessert.

Our first winery of the day was Pine Ridge. They have a really good and unique white that is really reasonably priced at Trader Joe’s, and we’ve passed the winery so many times that we decided we should stop in! Plus the grounds were beautiful.

Cabernet Sauvignon is their specialty. The staff was super nice. I’m not super into red wines, so they let me sub out some whites in their tasting. Even though it’s not my thing, I could tell the Cabernet was good quality!

We ended up getting a great discount on the tasting from our hotel too! For our next stop, they pointed up across the road to Robert Sinskey,

This ended up being a great suggestion. We all enjoyed the unique white wines we tried, and I even really liked the Pinot Noirs we tried. They also provided little snack plates with their tasting, and they even made a special GF, nut free plate for me!

Our last stop of the day was Domaine Chandon for some Black Friday shopping.

Cheers!

We also got delicious truffle popcorn.

We made it back to our hotel just in time for hot chocolate and the tree lighting!

Saturday morning, I went for about a 2 mile run. The loop around the property has always been one of my favorite places to run, and I’ve run along there every year for at least 10 years. This year was different. Tons of houses along the loop were just gone, after the terrible wildfires. The set of condos next to where we were staying was wiped out as well, rooms that I’m pretty sure we stayed in at one point. It’s so sad, but the positive is that people are moving forward and already rebuilding.

As for the run, my ankle wasn’t having it and I cut it off early, opting to instead meet my parents for a breakfast buffet.

Omelet to order!

We did our typical shopping and eating in the morning, and then headed out by way of Napa Smith brewery.

It was a great discovery! They had a ton of different options, and we enjoyed tasting different things.

The rest of the day was spent studying with my favorite study buddy, and watching STANFORD BEAT NOTRE DAME. What a game!

Sunday morning was spent taking an awesome spin class, studying, and more studying. 

My mom made vegetarian chili for lunch, and then I baked Chocolate Zucchini Banana Bread, and added fresh cranberries. Yum!

For dinner, my dad grilled chicken for salads with shredded apple and aged cheddar.

Finally, it was time to make the trek back. Traffic was surprisingly fine, and I made amazing time! When I got back, my roommate and I got the house ready for Christmas, including a tree!

And the cat!

She didn’t TOTALLY hate it. She definitely didn’t like it, and walked around super awkwardly! She looked adorable though!

And that’s a wrap!

^Some happy memories of Napa.

For now, I’m trying to go through my week as I can, but knowing what is going on a few counties over is hard.

On that note, I do want to recap my past week with Chloe, before all of this started.

Chloe and I spent the week walking and studying, thanks to a Friday test. She was clearly super helpful.

We went to school (her FAVORITE thing ever apparently. She was super excited to walk in.) late in the evenings to study in the study rooms, and it was so nice to have a companion! I also re-listened to some lectures I was unclear on while walking her, which was super helpful.

One morning, I took her to school to walk along the trail out back. On our way back to the vet school, she spotted some interesting things.

Chloe sees her first alpaca!

Chloe and Rina got along quite well together this time as well.

When everyone wants on my lap!

I have a cat AND a dog on my lap!

In terms of my food for the week, Sunday before Chloe came I made a big pot of garlic ginger chicken veggie soup (with zucchini of course), which made for quick lunches when I had to dart home and let Chloe out between classes.

Mr. Pickles turkey and avocado on a GF wrap when my mom dropped my girl off:

Lemon garlic zucchini noodles with mozzarella and chicken, and a friend.

The same but with mushrooms:

One of my favorite fall breakfasts: cottage cheese, apple, and sunbutter.

Wednesday tamale with a side salad:

I ordered GF cookies online, and the maple was my favorite!

Zucchini traditionally: with marinara and mozzarella, plus a side of avo toast.

Other fav fall breakfast: plain yogurt, pumpkin butter, sunbutter.

