Here’s last year’s post.

Yayy! We’ve reached the 12th day of Christmas, and it’s officially my blogiversary! And this is one of my favorite posts to right because I think it is really interesting what has changed in a year. It’s absolutely crazy to me that I now have TWO YEARS of my life documented on the Internet. Thank you all so much for reading and commenting-your comments never fail to make my day! Stick around to the end of the post for a little something fun. So, let’s dive in!

1. I’m teaching spin now! Last year it was a big deal for me to be certified, but I never was too ambitious with applying anywhere. I finally took the leap, and am so, so glad I did. It’s so incredibly rewarding.

2. I actually have a more clear picture of what I want to do with my life that I’m happy with, and I’m laying out plans to get there. This one has been a constant struggle for the past 2+ years, so this is a major change. I don’t want to talk specifically about what it is yet because I have changed my mind a lot in the past, but I will say I’ve mentioned it here a while ago before.

3. I eat fewer “products.” Granted, this is partially because there are about 2 protein bars out there with nuts, so those are mostly out the window, but when I was thinking about last year’s giveaway post, I couldn’t even begin to think of my favorite items! This isn’t particularly bad or good, it’s just different.

4. I figured out how to eat ideally for my body. And then learned why it wasn’t sustainable. After avoiding processed foods completely for two weeks, I felt amazing. But it wasn’t necessarily practical for where I am now, and the backlash was pretty bad. I basically went crazy on sugar afterwards and basically undid any positive health changes.

5. I discovered roasted vegetables. Why I never really explored them before is beyond me. Roasted carrots are life. My roommate happened to be randomly roasting them one day and it changed my life.

6. I lived like a “real person” for the first time. I jetted off to DC this summer and worked a 9-5. I lived in the city for the first time. And loved every minute.

7. I’ve gotten more perspective. I’ve become friends with people who help me grow as a person. I’ve lived in a different place, and I traveled around the East Coast a bit and saw the world from different perspectives. I became a much more open person in college, but I think more than ever in the past year.

8. I firmly stopped believing in nutrition trends and fad diets. While I know they can be effective for some people, I felt like in the past I was either looking for a quick fix, or would believe anything. More often than not, when I see a headline I just roll my eyes now. I trust myself and my nutrition knowledge and research more than some over dramatized headline.

9. My interests have shifted. Don’t get me wrong, I still love nutrition and metabolism, but I guess I feel there isn’t that much there left to know, that much deeper to dig. I know there’s still so much we don’t know in this field, but maybe I’m a little burned out. I feel disillusioned or something. Blog content won’t change-don’t worry-but I don’t see that as necessarily being my life direction. Which, honestly, I see as even more of a reason to keep my blog up and going. If that’s not my career, I need it to be my hobby.

10. I HARDCORE avoid nuts now. After finally confirming my suspicions with an allergy test, I’ve been pretty good at avoiding them. And I know quite cleared when I screwed up. Did you know that a lot of Thai food is cooked in peanut oil? Yeah.

11. I broke my addiction to coffee. Or something. I definitely had it this morning…But I drink it significantly less. Partly it’s because I don’t live near close coffee and partly it’s because I actually get a decent amount of sleep, but after getting sort of caffeine dependent this summer and then getting over caffeinated to the point it was scary, I really try not to make it a habit. After that one incident, I had to go through a caffeine detox which was not fun. Versus last fall when I had a crazy school load and drank it about every day.

12. I’ve met some crazy awesome people in the past year! Whether through the Internet/my blog, or in real life. Seriously! It has been a great year! So I think it’s time I share a little something with you all.

What’s the one product I still eat very regularly?

Sunflower seed butter! I’ve gone on and on about how I love the amazing flavors from the Farmer’s Market, so to show my thanks, I will be giving away 2 jars to on lucky person.

The flavors are Cinnamon Brown Sugar Sunflower seed butter (amazing) and Chocolate Chip Cookie Almond butter (which I haven’t tried for obvious reasons but sounds amazing!).

So, here’s how it will work. There are 3 ways to enter.

1. Comment on this post with your favorite nut/seed butter or something that changed for you this past year.

2. Instagram the following picture and tag me! fitnessissweet

3. Tweet about it and include the following picture, and tag me! @fitnessissweet. Alternatively, you can retweet my tweet about the giveaway.

Each person can enter each way once (so up to 3x). I will chose a winner 12 days from now, at 5pm on the 21st of December!

