Skipping Burpees

Date: November 18, 2014

Author: astottler

Do you ever have one of those days when you just feel like you killed your workouts?

That was yesterday for me. I’m loving these afternoon treadmill runs!

I did my heavy squats, and then I knocked out a treadmill speedy run. I started with 2 miles at an 8:00 pace. This is big for me, since I haven’t run fast much lately! I’m hoping to slowly increase this distance-honestly it’s harder mentally than physically! So maybe if I do that I’ll have some hope of being prepared for the turkey trot? I followed those 2 miles with 5 intervals-2:00 @ 7:30, 2 min walking. I covered 4 miles total. It felt amazing. After all that running though, I made sure to come back and ice my foot right away! I’m pretty sure my feet like the extra cushion of the treadmill.

In terms of food, yesterday was pretty clean cut.

Breakfast part 1: cranberry orange bread (so good!!).

Breakfast part 2:

Lunch: Leftover Goat Cheese Souffle+ roasted carrots and a persimmon.

Snack immediately post run: coconut covered date roll.

After my workout, I was pretty ravenous for dinner. I had a salad with BBQ chicken, more veggies, and then I went back for a roll on the side.

I also snacked on a protein bar plus some cheese and crackers later on!

So…last night I managed to be really dumb and somehow totally wiped out…in my room…Our beds are sort of raised, so I either have to jump up and down or use a chair. I tend to only use a chair when I’m lazy, which apparently I was. Somehow while I was stepping off the chair I lost my balance, and my other leg got caught on the back of the chair, so I had no where to go but down-I ended up falling pretty hard on my knee. Luckily I was wearing pants, but I still have pretty bad carpet burn plus a bruise. The only upside? It meant there was no way I was doing burpees during this morning’s Crossfit workout. I subbed 1 squat+1push up for each burpee….which was definitely much preferred!

When was the last time you wiped out?

Life With Plantar Fasciitis

Date: November 17, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! As promised, I’m doing a “real” post today.

As most of you probably know, I’ve been dealing with plantar fasciitis for about a year now. This is a fairly common chronic injury, especially in runners, so I thought I’d go through what my experience with it is, and some ways I manage it. For those that don’t know, plantar fasciitis is inflammation of the plantar fascia, and normally appears as heel or arch pain.I’ll start by going through what I might do with it during a normal day.

Wake up. Remove my night brace. This thing is amazing and helps so much, but I can’t stand to have one on both of my feet at once. Luckily, right now one foot is much better than the other so this is fine. The brace keeps my foot flexed, which keeps everything stretched out so I don’t wake up so stiff.

If it’s bad, I might take some Advil right away, especially if I’m running. I usually don’t have to do this though. If I’m running, I stretch and then head out. I often stop to stretch my calves a little during the run. Besides making it feel a little better, I also do this because the extra stretching keeps my calves looser overall, and calf tightness can make plantar fasciitis worse.

After the run, I really should ice. I generally don’t have a ton of time to before class, but I can usually at least put in a few minutes with the frozen water bottle, which I use to roll out my heels and arches. Just a little bit of icing can go a long way in terms of pain for the rest of the day.

Then, I generally take Advil (if I haven’t already) if I want hope of being able to walk that day. The day of a run is generally the worst. Sometimes the day after is pretty bad, but by 2 days after it is pretty good.

And then in the evening, if it is sore, I’ll ice. If I’m running the next day, I’ll probably take Advil. Honestly, the pain level is WAY better when I’m taking Advil constantly, but I really don’t like to have to do that.

You’re probably seeing a theme-antinflammatories are super important!

So let’s now talk about some things to expect.

1. I don’t run back to back days, in general. If I do, I have to be pretty careful the first day of running to take really good care of my feet post-run. Another thing I’m starting to do is if I run Sunday morning, I’ll push Monday morning’s run to Monday afternoon.

2. I can’t wear any shoes. I am banned from wearing flip flops. In general, if you have plantar fasciitis, you probably need to be prepared to spend some money. Good shoes with good support is crucial. And on top of good shoes, you may need orthopedic inserts. Pretty much all my shoes at this point have some type of insert. Even the boots I just got that have pretty good general support have orthopedic inserts for extra arch support.