And a new use of zucchini! Mexican-style. I seasoned my noodles with smokey seasoning blend, then stirred in Harvest Salsa (from Trader Joe’s), grilled chicken, and cheese.

Finally, another fall combo: cottage cheese, pumpkin butter, sunbutter.

I mentioned yesterday that I was struggling with lack of appetite on this trip, so I was hoping starting my day with a workout might bump up my ability to eat a little bit! I was hoping to run, but it was raining and to be honest, a cold rainy run on vacation didn’t sound too nice. I modified Peanut Butter Runner’s 1000 rep workout to better meet my needs, and just cycled through for about 40 minutes (I didn’t get to 1000 reps).

Our big plan on the agenda for the day was a visit to Castello di Amorosa, an amazing winery based out of an authentic castle. It took 15 years to build, and every stone was imported from Italy.

The castle has 107 rooms, many of which store wine. The winery opened in 2007, and have been making quality wine since then. Their red wines are aged about 4 years, so the red wines sold now are 2012. The tour was about 2 hours, and took us though the amazing rooms of the castle.

This was styled to be like an authentic 13th century Italian castle, and even had a dungeon with torture devices!

This awful looking chair would be heated, and the spikes would melt into one’s body. It’s apparently where the phrase “hot seat” came from.

We also got to try some Cabernet Sauvignon straight from the barrel. This was a young red wine; it was only aged 2 years.

The tour ended with a tasting. We got to pick out 5 different wines to try. I’m definitely more of a white wine girl, so I tended in that direction, although I did try the Cab that was the same kind as in the barrel, but fully aged. It had a lot more complexity!

The wine was good, and our sommelier was super friendly and helpful. He overheard me talking about vet schools, and he offered to talk about Davis with me, since he got his Viniculture degree there.

We tried a couple of sweet wines which were really unique; the moscato was rich with flavor and complexity. In terms of regular wine, I liked the Chardonnay and the dry Gewürztraminer; this wine is often sweet, but their version is dry and had a really interesting flavor.

The wine is only sold on site, so we definitely took some bottles home!

After our morning wine, we were ready for lunch in St. Helena, at the Bistro. This is one of my favorite restaurants, and it’s a meal I always look forward to!

We split a grilled artichoke to start.

And got the avocado salad with for my main course. Avocado, fresh mozzarella, tomato, high quality olive oil, and sea salt.

We also shared some of my dad’s sweet potato fries.

We made our usual stops in St. Helena:

Fideaux, an adorable pet store. I actually had to get some Christmas cat toys to mail to Yoyo and Scooby; I miss them!

Olivier, which is mainly olive oil, but has expanded to all sort of gourmet items like caramel sauce and tapenades, and has free samples of most of their products.

And of course, Woodhouse Chocolates.

I managed to talk my dad into splitting some hot chocolate from Woodhouse, and it was of course delicious.

We relaxed the rest of the afternoon before heading to Oxbow Market for dinner. Oxbow used to have AMAZING arepas, but still has lots of good options! Since my family is now really into beer, we stopped at the taproom for Fieldwork Brewing Company and got a flight to share.

We picked out 5 beers to sample, but were most excited about the Bad Conduct, a chocolate maple imperial brown. It was delicious, but was a very strong flavor and we all agreed that we liked it a lot, but couldn’t imagine having a full glass of it! I thought the beer overall was pretty good, but not really as interesting as the St. Louis craft beer I’ve been drinking! It was fine, but nothing too special (with the exception of the chocolate maple).

Since I figured I should actually put some food in my stomach as well, my mom and I shared a gluten free margarita pizza and salad.

The Oxbow Market is an indoor area with a lot of different shops and food places. It’s sort of like the Ferry Building in SF, but smaller.

For dessert, my family chose Kara’s Cupcakes, so I had a GF mini brownie with chocolate chip buttercream.

We finished the evening with chocolates and Gilmore Girls by the fire. I’m actually only starting Gilmore Girls now, only on season 2!