Good luck!

The good news is in terms of running, I feel ready. I still haven’t picked a goal pace so that’s sort of a problem. The bad news is my plantar fasciitis has been flaring this past week and it hasn’t warmed up in my runs like it always did before-I think it’s because it’s not 90 degrees here…

Since I’ve been tapering, I’ve had plenty of time to dream up dinner/lunch ideas. I ever did some more experimental baking! (And then the subsequent eating of course.) So here are some of my “taper week” eats!

Leftover chicken with ketchup, plus roasted carrots and cumin roasted cauliflower. I love the color of the yellow cauliflower! Next time I’m getting purple!

Pumpkin Noosa (yogurt). It’s good-I think it’s a Target exclusive though! Also good-Coconut Noosa.

Cheesy Garlic and Herb Brussels Sprouts-Garlic and Herb Laughing Cow, Maple Apple Sausage (chicken), and shaved brussels sprouts. I also love that this is a super easy dorm meal!

Cinnamon laughing cow+baked (ok, microwaved) peaches. So delicious. Next time I think I’d sauté them together on the stove.

A sandwich from the popular local sandwich shop-turkey and avocado! Plus roasted carrots.

I actually did another little baking experiment-and it came out amazingly well! Like-eat half a loaf in one day well. I’m carb loading, right? Recipe should be up tomorrow.

Oh my gosh. I found this puppy at the local Farmer’s Market-it’s every bit as good as it sounds. I also picked up some maple cinnamon pumpkin seed butter. There’s a stand at the local Farmer’s Market with all kinds of amazing nut and seed butters. I also tried a S’mores sunflower seed butter which was AMAZING but more dessert-y than I was looking for at the time. I’m crossing my fingers that in the coming months a pumpkin spice sunflower seed butter will pop up…

Post-spin chocolate protein smoothie this morning. Man, I forgot how delicious these were! I used frozen banana, Chocolate Designer Whey, cocoa powder, milk, and a handful of spinach.

And lunch today-leftover chicken and leftover cumin roasted cauliflower, plus some spoonfuls of the above sunflower seed butter. Yum!

How do you eat during taper?

A little over a year ago, my skin inexplicably began breaking out terribly. I could not figure out what was happening, as my skin had always been clear. Fast forward about 6 months-I knew nuts were for some reason causing my skin to go crazy, but I was so addicted to peanut butter that my skin suffered. A few months later, I discovered sunflower seed butter, and it saved my skin. While I’m lucky not to have a dangerous reaction to nuts, my response to them are getting worse, and many are much worse off. I want to share Sun Cups with you all because they are such a great option for those who cannot have nuts-but for those that can, they are delicious and definitely worth having over a Reese’s. 

Sun Cups sent me these samples to review a few weeks ago, and they were a big hit in my house!

Lilly especially loved the box they came in! 

I was expecting the Sun Cups to be good, but what really blew me away was the quality of the chocolate. It was amazingly rich and creamy, and so, so smooth. 

We tasted milk sunflower butter, dark sunflower butter, dark mint, and milk caramel. Despite being a family of dark chocolate lovers, the milk sunflower butter stole our hearts. The milk chocolate complimented the sunflower seed butter so perfectly.

We were also impressed by how fresh the mint cup tasted. 

Just in general, everything tasted so fresh. Let’s just say these didn’t last long.

Besides the taste, one of the best things about these guys is the ingredient list.

No high fructose corn syrup, and no weird artificial sweeteners. Let’s compare to a Reese’s: one Reese’s cup has 10 grams of sugar, while one sunflower butter cup only has 7. That’s almost a teaspoon of a difference, in one candy!

I would definitely recommend Sun Cups-I haven’t seen these in stores much but you can order them on their website here. This would be the perfect gift for someone with a nut allergy, or even someone wanting a healthier treat. 

*Full disclosure-Sun Cups sent me samples to review, but all opinions are my own.

I’ll make this post pretty short-I need to study for tomorrow’s Psych final! But all you really care about is food anyways, right??

One quick aside-I went to yoga today. Owwww. I haven’t been in over a month and I’ve gotten soooo tight! Lack of yoga could definitely contributed to my calf problem-it felt much looser after class. I need to make weekly yoga a priority as I train for my next run! And just to clarify-I’m only doing the half of the Nike Women’s marathon. To be honest, my feet couldn’t handle more than that. Exhibit A: It’s a week and a half since my last half and I’m still waiting to regain some of the feeling in my toe. So until I get that figured out….

