5:55am: Alarm goes off

I start getting ready for the day, and try to keep my roommate’s talkative kitty quiet.

She actually settles down instead of following me around meowing this morning.

6:20: Quick breakfast before running out the door. I have a flapjacked muffin and a few crackers.

6:40: Leave the house and realize it’s trash day. Whoops. In vet school I never can keep track of the days. I take out the bins on my way out.

6:45: Arrive at the teaching hospital. This morning I volunteered for the treatment crew for kitties burned in the Sonoma/Santa Rosa fires. We’ve gotten a ton of kitties transferred to us, so students come in in the morning and evening to take care of them to help out the normal hospital staff.

8:30: Finish the morning treatments. We finished a little bit early, which means I don’t have to sprint to lecture! The kitties are the sweetest things.

9:00: Lecture. With a lollipop. We’re doing immune system/hematology right now.

10:00: Lecture.

10:50-11:00: Take a quick walk before our 11:00 lecture to get the blood flowing!

11-12: Lecture

12:00: Lunchtime! I packed leftover zucchini noodle pad thai with scrambled egg. I accidentally put too much sauce on, so I threw in some lettuce.

1-2: Lecture/lab. We’re looking at pictures of bone marrow aspirate and identifying cell types, and underlying diseases.

2-2:15: Meet with my group to discuss how we are going to attack our group take home test/homework assignment.

2:30: Home! This is the earliest we’ve gotten out in a long time, and it’s because the other half of our class has a 3 hour lab this afternoon (we have it Friday). I have a snack and watch a short TV episode. I usually take a break when I first get home because my brain is fried, although today was pretty light so it doesn’t feel as necessary!

2:50-3: Start typing up this blog post.

3-3:30 Random stuff around the house. I bag up leftover Halloween candy for our group meeting, keeping out some for a baking project!

3:30-4:15: Go over lecture notes and make a study guide. For each lecture, I go through the slides (I take notes directly on the slides on my iPad. That thing is my life.) and make sure I understand everything, and summarize it all into a study guide. Colorful pens are mandatory. I try to go through all the lectures on the day of, because it’s easy to get behind, but some days (like Monday when we had 5 lectures) that isn’t practical. I get through one lecture so far.

Everyone has to find their own method of studying in vet school, and thus far this has worked really well for me. When I’m studying for a test, I can read through my study guides fairly quickly, although I still go through the lectures as well. Right now the study guides are enough and I don’t need flashcards, but that might change . Flashcards are more time consuming and part of vet school is optimizing time. Our next unit is nutrition, so I may need to start using them with that!

4:15: Get ready for Crossfit!

4:25: Leave for Crossfit.

I wear running shoes because I’m trying to give my feet more cushion (my ankle bone has been hurting) and we’re not doing anything that involves squatting or any movement that would require flatter shoes.

Also: I really like this version of this song. The first time I heard it I thought it was the weirdest thing, but it grew on me.

4:45-5:30: Crossfit! I go to the 45 minute condensed class. It’s the same workout as the regular classes, but the pace is faster. We do 10 minutes of EMOM kipping pull ups, and I do 5 each minute. I feel like my strength would allow me to do more, but my hands get bruised and ripped.

The WOD was a 15 minute AMRAP of

30 sit ups with a 14# med ball

200m run

30 push ups

200m run

I only got to 2 and a half rounds!

When I get home, I make dinner right away and turn on Game 7 of the World Series! I can stream Xfinity, but what it lets you stream is weird. I can’t stream the World Series…but then I realized a couple of days ago, there is a loophole. I can stream the Spanish broadcast! I’ll take it! I know some Spanish, so I understood some things!

6:00: Sit down to eat. On the menu is Mexican style zucchini noodles. I season the zoodles with smoky seasoning, and then stir in Harvest salsa, chicken, and reduced fat Mexican cheese blend. Guacamole on the side.

For dessert, I pull a piece of pumpkin banana bread from the freezer.

7:30: Finally mute the game and get back to work. Normally I’d watch one show episode during dinner and then start studying, but Game 7 of the World Series is a special circumstance, clearly! Instead of going through the other lecture from today, I start working on making a giant diagram of all the immune system stuff we’ve learned this block. I really like putting everything together.

Somewhere in there, I snack on a granola bar. It’s so crumbly I have to eat it over the sink or I’ll make a mess. Annoying.