I began my last morning in Napa with a run. I love running around the edge of the property; it’s so beautiful there! I did 3 miles before breakfast.

We went to the Grille for breakfast, which was a buffet.

On my plate was frittata, country potatoes, fruit, and Strauss yogurt with apple compote (mostly because I wanted the apple compote).

Then, it was back home. The only other highlights I want to share are my needy kitty, and homemade cranberry sauce.

This is the worst picture ever, but I had some leftover cranberries and the desire to put cranberry sauce on everything, so I whipped up some cranberry sauce. It sort of kills me to pour white sugar into things, so I sweetened the sauce with maple syrup to taste, and the maple flavor came through amazingly. It seemed like it would be perfect on ice cream, so I made myself a little baby bowl. YUM. Cranberry sauce is seriously so easy to make. Heat cranberries on the stovetop with a little water until they break down, and add sugar as desired.

And that, my friends, is a wrap on Thanksgiving 2016.

Friday morning, my mom and I went to the spa for a massage and facial. We did this for the first time a year ago. Both were delightful. I started an actual skin care regimen after going last year, and I feel like my skin is a whole lot better now. I actually had the same person doing my facial as last year, and she was super nice (Ashly)! She said If I come back next year I should request her so we can catch up!

The next item on the agenda for the day was Genova Delicatessen, an Italian deli. Their egg salad is to do for, but this time I had a massive slab of cheesy polenta with some different salad sides: coleslaw with pineapple and Greek salad.

After lunch we went across the street for our annual Ross Dress For Less trip. My sister and I used to spend hours there trying on party dresses when we were younger. I didn’t get too much because I just rediscovered 80% of my wardrobe (yay for living out of suitcases) so I wasn’t really in the shopping mood, but I did get some Blogmas props!

Next on the agenda was the real Black Friday shopping, at Domaine Chandon.

Although we did a full tour with a tasting last year, we still did a tasting again!

We did the basic tasting, which gave us tastes of 4 different champagnes. Last time we got to try the best of the best, which obviously I liked better!

They have a nice outdoor seating area where you can sit and sip your tasting. They are also dog friendly in the outdoor area, so we are tentatively planning a Napa trip with Chloe sometime in the future, as the area is really dog-friendly and she could always use the socialization!

Upon arriving at our rental place, we broke into some fall Trader Joe’s finds, which was my first time trying both. The salsa may be my new favorite salsa; it reminds me of vegetarian chili and it isn’t too spicy!

Then, we headed out to enjoy a little holiday celebration: a tree lighting!

There were carolers, free hot drinks (hot chocolate for me), and Christmas cookies!

We ordered takeout from the grill right next to the main house area, and came out just in time to see the tree being lit!

For dinner, I shared a roasted brussels sprouts and apple appetizer, and had a salad with fresh mozzarella.

For dessert, I had a gluten free brownie.

To be honest, I was really struggling with lack of appetite on this trip. This is a major annoyance of my stomach condition. I feel like I can hardly eat anything. Normally I have more appetite, but different foods, travel, and way less physical activity is making it hard for me to enjoy all the delicious food! That being said, I was still pretty sick this time last year so I’m thankful the worst I’m dealing with is mostly just getting full quickly!

This post is getting long, so I’ll save the castle post for tomorrow!

Have you ever been champagne tasting?

I got into the spirit early with some pumpkin spice Cheerios pre-Turkey Trot.

And took my annual pre-trot Charlie picture.

I did the Silicon Valley Turkey Tort, the biggest in the world. 28,000 people! It gets bigger every year! Normally I do the 10k, which starts before the 5k. This year I did the 5k, and they did a mass start for the 5 and 10k. That created a logistical nightmare. Each corral was supposed to start at a different time, but that wasn’t well publicized so it seemed like a lot of people started in earlier corrals. Parking was a nightmare with road closures. I ended up having to jump out of the car half a mile from the start because my mom was not going to be able to park anywhere and traffic was a terrible.