Ok, onto the food. As you may know, I’m doing a no sugar challenge this week. I’m not doing 0 sugar, just no desserts. So a lot of my eats will feature healthier, no sugar “desserts.” Enjoy!

Breakfast burrito pre-roll. Tip: make the eggs for this in the microwave. It saves dishes and time-the texture is only a tiny bit off and you can’t even tell in burrito form.

Breakfast burrito post-roll.

Lunch sides require their own plate.

Tortilla pizza fail-I sort of overestimated the amount of toppings necessary. This was all cheese and sauce. Whoops…First “dessert.” I’ve been loving my fruit bowls lately-especially anything with peaches and banana, topped with sunflower seed butter. Indian food out of a pouch-hey, good enough for me!

Imitation coconut Chobani. I can’t find anything but the coconut flips, so I took matters into my own hands. After attempt #1, this was spot on. I used Oikos vanilla greek yogurt, which was a better choice because it’s slightly sweeter than my normal vanilla yogurts. I added unsweetened coconut and, this was the key I was missing, coconut extract. I then let it sit overnight so the coconut would soften up. DELICIOUS.

I’ve been loving my lunch plates lately. Where’s the other half of the English muffin you ask? I had the biggest fail splitting it, so it came off in chunks unfit for the toaster.

I took it as a great sign that I was craving grapes for dessert after this meal. I’ve also been loving my dried mango lately (the unsweetened kind). But that could just be major mango withdrawals-I haven’t found much fresh mango lately.

Cheesy polenta with mushrooms, a side of asparagus.

Another delicious fruit bowl as a post-softball snack. (I finally hit a homerun!)

Imitation PB&J crackers. Sunflower seed butter and a raspberry on top of a whole grain and seed cracker. 

And I’ll leave you with this How can I possibly study with that face to distract me?

Sorry for the short-winded post, I have lots of studying in my near future!

What’s the best thing that happened to you this week? What does your cat look like? Have you ever gone dessertless? Results?

Yesterday was my first day of summer, and I must say, it was a really awesome day! I slept in until…5:10…but hey-it was well worth it to attend my favorite spin class! Plus, my kitty came into my room about 10 minutes before my alarm demanding to be petted. And waking up to a purring cat is way better than waking up to an alarm!

After spin, I had a 4 mile run to do. I decided to do a throwback run-last summer I clearly remember one of my first training runs. I went to early spin and then drove to a neighborhood fairly close by, which is flatter and prettier than where I live. I completely forgot to bring my Garmin, so I decided to run for time instead. I planned on 40 minutes, but I lengthened it to 45 because I kept stopping for pictures, plus a had a minor goose incident. More on that in a minute. I made a playlist on my phone of all the songs I listened to last summer to really throw it back. Confession: for some reason whenever people do throwback Thursday on facebook with their pictures, it drives me crazy. I have no idea why…

I enjoyed the wildlife of suburbia- geese!

Ignore the slant-this was my first attempt at a picture while running (without stopping). What’s funny is this lagoon is actually where we rowed some of the time. It’s also a 2k racecourse, so I would have raced here quite a bit if I had continued with crew. That’s so weird to me because I never knew people rowed here. I mean, I basically grew up in this area; half of my friends live here, and I went to violin lessons right around here, and then, I later rowed here. 

There are geese everywhere around the lagoon. If you were to see the geese as they were in this photo, you wouldn’t think anything of it, right? You’d just run through and expect them to move. So I started to run towards them. But…they didn’t move! SO I decided to just run through them and run around them. As I got closer, they started hissing at me! They were hissing and screaming and running closer to me!

So naturally I stopped to take a picture. What you can’t see is that there was a goose right next to me on my left hissing. At that point, I was kind of stuck. I was in the middle of the pack, and I didn’t know which direction to go in!

Luckily, I did get out in one piece, unscathed. But it was terrifying. I guess the bird around this lagoon are kind of aggressive. One of my teammates had a scary experience with an aggressive swan chasing her!

Being done with spin and a run by 7:45 am is such an awesome feeling. Breakfast was cottage cheese mixed with chia seeds and thawed blueberries.

An even more awesome feeling than that? Taking a midmorning nap with your cat. He’s such a sweetie! Sadly, I have no pictures, as I was unconscious.

Lunch was a leftover turkey burger and freeze dried sesame edamame. 