A cuddle break was taken also:

9:00: Astros win the World Series!

9:15: Break to blog. My diagram is done for now. Rina is snoozing. She often comes up and meows at me when it’s time for bed!

I’m going to sign off now. I’m going to take a crack at my immune system homework problems I’m meeting with my group about tomorrow, and then I might read for a few minutes. I’ll probably call it a night around 10:30!

Be ready for pup overload today, because I’m recapping the adventures of Chloe coming to visit me here at school!

My mom brought her up last Thursday when I had a break in my schedule, and we went out to lunch.

Once I was done with class for the day, I hurried home to take Chloe for the first of what would be MANY walks around the neighborhood.

My mom brought me some of my favorite soup, plus a giant bag of Pirate’s Booty. Because the pup was so labor intensive, this was about how every meal looked:

I also learned that Chloe LOVES Pirate’s Booty. It has been sad to eat it alone since she left!

Chloe actually got along super well with Rina. Rina stands her ground, so Chloe mostly left her alone minus some sniffs here and there.

Unfortunately, her relationship with my roommate’s sweet golden was a little rockier. Chloe recently started getting a little territorial with other dogs in very specific situations, and having another dog at home was a little rough. Most of the time they were fine, but occasionally Chloe would get super barky.

Friday morning, we were up with the sun to walk before class.

And then Friday night, I took her to one of the breweries with a bunch of vet students. She can be barky in social situations with other dogs, but we’re working on it, and she was really good!

She made a doggy friend. Another vet student dog. She was super barky when they first arrived, but then calmed down and we all sat together and it was fine. At the end of the night, we let them play it out. When they saw each other the next day, Chloe was totally chill with her!

Chloe is great with other dogs when she meets them on walks, but when she meets them in large groups of dogs and people, she gets pretty overwhelmed and can get riled up and barky.

My Saturday was spent like most of the week, alternating between studying and walking, and then studying WHILE walking. Chloe was pretty wild/jumpy/barky/energetic the first couple oft days especially. Because she is a high energy breed, she needs a ton of exercise. I would walk her, then study while she slept, and when she woke up and starting getting wild and bratty, I would walk her again. And repeat and repeat. Despite the somewhat constant interruptions when she was wild (her favorite thing was to drop my roommate’s dog’s numerous tennis balls under the couch where she couldn’t get them, and then bark until I got them for her…), she was pretty helpful for my studying. When she was sleepy, I felt a lot of pressure to get some good, focused studying in. I also started relistening to some of the lectures I was confused about while walking her, which was really helpful. I’m definitely more of a visual learner than an auditory learner, so listening to things forced me to conceptualize the information myself.

Here are my babes:

Study buddies <3

That afternoon, I took Chloe to a big vet school event with all the first and second years at a nearby park. We were only a mile away, so we walked there to get some extra energy out. Chloe met a ton of people and dogs, and saw her friend again. Overall, she was a good girl! I could tell by the end though that she was totally over it.

Later that evening, I brought her to another brewery with friends, and she was AMAZING. She has been getting better (the behavioral issues are fairly recent, only several months), and I discovered her favorite treats in the whole world that she’ll do anything for. It takes the right motivation, and vigilance on my part! She got barked at aggressively and even growled at, but she stayed quiet as we walked through.

When I got home I had to study some more, which was productive thanks to the most beautiful sight: everyone PASSED OUT.

Sunday I volunteered at a clinic, and had to leave her alone for 5 hours. We did a short walk before, and then a lengthier walk after while I listened to a lecture.

That evening, we took the dogs to the park so they would have some time to get to know each other better. They’re TOTALLY fine outside of the house, at least! Chloe also had her first off leash experience. The golden played fetch, and ran like crazy 100 yards out for the ball….and Chloe watched from about 10 feet away from us. She doesn’t like fetch, and didn’t quite know what to do off leash.

Progress!

Monday night, I brought Chloe to school with me! The buildings are obviously very dog-friendly. We went around 7:30 to study, and so I could show her around where I spend most of my time!

We stayed in a study room together, and she was the best study buddy! I don’t know if I would have liked being alone in a windowless room at night, but having a dog to snuggle with every so often to break up some dense study time makes it so much better.

Tuesday, we ended up walking 2 hours! Our morning walk+an evening walk with a friend along the campus trails.