I ended up running with my phone, which was so necessary for communication. I made it to the start with plenty of time though.

And then finally we were off! I am not capable of running a race without a time goal, so I set the modest goal of below an 8:45 pace for the 5k. It was not too crazy crowded at the start, but with the corral issues, the deeper into the race I went, the more I ran into walkers who went in earlier corrals. It got pretty clogged up in the last mile or so.

I was feeling really good on the run. No issues, not too tired.

Despite the initial issues, my mom ended up getting to an ideal place on the course. She was at around mile 2.5, but in the finishers’ village because the course looped back around from there. She got some truly awkward running pictures, because I was looking at my watch and calling out the distance to her because she didn’t know where on the course she was or when to expect me to finish.

The mile markers were measuring a little short on my watch, but I crossed the finish line at exactly 3.1! Perfect!

I finished in 26:17, which I was more than happy with, and to be honest, a little surprised! I’ve only been running 2 days per week, but it goes to show you fitness in other areas carries over!

The free Noosa yogurt after the race served as the perfect pre-Thanskgiving breakfast!

Then, we had to do a quick-ish turn-around to make the drive to Napa!

I’ve had this skirt for a while, but I feel like I never get an occasion to wear it!

As is our tradition, we spent our Thanksgiving in Napa. We’ve gone to Napa every year for as long as I can remember. It’s absolutely gorgeous here this time of year.

Please note my lips in the above pictures. Blue. My lips turn blue so fast when it’s cold!

This year my Grandma from Florida joined us for the holiday!

We went to a big fancy buffet, like we usually do. We shared a bottle of champagne for the table, and of course I requested we get the pink one! It looks so festive!

Salad course was first:

I got a green bean, mushroom, grape, and picked onion salad, assorted cheeses with dried fruit, and the star of the meal, pumpkin soup with gruyere. I go to the same buffet every year, and the soup is always the best part.

Main course:

Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (it probably had some gluten so I didn’t want to go crazy), roasted cauliflower, and of course, cranberry sauce.

Guys, my ability to eat is just sad. While I don’t suffer many flare-ups and issues from my stomach condition anymore, I still have zero ability to eat large amounts of food. I couldn’t even finish this plate. I think my 81 year old grandma out-ate me.

Before getting my main course, I checked out the beautiful desserts and came up with a game plan. My family takes buffets seriously.

I had a chocolate mouse cup filled with blackberry mousse, and then split pumpkin pie an pumpkin cheesecake with my mom. Pumpkin cheesecake was my main motivator for trying to see what happened when I eat gluten. I still avoided the crust, but felt confident enough that I didn’t have to worry about crumbs here or there!

Again, my eating performance was abysmal but the food was delicious!

After our afternoon feast, we checked into our room and relaxed and digested for a while before heading out to see a movie—another Thanksgiving tradition! We saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and I think everyone enjoyed it! I read all the Harry Potter books when I was younger and enjoyed them, but I’m not a fanatic. So coming from a non-fanatic, it was a good movie! I thought the relationship Newt had with his animals was adorable and relatable to me!

The movie ended pretty late, so we ended up not actually eating another meal that day. I was pretty hungry at that point, but an early bedtime won out since I don’t even know what time zone I’m on right now!

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

I’m trying to have SOME fun with it (as seen here). I’m thinking of it almost like Flat Stanley (did anyone else do that? For classes, one student would get him for a week and take him on adventures, taking photos of the adventures). So this week, where did boot go?

Thursday, I rounded up a big group and friends and went to Senior night, a night out for the seniors to get together.

Friday, we (the boot and I) went to a sorority mixer. Since #prevet, I suggested an animal theme and somehow that actually went through. Not complaining.

It was a fun night, spent with lots of friends!