3. Replace running shoes often. I just replaced mine, and it made a world of difference.

4. For me, standing around a lot is a pretty surefire way to flare up the pain. While I know sitting generally isn’t good for you, I have to sit when I can.

5. For me, walking is the most painful activity. Period. Running is generally not too bad, but walking is so. awful. Especially if I’m walking somewhere after sitting in class for an hour.

6. Sometimes time off certain exercise is necessary. While this injury has still allowed me to run regularly, I did have to back out of a race and take some time completely off running.

7. It may flare up for no reason. My feet sometimes have a mind of their own, and I could do everything right and they’ll still hurt. Yayy.

8. I almost always do Crossfit in my running shoes now. I really like my Reebok Nanos, but if the workout has any significant amount of running (like more than a 400m warm up), I just can’t wear them. They have very little support, and my feet just aren’t happy with it.

9. Honestly, a chronic injury like this really stinks. It stinks to have to deal with pain on a regular basis. It stinks to be able to run one day, and barely hobble the next. But I’ve gotten pretty used to it, and I’ve learned to manage it so that running doesn’t usually hurt. It’s just unfortunate to have a chronic injury. I’m still optimistic that I can get rid of this, but it takes time and patience. I’ve started doing some exercises that I’m hoping will help, but I think it will be a while before I figure this out.

If you have any questions about plantar fasciitis-let me know and I’ll try to answer them!

Korean BBQ

Date: November 13, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Thursday! I’m popping in quickly here between classes because I don’t have quit enough time to find my bug in my CS homework before my next class. In terms of life, let’s just say I have a lot of CS ahead of me in the next few days!

I’m going to do a quick recap of yesterday. My morning began with a couple of dates and a 6 mile run. I absolutely love the route, and will do a whole other post on running in the near future! It’s also great because it’s slightly downhill on the way back so I can just cruise! Plus, my new running shoes made all the difference with my foot pain. It was night and day.

Breakfast was no different, but with the addition of veggies and fresh persimmons in my yogurt!

After morning classes, I had a classic lunch from the freezer. After today’s lunch I’m all out of frozen meals!

Plus some homemade pumpkin bread to get me through an afternoon of CS. This plate x2.

(Excuse the shape but it was frozen and hard to pull apart!)

That evening, I went to a Korean BBQ place for the first time. It was my friend’s 21st birthday, so we made the trek over there in rush hour traffic. It was such a nice place! If you haven’t had it before, at a Korean BBQ place, you choose a meat (or several) and they cook it on your table. It comes with tons of sides.

The meat we had was pork belly and beef, so I skipped on it (I don’t eat red meat), but there were more than enough sides and appetizers that I left stuffed!

Another favorite was the vegetable pancake.

And we also got a dish with acorn noodles, which I had never had before! They were really chewy and sticky (in a good way).

It was definitely different but a lot of fun! The only thing was that my sweatshirt I wore picked up the Korean BBQ smell!

Afterwards, I got some cookie dough gelato.

That’s all I have today, but expect some more interesting posts in a couple of days when my schoolwork lightens up!

New Shoes!

Date: November 10, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’m going to keep it short and sweet because I have a midterm tomorrow so…yay…

First off, I got new boots over the weekend and I’m sort of obsessed with them.

And the good news is, my feet are too! I got boots with some really good support for my plantar fasciitis, and it’s making a world of difference!

Also new shoes-new running shoes! My old ones took me through a lot. Countless DC rainstorms, through the monuments, and across the finish line of a half marathon! But my feet were starting to feel every bump in the road, and to be honest, my feet don’t need any more reasons to complain!

Here are the new ones! I wasn’t sure about the feel when I first put them on but they felt great on the run! I like the look of the old ones more though.

Old:

New:

So, let’s run through food and fitness, shall we?

I went to 7am Crossfit, and had some healthy pumpkin bread to fuel me. It was perfect! No lightheadedness despite 50000 squats.

In all seriousness though, our new squat program we are doing is why I will not be able to walk tomorrow. I think I did 56 HEAVY squats? And then 50 wall balls. And I already feel it. Yippee. The WOD was 50 wall balls, 800m run, and 30 pull ups.