And then we were back at school to study that night. This girl <3

Wednesday morning, we went for one final long walk just as the sun was rising. Before coming to vet school, our walks with a podcast became one of my favorite parts of the week. It was even more so here. There’s nothing better than watching the sun rise with an adorable pup, and being up and out while the world is still quiet. It was honestly so nice having her right before a test. I let her off leash one final time…and she just sat there, a little ways away. The previous day I let her off leash at the park when she was wild and she ran around like crazy, but she’s still learning about the world of off-leash!

We had one last study session together before my mom picked her up.

My mom and I went for our pumpkin spiced drinks of choice to recap the week, and future training goals for Chloe.

PSLs are not quite my thing; I don’t love sweet coffee. I got a decaf cappuccino with a single pump of pumpkin spice, and it was perfect! Not too sweet, but still the hint of fall!

Chloe and I had such a great week together. I want her to come back soon, but I have to wait until I have another week where I’m not in class for such long blocks of time! I miss my girl, that’s for sure!

Breakfast:

I started my morning before 8am at my favorite coffeeshop, and had a decaf cappuccino and GF blueberry muffin while reviewing my notes. After almost 2 hours, I switched it up and headed over to Starbucks where I sipped on mint tea and continued working.

I took a break around noon and headed to the gym. I’m restarting my squat program. My goal is strength maintenance. We don’t do back squat strength much at Crossfit here, so it’s good to sneak in a day of my own lifting. I finished my strength work with a little conditioning, sit ups and double unders. Guys. My doubles were AWFUL today. I don’t think they’ve been this bad in years. I could string like 2 together….last week I strung like 40 together. Um, excuse me? My left forearm got whipped to death, and I think I even managed to bruise my elbow. So frustrating.

For lunch, I made my usual weird salad with turkey, cheese, guacamole, and ketchup, and had some crackers.

After lunch, I got back to studying on the couch. Rina decided to join me, and as the day wore on, it became forced studying because I couldn’t disturb her nap and the only thing within arm’s reach was my study materials.

Somewhere in there, I had a NuGo bar as well.

Around 5:00, I took a break to go to a vet school fundraiser at a local brewery. Such a great study break. Delicious hefeweizen!

There’s nothing better than sitting outside with a beer in the summer. I needed the break and the human interaction. I feel like today I was sort of in a mood because coffeeshop hopping made me REALLY miss St. Louis and the amazing time I had there last fall.

For dinner, I microwaved a veggie bowl with beans, kale, tofu, and rice, and topped it with cheese.

Then I got to work on my evening activity! I’ve been on the verge of going pumpkin crazy for a while. (It started with an embryology lecture…apparently association is very strong because I took a developmental biology class during the fall a few years ago.) It was time.

I decided to make my healthy pumpkin bread, which is technically pumpkin banana bread, so it’s sort of easing myself into pumpkin season. Wow though, this recipe is amazing. Better than I remembered!

I ate a piece of dark chocolate while whipping everything up.

I swirled in a mixture of whipped cream cheese, maple syrup, and a shake of cinnamon.

Somehow I didn’t eat the entire loaf, and that’s an accomplishment!

Well, it’s back to studying for me!

Who’s ready for all the pumpkin??

What is it about exams that make us want to eat ALL THE THINGS? I’m not even stressed! (—yet. I have nothing due until next week so the good old strew response driven productivity has not kicked in yet.) I’m doing my very best to not eat ALL THE JUNK and at least shove food into my mouth that wan’t cause too much damage-leftovers of actual food, granola bars, banana with carob chips.

So what’s been up lately? How’s this for college life: I stayed up late crafting a colorful flat faceless human, and we currently have a cricket under a cup duct taped to our floor.

I had to make an anthology for my Native American Literature class, so I made a physical representation of a human made up of stories. I lovely refer to him as my flat faceless human.

On the workout front, I’ve done some running, some spin, some Crossfit. I taught my last couple of spin classes until the next session starts up in January!

I also went to a spin class at a nearby studio. It was fun—it’s always nice to go to a class other than my own! This was the view post-class:

To start the week, I had a couple of chilly runs.

One 4 miler, one track workout—6x400m. Since my official training for my class is over, I’m trying to slowly increase the number of repeats I do to get in 5k speed shape.