I also had one of these guys-it was good, but similar to the coconut creations I’ve made in the microwave, so in the future I’d probably just do that.

A little later in the afternoon, I met up with Kaitlin for coffee. She’s about to graduate, so I was lucky to catch her before she leaves! We went to Philz Coffee, which was a cute little place where they hand make everything. 

We were both a little overwhelmed by all the different types of coffee! Since I know very little about coffee, and I didn’t want to have much caffeine that late in the day, I went with iced chai tea.

I got mine with milk and honey. They add mint leaves to it as well. I really, really enjoyed this. It was super refreshing on a hot day, and while the chai flavor was subtle, I really liked the flavor the mint added.

I also enjoyed an oat bar, which had various types of dried fruit. 

I had a really great time talking with Kaitlin– I’ve never met up with a blogger before! She’s totally awesome and you all should check her blog out.

Thanks Kaitlin!

We met up more near school than home for me, but that worked out really well because I kind of forgot to turn my room key in, and school was on the way back. I had to say goodbye to people again! I also had to help my sister move out which was…a process. For the record, I was out in an our (besides the packing). I was there for 3 hours, my parents were there for longer, and she’s not even completely moving out! She’s living there (kind of-it’s complicated) this summer! But I did score a homemade cupcake from her fancy cupcake holder which she made for a class project. 

In addition, she and her boyfriend made cinnamon rolls from scratch that were ready right before we were done!

They were sooo good, but I could only have a few bites before my heart started racing!

And FINALLY we were home for dinner. My family was having pesto pasta, but I felt like I could use protein more, so I microwaved egg whites and spinach and topped that with pesto instead.

And dessert:

I had been out of sunflower seed butter in my dorm for quite a while, so this was AMAZING.

Have a great day everyone! Kitten nursery post to come, as well as my recount of Crossfit (my first class is tonight!).

Where is your favorite place to run? Have you ever met up with a blogger?

This morning, I had  Harry and David pear. (Old picture…cheating but we’ll go with it).

I also wanted some protein, so I whipped up some egg whites in the microwave, and topped them with a lot of avocado. There was probably more avocado than egg, not that I’m complaining!This was one of those mornings where I throw a ton of stuff together in a hurry in an attempt to not be late for class…

Lunch is unpictured, as it was not really according to plan. After my 9am class, I had planned to go to the library, but I was SUPER sleepy so I headed back to my room for a nap instead. I ended up finishing off my sunflower seed butter jar with yogurt and a banana, and some carrots. Plus a Harry and David Orange! So not very photographable. Also, I made a major life choice today-I’m not going to open a new sunflower seed butter for a while. It’s time for a break!

Dinner was semi-exciting. I went to a different dining hall, and they had a baked potato bar! I loaded mine up with butter, cheese, and scallions, although it is hard to see under the salad. In the front is some type of veggie with some type of non-meat tofu-like product. In the back is some couscous with roasted mushrooms. I also had a slice of cinnamon bread (so good!).

So as you can see, not a lot of excitement going on in the food front. Or in life. What stinks about having such a great weekend is that the week seriously pales in comparison. I hadn’t really been bored with my weekdays at all until this week. And now, the week. is. dragging. I can’t wait for the weekend! I am going rafting on Sunday with my dorm, and I have a million and two friends from high school who want to stay with me this weekend (but I have a chem midterm next week, so I don’t know if that will be able to happen). I don’t think I’m ready for the year to be over!

On the plus side, my workouts have been quite good lately, if I do say so myself. They’ve been a little more varied than normal, as in they haven’t JUST been weights, or JUST rowing. Yesterday, I lifted in the morning. I was annoyed because I wanted to do cleans, and the rugby team was taking up most of the bars, so I took some time to do a circuit with pistols and pushups, and then some dumbbell snatches. When a bar opened up, I jumped at the opportunity and did this workout:

10-8-6-4-2

Hang clean (95#)

Box jumps

Technically, I was supposed to do the whole circuit twice, but my wrists were DONE after this. And dropping the bar on myself=not good. I followed this up with some work on the rowing machine…I believe I did 2k. Yeah, my shoulders were seriously feeling the cleans!

Here’s an ab workout I have been loving lately! I’ve been doing it most days with my workouts.(The wrestler move is lying down with your legs in butterfly, and then pressing yourself into a crunch with your elbows.)