Good news on the pull ups front though! After losing my pull ups strength over the summer because we never did them, I finally got it back! I was coerced into switching to a very small band during the workout, and then I whipped out a couple of real kipping pull ups afterwards! YES.

Post-workout, protein was very necessary. Yogurt+peaches+sunbutter.

And coffee. I definitely took the time to get a real coffee-a cappuccino!

Lunch was same old, same old from my freezer this week. I only have 2 more frozen meals! Then I need to go grocery shopping. But first I need to make it through this week…

After class, and before a meeting, a rushed to the gym for a quick run to shake out my legs. I did a modified version of my treadmill workout, and was shocked at how well it went. I had no problem knocking out the 8:00 mile, and keeping up with the intervals.(5 rounds of 2 mins @7:30 pace, 2 mins walking.) I ended up covering 3 miles. Seriously though, coffee+not super early+not sore (yet) is a running game changer. Plus, I definitely had some excess energy to burn! I think I may switch my Monday runs to afternoon treadmill speed workouts because I loved it so much. That and my next 5k is in a month and I’m not in that sort of speed-shape yet! Plus, my feet seemed to appreciate the extra cushion the treadmill provided.

Dinner was pretty good in the dining hall today. Rosemary chicken, salad, a little rice, yams with cranberries, plus a baby spinach and cheese pie, which was delicious.

I also tried some of a dessert that apparently is pretty popular but that I still don’t know what it is…

I think it was pudding? Chocolate pudding, whipped cream, banana, strawberries, and what appeared to be some type of ores pudding? It was pretty good.

And that my friends, was my day! Now I’m off to study!

How do you feel about the treadmill?

Kinda Over It

Date: November 10, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I’m popping in again today to talk about running!

Despite definitely not going to bed early enough Saturday night, I was surprisingly up bright and early and ready to run. Since I’m not technically training for anything right now, my running schedule has been pretty low key and variable. The night before, I mapped out a route and made a playlist, which took me about 7.5 miles. It was a loop that went around the outer edge and beyond of campus.

Before the run, I had some dates and sunflower seed butter. I picked up some dates at the Farmer’s Market the other day, and I love having them for before a morning run for some quick energy.

The run went well. I went Garmin-less since I knew the route and distance. My foot was a little bit grumpy for the whole thing. It wasn’t the type of pain that made me stop or limp, but it was enough to be annoying.

My route took me past a whole bunch of changing trees with beautiful fall colors. This is actually the farthest distance I’ve done in a long time-since before taking time off to heal my foot! I’ve been running 6 miles pretty regularly, but nothing above that. Yeah…around the 6 mile point I was kind of over it, and my toes were hurting. I think 6 miles is my sweet spot right now! The race in my most near future is a 10k Turkey Trot, so ideally I’d be a little bit above 6!

Overall, great start to the day. Plus, brunch was open by the time I got back. I didn’t have nearly enough carbs the night before, so I was ready to dive in.

Salad, roasted kabocha, eggs with cream cheese, and a couple of raspberry white chocolate pancakes.

In the afternoon, I got a delivery from my parents-still warm homemade pumpkin bread! It’s a pretty healthy recipe (whole wheat flour) plus we tried some things with the sweetener so it wasn’t that sweet, which was great! The sweetener is a story for another day. It’s going to be nice to have before AM Crossfit. Luckily, some of it made it to the freezer but MAN is it good!

Dinner was a little weird/sad. It was Mexican food, but they tragically ran out of guacamole. Plus it was weird because they only had beef and fake meat, and the fake meat was really strange. I fixed my food into a taco salad, with a mini quesadilla on the side.

For dessert, I had a little bit of chocolate ice cream, and another slice of pumpkin bread as I was slicing and freezing some of it.

In terms of my eating, I probably should have had less pumpkin bread. In terms of the big picture, after tracking calories and activity for almost a week, I’m getting a sense of where I should be. That being said, a calorie is not a calorie, and certain foods result in different things. So I can’t just expect calories to do their magic!

What is your favorite pumpkin product?

I have to say I love the classic pumpkin bread!