Breakfasts:

I am firmly on the yogurt bandwagon. Lately, I’ve been putting jam in it. I usually eat breakfast immediately post-workout, so I want the quick carbs!

Yogurt with sun butter and raspberry jam, plus some leftover roasted sweet potatoes.

Yogurt with persimmon and sun butter.

Lunch:

I packed a lunch because I didn’t have time to go back to the house. This was leftover quinoa with butternut squash and dijon roasted brussels sprouts. We have temporary chef right now who is fantastic! I actually miss packing lunches—I feel like I end up with a better amount/mix of food so I generally feel better throughout the day!

Chicken, wild rice salad, fruit. Plus tomato basil bisque with cheddar cheese. If you don’t eat tomato soup with cheddar, you’re doing it wrong. This was perfect for a rainy day!

Snack:

This was a snack before spin-a persimmon and a Luna bar. I also had a couple of tortilla chips with leftover guacamole.

Dinner:

Chicken piccata, salad, and veggie chili over greens. I think I could have used some more meat though because I found myself snacking the rest of the evening!

Oh-one last note. My blogiversary is coming up! As you may or may not have noticed or cared, I’m not doing 12 days of Christmas this year. While it has been super fun to do, at this point my blogging isn’t as regular as it once was and therefore it doesn’t merit the time that goes into putting that together! I will still likely celebrate my blogiversary though Can you believe it’s almost been 3 years??

This is probably the best WIAW I’ve ever had. I’m on vacation in Napa right now, and to say I’ve been eating well is an understatement. I’ve really been embracing balance this trip-I’m not worrying about eating decadent foods, but I’m getting in enough of the good stuff at well that I still feel great, healthy, and happy.

This morning, I slept WAY later than planned. I somehow ended up with a king size bed to myself-I’ve never slept in one before, and I’ll probably never sleep in one again, but it was glorious. Anyways, a later morning meant a light breakfast was necessary before my run, so I had some cranberry bread and blueberries.

I also had a bit of pannetone. We get this every year around Christmas-we don’t exactly like it but we always end up eating it. We got a mini one this year, but it was a bit dry.

Then, it was time for a run! It’s interesting to run in a place I’ve run once every year-I used to think a 3-4 mile loop was crazy long!

I have to make a note about this picture-this is around the spot that I ate pavement a few years ago on a run (luckily I made it through this run in one piece!). The best part? I was running to a restaurant to meet my family for breakfast. My mom snapped this gem of me before she realized I had blood streaming down my leg. Oh, memories. 

After cleaning myself up post run, we drove to a small town nearby, St. Helena.

My parents felt lunch was a priority, and after walking through downtown looking at menus, one place in particular place caught our eye. This was SUCH a good choice. My gosh, this was by far the best food I’ve had in a LONG time. We ordered some appetizers to start-grilled artichokes plus brussels sprouts.

These brussels sprouts were mouthwateringly amazing. I have no words. They were by far the best I’ve ever had. They were cooked to perfection, and so, so flavorful. 

For my entree, of course I ordered the avocado salad.

The ingredients were so fresh-all this salad was was fresh mozzarella, tomato, avocado, lettuce, olive oil, and salt and pepper. All the flavors were perfect together.

Then, we stopped at one of our all time favorite places-Woodhouse Chocolate. These candies are amazing-the flavors are just so fresh and spot on. The mint tastes just like a mint leaf. And they’re beautiful as well!

Confession: this whole box is for me. 

We also tasted some olive oil and picked some out to bring home with us. Then, we stopped in a coffeeshop so I could do some studying. My mom and I both ordered decaf cappuccinos.

The milk foam was good! Not like the amazing cappuccinos I get at school, but a close second, and definitely better than Starbucks!

Before dinner, we stopped in another small town to explore a bit-check out these adorable shops in old train cars!

Then, it was off to dinner at an Italian restaurant that we always go to. We started off with fresh bread and their signature dipping sauce, made with caramelized onions. I haven’t had this much quality olive oil in so long!

For my entree, I ordered the salmon, which came with polenta and steamed spinach. Everything was cooked to perfection. I have to confess, I’m a big salter. But the food this weekend has been just so good and perfectly seasoned that it just doesn’t need anything! It’s amazing to have well cooked flavorful food, a big contrast to dining hall food!