Then, Saturday was the perfect day. It was so much fun. Despite a late night, I was up pretty early as per usual and decided to head to Crossfit, since the WOD was reasonably foot-modifiable. My workout ended up being 5 rounds, 2 min rest between rounds, of the following:

2 min assault bike

15 strict pul ups (I used a band for the strict, but worked in some no banded kipping. I can now string 5 kipping together, and pre-injury it was only 3!)

1 min assault bike

10 ring rows

10 strict press

It felt good to get moving, and I fell those pull ups now!

Since I sometimes call this a food and fitness blog, not just #bootlife and #stressfracture, here was my lunch:

GF avocado toast, leftover dill salmon (our chef makes the best salmon ever), greens with Italian dressing, and apple/beet/dijon salad.

Then, the main event! My friend somehow managed to convince his professor to let him use his beach house for the day/night! A group of us made the hourish drive, but with good conversation, it flew by!

This is the view from the window.

First stop was the beach! Luckily there was a nice path leading down to the beach. After a minor sand incident last week, this time I came prepared. I brought a drawstring (this is key) garbage bag to put over the boot to keep the sand out.

Worked like a charm! As a we were walking along the beach, a big wave came up to knee height, but my boot stayed dry!

Despite rain earlier in the day, the weather was perfect. The beach house even had a private beach! We also had no cell signal or Wifi, which was a strange yet refreshing experience.

We spent about 2 hours hanging out at the beach before heading inside to make dinner.

My main task was chopping up and sautéing the peppers and asparagus.

As well as pan-frying the chicken. I actually surprised myself by how much I actually am capable of cooking, and how much I actually know about things. Maybe it’s comparative! When cooking with 3 boys, sometimes you have to be the voice of reason.

For example, we bought some wine to go with dinner, and I pointed out we didn’t bring a corkscrew. They immediately thought we should just hit the top of the bottle off. I suggested we check the fully stocked kitchen for a corkscrew. Guess what? We found one! Haha!

For dinner, we had chicken (which I made with olive oil and garlic salt), gluten free spaghetti with marinara and the veggies I made, corn, and tortellini with pesto.

I seriously cannot get enough of this view.

It was honestly such an amazing day. I ended up driving back around sunset that night instead of staying because I had an early morning. These people have been my friends since freshman year, and I don’t see them nearly enough. It was the perfect senior spring day.

Sunday was another great day. My dorm did a wine tasting trip to Napa! The bus left at 9am, and we arrived at the first winery at 11.

Our first stop was V. Sattui. We had some time to walk around before our tour. They have a really nice deli, with delicious cheeses!

A winery tour in a boot was one of the more challenging things I’ve done, I have to admit.

Cat sighting!

Thankfully, we got to sit down for the tasting.

My favorite was the Sauvignon Blanc. I am not a red wine girl, I have to admit.

After our tasting, we had lunch at the winery. I had a turkey sandwich on lettuce.

The highlight was dessert for sure though. It was creme brûlée, served cold. I’m not always a huge fan of creme brûlée, but this was delicious. It was a little eggier than a lot of creme brûlées, and seemed less fatty, which I liked a lot more! It also had strong vanilla bean flavor.

Stop #2 was Robert Mondavi, one of the big founding wineries in Napa.

I actually liked this tour a lot more. The tour guide was funny, and very informative. In addition, we got to see more of the process.

Our tasting took place in the barrel room!

And more beautiful Napa scenery:

These past few days have been amazing. it’s hard to go back to reality, especially with only 7 days left of class in my undergraduate career! I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I think part of that is the uncertainty of next year. But let’s not even touch that topic with a 10 foot pole!

What did you do this weekend?

Friday in Napa was my first wine tasting experience! After a room service breakfast, we stopped at Ross for our annual shopping trip there. The Ross in Napa is by far superior to other Ross’s. For lunch we headed across the street to the Genova Delicatessen-if you’re ever in Napa I highly recommend stopping in! The egg salad is to die for. For my meal I had a hunk of Polenta plus some egg salad and veggie sides.