And since it’s vacation, dessert needed to happen. We shared bread pudding with maple rum sauce and a brownie a la mode.

This bread pudding was nearly as good as our family recipe, which is saying a ton! Definitely by far the best restaurant bread pudding I’ve ever had-hot, custardy, with plenty of delicious sauce. 

That’s all I have for you today! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What do you eat on vacation?

But let’s start from the top, shall we?

I woke up bright (well, dark) and early for a morning gym workout. The workout was 10 minutes working on snatches, followed by a WOD of 21-15-9-9-15 deadlifts and squat jumps. The workout originally called for burpees, but that would have taken me much more time than I had. The bar was SO ROUGH. My poor hands were getting torn up so badly! I looked around-and there’s only one bar out of like 8 like that at the gym, but they were all full. I then did 5 rounds of 250m row/7 rdls, and finished with some abs. This workout was nothing too crazy-just something to get my blood flowing!

When I walked out of the gym, I was greeted by this:

The weather is starting cool down a little too-it’s sunny but with fall skies and a little bit of bite in the air. I had a long day ahead of me, and it was chilly, so on the way back to the gym, I stopped for a cappuccino.

BEST. THING. EVER. So worth the extra trip-and I went before getting ready instead of on my way to class, so there was no line. 

I seriously love this weather-Sweater Weather! Do you guys know the song Sweater Weather? I think that’s going to be stuck in my head any time I wear a sweater. What I wore today was basically the epitome of fall-boots, a sweater, and a scarf. 

I’ve been feeling so put together lately in terms of my outfits (ok, technically I’m still wearing leggings…), and I really do think it makes a difference on my outlook of the world. Here’s a sunny selfie of yesterday’s scarf. 

Yes, I live in California. Yes, 70 degrees is considered cold. 

Today was just such a productive day, and I feel so much better about my classes. I love Mondays and Wednesdays because I have all afternoon to hole up in a library or cafe and just accomplish things. I actually am not minding problem sets-minus Physics. I don’t mind spending hours working things out-as long as I eventually get it. I’ve said it before, but this is really something I was missing last year.

After class, I tried this new to me yogurt.

I saw it on Beth‘s blog a while ago, and have not been able to find it anywhere! Needless to say, I was super excited.

It was delicious! I ended up throwing a couple of dates I had packed for snack on top, and those really complemented the flavors perfectly. Next time, I would throw chopped dates on top.

Here’s a shot of the cafe. Kind of a basement, but cozy and quiet. Several study snacks happened as well.

Like my placemat? I really need to stop eating ON my school things.

Pumpkin bread. Because we know I’m obsessed.

After finished most of my work, I headed back to my room for a run. Since it was in danger of getting dark, I threw on the only long sleeve neon shirt I had. Is it too soon? I don’t think so.

So I set out for 4 miles-I was really in the mood to run. The weather was perfect, I was feeling great…until like .2 miles in when my calf reminded me that I did 600 jump ropes yesterday…and doing that many after not jumping rope in a month will make me sore. I immediately turned back-with my history of calf issues, I was NOT going to push anything this close to the race. So not worth it. I switched gears and went to dinner instead-not a bad alternative!

A really delicious turkey burger, salad, polenta, and fruit. I love turkey burgers. I should seriously just get 2 turkey burgers and veggies and call it a day-and not mess around with the other suspect items.

Paella-it tasted really fishy, so not really my cup of tea. Oh well, can’t win them all. 

Then, tonight I had a sorority recruitment event-cookie decorating. Hence the sugar high. It’s the worst kind too-store bought cookies and store bought icing=my body hates me. Eh, live and learn. Here’s my first creation. Not my best work.

And now let’s talk running. Let’s talk races. Let’s talk about the future. I (obviously) have my next half in ELEVEN DAYS. I am SO incredibly excited-and I feel strangely prepared. It helps I’m not injured (knock on wood) right before the race…But being the overeager person that I am, I’m starting to think about what comes next. Life after half marathon training? Huh? First off-I know if I’m not training for a race I’ll never run. It just won’t occur to me. I’m doing a 10k Turkey Trot in November (obviously), and then I’m doing a Santa Run in mid December. This one is a 5k, and I’m racing it to PR. To be fair, I’ve only done one 5k (last year’s Santa Run). And I hadn’t run in a long time-I was in really good shape from rowing, but there wasn’t a ton of running happening. After my half, I’ll be focusing a ton on running fast. I obviously want to PR, but I THINK if I work hard between now and then, I can break 24:00. We shall see.

So…then what? I want to do the Giant’s race….in August. Maybe the Nike women’s again if I like it. But before then? There’s an abyss! BUT. BUT. I think I found a race-and I’m this close to signing up. Rock n Roll San Francisco on April 6. It should be a fun one-it goes across the Golden Gate bridge! I think it would be a good warm up for the Giant’s race, which is a much flatter course and therefore a better one to run hard for a PR. The timing is pretty good too. So…thoughts? GAHH I’m so excited about everything right now! 

It’s almost race day!

What’s the best race you’ve done? Suggestions? Favorite part of fall?

(Recycled photos- sorry!)

Yesterday was my 5 mile training run. So naturally I chose the biggest hill imaginable for this run! It was…very unpleasant. To be fair it was super windy. Yeah, great idea Aurora, on the windiest day of the year, find the highest, most open space. It was also kind of a wake-up call. I had the whole run to think about running. One thing: I really need to train smarter. As in, stick to the training plan. Running 3 days in a row just does not work for me right now, especially when my 5 mile run was less than 24 hours after my previous run. My legs were shot on the first mile, before we even reached the giant hill. Also, I am kind of terrible with recovery. I nee to roll out more and get back to yoga. My legs are soo tight today, but I sent my roller home, and today is a rest day, so I’m not sure I want to go all the way to the gym just to use the foam roller…

Anyway, the other day, Beth raised a really good point- if I don’t focus on my running, my runs will not be very good, and I can’t put all my effort into them. That got me thinking-why aren’t my runs my priority? I haven’t fallen in love with running yet. Why? Because it is HARD. I think one of the biggest reasons I’ve avoided running is because it forces me to stare in the face of the fact that I have definitely lost fitness in the past few months. Running is where that loss is most apparent. By avoiding running, I am somehow avoiding this fact. Running right now is harder for me than it has been in a LONG time, and the fact that it isn’t as easy as I remember takes away from the pleasantness. So that revelation, mixed with the fact that my sister and her boyfriend smoked me on the run yesterday has made me really decide to dedicate myself to this. The problem is, it won’t get easier unless I do it more. So for running to be more enjoyable, I need to push through. The plan is to put more effort into my runs. I’m going to do some speedwork and hills on my shorter runs- the goal of my longer runs is just to get the mileage in my legs. Tomorrow I’m going to face the dreaded treadmill to get a faster paced 3 mile run in. What type of intervals do you guys do to work on speed? I may also add in some sprints- In the past, I was used to doing sprint-centered conditioning 2x a week for softball, which I am sure helped my running. 

Ok, now that that all is out of the way, on to the fun stuff! The advantage of running with someone with a car, is afterwards, you can go out to frozen yogurt. We went to Wildberry, which is BY FAR my favorite fro-yo place. I haven’t gone since I had mono, and I’ve been dreaming about it all quarter! Salted caramel pretzel=the best thing ever. That alone won me over. 

I didn’t have my phone with me, but I really wanted to share this all with you guys, so I borrowed my sister’s. Right side is salted caramel pretzel, left is plain tart. OMG SOOO GOOD. 

My evening was spent in the library learning studying for Chem. Unfortunately, my brain was finished studying before I was. I tried to revive myself with some tea, but alas, I was done for the night. 

I am kind of in love with this mug…

The tea was Strawberry Lemonade. The ingredients were all fruit and flower petals. Is it weird that I was wondering whether the leftover tea leaves would be good in oatmeal?

This morning I had a “final.” We played jeopardy…for 3 hours. The brought us breakfast from an awesome cafe, but I must say, jeopardy with dog toy squeakers as the buzzers is not the most conducive environment for studying for a Chem final! Talk about stressful…

Once it was over, I realized I only had 4 hours to completely master Organic Chemistry. Hah. So it was off to the library again, where I saw this guy:Then it was on to lunch.I ended up eating the insides out of the sandwich since I was having the other bread, and didn’t want a carb crash during my test. And as the title of this post says, I am slowing solving the mystery to this Mystery bread. I cam across something online the other day talking about how sunflower seeds undergo a reaction with baking soda (or was it powder?), causing them to turn green. So that explains that. I really took some time to think about the other ingredients today.