After lunch, we headed to Yountville to visit Domain Chandon, which makes sparkling wine (not technically champagne because it’s not made in Champagne, France).

We went on a tour that included a tasting. On the tour we got to see the big vats where the grapes are squeezed, and learn about the champagne process from grape to bottling.

Then, it was tasting time! We got to try 4 different varieties. I’m doing my best to learn some wine descriptor words so it was nice to have a side by side comparison!

My favorite was the etoile rosé.

My Black Friday shopping consisted of taking advantage of the 50% off champagne sale!

After tasting, we headed back to Napa to Oxbow market downtown. My favorite place, the arepa place, is not longer there, but I was excited to try the gluten free bakery! I and the avocado smash on gluten free sourdough and it was perfect.

For dessert, I tried lemon vanilla bean tea cake and chocolate cake. Both were good but not exceptional-the sourdough was definitely the star of the show.

On Saturday morning, I was up early to run the resort grounds in frigid temperatures. So worth it-the run is beautiful! It’s a nice fish mile loop around the property. After breakfast, my mom and I had some spa treatments. My 21st birthday present was wine tasting and spa treatments in Napa, and we finally made it out a little over 6 months later! I started with a massage, which was fantastic. You never realize how sore you actually are! Then I had my first ever facial. It was definitely a different experience, but my skin felt completely different afterwords. I definitely understand that people glow after a facial!

After our treatments, we drove to St. Helena for lunch.

We stop in St. Helena any time we come to Napa ( and we come every year for Thanksgiving). One of my favorite restaurants is the St. Helena Bistro for their avocado salad.

As an appetizer, we shared a grilled artichoke and had wine to go around because when in Napa!

My main course was clearly avocado salad. I added chicken this time for a little more protein. The salad is so simple but has the freshest flavors. It’s simply lettuce with fresh mozzarella, avocado, quality olive oil, and sea salt.

In St. Helena, we stopped in a pet store for adorable toys for my puppy (she likes really loud things and already loves her squaking rubber chicken) and into Olivier for olive oil and tapenade tasting (including their amazing lemon curds and caramel sauces!) One of the main St. Helena stops was Woodhouse Chocolates for amazing Belgian style chocolates. The flavors are so unique and fresh, and the mint tastes exactly like fresh mint leaves.

Then, it was time for wine tasting! We decided to stop into a winery in St. Helena that we’ve passed many times, distinctive because it has a giant sparkly rabbit structure in front.

The winery had a very modern style, and the fall views were beautiful.

Their specialties are red wine. I tend to prefer white wine, but I did my best to appreciate the high quality wine we were tasting! The first was a chardonnay, which was my favorite, but the next 4 were reds.

While I may not be a wine connoisseur just yet, I can appreciate that this was in a different universe from the last red wine I had, 2 Buck Chuck (which is quite offensive to the taste buds).

I could appreciate the $125 wine, but I don’t think I’m quite sophisticated enough yet to enjoy it as much as whites. I loved the big flawless glasses though!

We managed to time our trip perfectly and make it back to our room in time for the Stanford Notre Dame game. We ordered room service for dinner, and were on the edge of our seats the entire time. The game was intense, with a small lead being passed around. The end was epic-we lost our lead to a controversial touchdown in the last minute, and had the ball back with just 30 seconds to go. Stanford drove down the field and we made a long field goal to win it in the last seconds of the game! AHH! GO STANFORD!

To celebrate, we broke out the champagne bought the day prior. Cardinal (red) sparkly to celebrate the win!

On Sunday morning we returned home. It wasn’t quite back to reality yet-my mom and I attended a holiday shopping faire at a historic house that was totally decked out for the holidays.

The decorations were beautiful, and it was a great way to enjoy the house and get into the Christmas spirit!

We came home with a few items (most notable is a squirrel ornament) and lots of holiday cheer!

Dinner was at Whole Foods, where we picked out a tree. I highly highly recommend their trees. They stay fresh longer than any lot tree and are luscious and beautiful.

Our tree is going to be decorated a bit differently this year. We switched to mostly unbreakable ornaments when my fairly agile cats were young, but this year we’re going to go ornament-less because of a certain puppy who loves putting things in her mouth and carrying them around. I have visions of a knocked over tree as a result. The plan is to do lights and maybe wrap a big ribbon around. Possibly some big flowers. Any suggestions?

But now it’s back to reality. I’m at school and already sweating over the amount I have to do in the next 11 days before Christmas Break!

Have you ever been wine tasting? What’s your favorite type of wine?

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I’ve had a great week so far.

Tuesday I picked up my Turkey Trot bib!

I also went to home Crossfit, which is always fun! The WOD was a length chipper: 100 double unders, 50 deadlifts (95#), 50 burpees, 50 kb swings.

For dinner, we had a crockpot meal-chicken caccitore! Served over a bed of spinach.

I also made some persimmon bread. I used my classic banana bread recipe, but substituted 6 peeled and blended persimmons.

Wednesday was spent at a killer spin class, and then relaxing with my kitty. He’s a fan of my heated blanket!

For dinner, we made salad with persimmons and goat cheese, and then a spaghetti squash “macaroni” and cheese. Topped with lightly roasted tomatoes and basil.

My Thanksgiving began with a 10k Turkey Trot! This is my 3rd year doing the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot. It’s the biggest in the world!

It was quite chilly-low 30s on the drive up. I came prepared.

A minute before the race started, I dropped my layers minus some ear warmers and gloves.

This race was fun! I tried to keep a pace that was challenging but not so uncomfortable that the race wouldn’t be fun. 2 days ago I realized I ran this race 2 minutes faster than I had been thinking. I remembered 1/3 of the way into the race was that was because my last 10k over the summer was at that slower pace! I realized this as I was cruising at a much faster pace than that haha.

30 seconds faster than last year-I’ll take it!

After the race, we had a snack and then cleaned up before heading up to Napa.

We met my grandpa and uncle there, and then it was time for the buffet!

The highlight, as always, was the butternut squash soup. It’s ridiculously creamy and tastes just like fall. My salad plate featured vegetarian sushi, beet salad which I added goat cheese to, and some cheeses with grapes and honey.

I didn’t catch a picture of my main plain but I has some turkey, mashed potatoes, a taste of sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and roasted carrots.

Dessert was exciting as always.

My dessert was the inside of white chocolate cranberry cheesecake, the inside of pumpkin pie, chocolate covered strawberries, and a little chocolate cup with raspberry mousse.

After the big meal, we gelled out in our hotel room watching The Good Wife.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

I was really unsure how it would go given I missed a lot of training runs, and felt terrible last weekend. I got in all the long runs of training, but the volume of the shorter runs wasn’t really there…my only goal was to finish, to take it slow, and to actually enjoy the race. I feel like I end up not enjoying my halfs as much as I should because I take off like a bat out of hell and then am dying the whole way. So let’s back up.

Pre-race day eats. I tried to keep it moderate but didn’t do the best job. Breakfast of the world’s largest blackberries and gluten-free focaccia (which is amazing btw).

Lunch was a salad with sweet potato pop chips and gluten free cookie dough soy ice cream.

I had some other snacks in there too-gluten free banana bread I believe?

We drove up to Napa in the afternoon and were in St. Helena in time for dinner. Somehow I found a place that had a dish that fit my complicated restrictions.

Grilled asparagus and peach salad.

Chicken with potatoes, mushrooms, and arugula.

Woodhouse Chocolate. I decided trace amounts of dairy were fine since I’m feeling way better.