Here’s what I’ve determined that this contains: raisins, sunflower seeds, carrots, coconut. And I have no problem solving this mystery one delicious piece of bread at a time.

Also, I’ve been trying to figure out what to fuel with for before my runs. In the past, I ate pb and banana on toast. However, nuts cause my skin to break out. And I’m not a big fan of working out on nuts- the fat in them kind of messes with my stomach. And I’m a little hesitant to have grains given my sometimes weird reactions to them (which I plan on getting tested about this summer). Any other suggestions? Also, my sister wants to eat sour gummy worms to fuel during the race. Would there be any problems with that?

I would love some long distance running advice!

I can’t believe I only have 3 days left of classes! How crazy is that? What’s on tap for me in these next few week? I have 3 finals, only 1 of which I am actually worried about. My half marathon training continues-more on that in a minute. This weekend I have a sorority fancy dinner, a pledge class planned party, a banquet for my dorm, and sorority initiation. Next weekend I have Kitten Nursery orientation! For those that don’t know, I am volunteering at an animal shelter this summer, and I will be working with kittens-so unbelievably pumped. Throwback to Charlie’s kitten days!

This week I have been in a bit of a food and exercise rut. I’ve missed quite a few workouts due to schoolwork, and I haven’t been feeling that great since schoolwork=not sufficient sleep, plus my allergies have been bothering me. I’ve also had a weird headache, which might be allergy related…it is really stupid though because it is likely that my allergies will improve if I change my air filter….but I have so far been too lazy. Whoops!

As far as workouts go, I got some good stuff in Tuesday. Wednesday was devoted to paper writing and studying. Thursday was morning spin. Today I got in a quick weight lifting workout-nothing too crazy, just to get the blood pumping. So what is the common factor that is missing from my week? That’s right, half marathon training. So far I’ve missed 2 runs, but given that it is midterm/finals season, I’m not too concerned. It is still week 1 and the runs are still short. I want to make one of them up today, but I might do that later tonight after my fancy dinner because I feel like I literally just showered, and don’t particularly care to shower yet again. It is sad that being freshly showered (aka being too clean) has prevented me more than once from doing a workout…

But now on to eats! Yesterday, I went to 4 coffee shops, and spent time working in 3 of them. Don’t worry, I did not get coffee 4 times. Otherwise yesterday’s post would HAVE BEEN LIKE THISSSSSSS.

Here is some deliciousness from the past couple of days:Salad with hard boiled egg, garlic hummus, and some type of corn salad. This was surprisingly delicious- I’ll need to recreate it this summer for sure!I made a chicken burger at the dining hall with a piece of grilled chicken and a whole wheat english muffin. I don’t know why I’ve never done this before-it was so good! Plus a vat of ketchup on the side. My side of the dining hall always runs out of ketchup, so I had to run to the other side to grab a bowl of it. Yes, a whole bowl of it. If I was going to that much effort, I didn’t want to run out!Yesterday morning I didn’t feel that great (thanks 4+ hours of sleep) so after spin, all my body was craving was a green smoothie. I put a ton of spinach in, and this was still tasty! Spinach, yogurt, peaches, strawberries, banana. I think the key was using water to blend it instead of milk. Sidenote- I topped my egg whites with cream cheese to make them more interesting. However, I first topped them with whipped cream on accident…not feeling that!
/>Yesterday’s cappuccino. I had to share this picture because in taking it, I spilled my drink everywhere. The things I do for you guys!Delicious salad- blue cheese, apples, pears, walnuts. I also realized yesterday that if I want any hope of going to the Healthy Living Summit, I need to stop shelling out so much money on expensive salads and fancy coffee drinks. More delicious mystery bread. I have absolutely no clue what is in it, but it’s sooo good. I know it at least has sunflower seeds, carrots, and raisins. Not sure what else though. I need to ask sometime! Hey, I’ll take another excuse to go back!

This afternoon has been pretty low key so far. I am expecting a fun and busy weekend though! I have 3 days of classes, and then Dead Day. Yes, one day (welcome to college…), and then finals! Finals are Fri, Sat, Mon, Tues, Weds, but my first isn’t until Monday. Hope everyone has an awesome week!

Do you ever skip workouts?