After an evening of working on Stats homework and baseball watching, I was ready to go when I woke up at 5:45! The race started at 8, and we stayed at a hotel a few minutes walk from the start, but I had to time my food in a specific way. I woke up not feeling that great but it passed pretty quickly.

Breakfast was banana, egg white oatmeal with craisins and a dab of sun butter.

Stretching, as per usual. Notice that blue thing I’m holding? I got a flip belt! I wanted to carry crackers during the race, so I shoved those in with a couple of goos and stomach medicine,  just in case!

And then we were off!

I took it super slow at the start. Slower than I ever have before, and it was awesome. I was really able to enjoy the beautiful views of vineyards along the Silverado trail. Another bonus? No SF hills! Only a few minor ones that I was more than trained for. For the race, they closed off the entire road, but on the way home we drove the race route so here are a few shots of that.

This tree was the turnaround!

In terms of fueling, I took about 1/3 of my goo at mile 4.5 at an aid station. I accidentally grabbed gatorade instead of water, but I just went with it. It took a little while for that to settle in my stomach, so I did goo #2 a little differently. I started eating it super slowly at mile 8 (and got a much needed burst of energy!) and didn’t finish it until mile 12. I had to be super cautious that my stomach never got too empty because I knew I’d have stomach issues if that happened.

In terms of how I felt, the hardest miles were maybe 9-10? They were pretty flat, which was just a lot of the same motion. I actually felt better once we hit the hills! Overall though, this is by far the least painful race I’ve run. Around the last 4ish miles I started to think about finishing time and what I wanted, since I knew if I was feeling ok I could probably turn it up at the end. I ended up with some killer negative splits! My last mile was by far the fastest.

I think my official time was 2:15?

This is by far the least painful finish of a half I’ve had. So…that pacing thing? Yeah-something to work on!

After the race I had to refuel thoroughly and carefully. Such a big calorie deficit made me really nervous with my stomach. I had some crackers and a banana right away, and then a Luna bar. Back in the hotel, I had the freaking weirdest thing ever. Coconut oil cream cheese (weird) on a gluten free bagel with….a frozen hard boiled egg. Yuck. Got the job done though….but ew. The frozen egg was the weirdest thing.

Later, I had some polenta.

And I’ve basically been eating everything since then. So we’ll see how I feel tomorrow…

This cookie though…it’s basically free of everything-refined sugar, gluten, dairy, eggs. But SUPER delicious. My post-race hunger laughed at the “serves 2” on the label.

So. In summary. I survived my half and am in one piece. Yay!

With 12 days of Christmas, I haven’t gotten to share some of the random things I’ve eaten in the past week or so! How tragic would that be?

Also-another exciting note-I entered the lottery for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC in the spring. I think the odds I get in are low but how amazing would that be??

Ok. Food. As promised.

Spinach and artichoke soup, from a Buzzfeed article of all things! Topped with parmesan.

Post-turkey trot, pre-Thanksgiving breakfast of mini frittatas and a crumpet.

A really freaking amazing salad in Napa. Avocado, fresh mozzarella, tomato, olive oil, and sea salt. Simple but perfect.

Baby fruit tart from Napa.

Chocolate sea salt caramel cupcake.

Trader Joe’s mushroom risotto with some spinach tossed in.

Carrot soup with cilantro.

Tupperware lunch of leftover broccoli and chicken. (Plus a sweet potato that was scarfed down earlier…)

Dining hall dinner. Roasted veggies and chicken, and a mini veggie pot pie. The highlight was the zucchini, which was roasted with garlic and cheese.

Back to my typical breakfast of yogurt+sunbutter+peaches.

Dining hall lunch on a rainy day-eggplant parmesan, veggies with Alfredo (not my favorite veggies served that day so you gotta do what you gotta do!) and polenta with sundried tomatoes.

And a bonus because how cute is he?

What is something that you haven’t had in a while?

For me it was the eggplant parm-I don’t think I’ve ever had it before!