In the afternoon, I went for a 3.7 mile run with a girl from my sorority. She is interested in running together regularly, and wants to do a half this summer as well. Yay for more training buddies!

This morning I went to a Spin class, and then this afternoon I decided to do a rowing workout. I’m getting inspired to get back on the erg more. In some strange way, I miss those marathon workouts. I definitely have trouble motivating myself to go all that fast though. I could never do a 6k on my own. Today, I did a pyramid:

250 m

500m

1000m

2000m

1000m

500m

250m

I took a minute or two of rest in between. I followed that up with that abs workout above, and a few other moves. Back in my room, I saw all the balloons still here from my Big, and was inspired. I did some crunches with a ballon under my lower back, which was super hard! But then the inevitable happened…the ballon popped. Eh, what can you do, right??

One more thing, I have posted about the concept of Healthy Living College Blogger retreat…if you guys are interested, could you publicize the idea on your blogs as well? The more the word is out, the better! I think we could totally do this thing!

I started with squats to a fairly heavy weight, and then settled into 135# for my typical back squat workout of 2 squats every 30 seconds for 8 minutes. I followed that up with the workout on the card, the Metcon Honky Tonky. Yeah. My legs were pretty much done. SO naturally the logical step was to move on to RDLs and calf raises. Go hard or go home, right? I finished with a few sets of single leg squats and hamstring rolls. Can you say JELLO? Legs=demolished. 

Breakfast:Plain greek yogurt topped with granola and frozen blueberries. Plus a biscuit. I LOVE BISCUITS!

Aaaand here’s lunch: salad with a hard boiled egg and garlic hummus.After lunch, I had the pleasure of taking my Ochem midterm. It seemed difficult, but crossing my fingers, I think I pulled it off. 

After class, this was waiting for me in my room:It’s Big-Little week! My big is awesome, I can already tell. I got more mangos today, and here’s what I got last night:She knows me too well! Mangos and avocados?? I’m soo spoiled!

After a quick snack of freeze dried edamame and a mango, I went outside to do some sprints and abs (see workouts above). The sprint workout was from my old agility/conditioning coach I used to train with my sophomore and junior year of high school. Is it weird that I get nostalgic about workouts? And then I started to really miss softball. I miss everything about it, pitching, hitting, running after balls. And yes, I did love softball conditioning. Sigh.

Before dinner, I whipped up some Overnight Oats. I’ve never had them before, but given I’m on a yogurt kick, and my last yogurt expires tomorrow, I figured I’d give it a try. I seem to have lost my almond milk…so I used sunflower seed milk. It’s not my favorite, but that’s ok. I also discovered after dinner when I was eating a banana with sunflower seed butter, that I have a nearly empty jar! So that’s going to happen. I swear, either a) my room eats things or b) I’m going to find a ton of random things when I move out (in three weeks!!!). Also missing: a bowl (I only had 2 so this is bad…), 2 knives, and now my almond milk. 

Dinner was very unsatisfying (which explains why it was followed by the banana and a Thinkthin Divine bar). I had some avocados in the fridge which I thought went bad a while ago, so I brought those to dinner. The avocados were fine, but even they could not save a sub-par dinner. Our dining hall is so bad that NO ONE goes there anymore. It was pretty empty. How can a salad with chicken be so unsatisfying?Plus parsnips. Those were good, I’ll give them that. I eat so much more at the dining hall when the food is bad, ironically. So I made a vow to never eat there for dinner again for the rest of the year. I brought some spinach back to my room so I can make an omelet for dinner tomorrow, now that I know I have some decent avocados. 

Also, I haven’t forgotten about this Miranda! Thanks for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger award!

The Rules:

1) Add The Versatile Blogger award photo on a blog post
2) Thank the person (or animal) who presented you with the award and link back to him or her in your post
3) Share seven things about yourself
4) Pass the award along to 15 favorite bloggers. Contact the chosen bloggers to let them know about the award.

First off- HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the mother’s out there, especially my own, who has put up with me through a lot.

Also, to all mother’s out there: make sure you’re not the only on taking pictures! Many years from now your daughter may be writing a blog post for which she will have trouble finding pictures of the two of you together. 

Although she does not know it at the time I am writing this post, my sister and I are surprising her my coming back for lunch! I’ll let you know how that is tomorrow!

There are a few things I want to touch on about Saturday. First. It was very unproductive. And I skipped some events because I wanted to get things done. But that wasn’t great. It’s ok though, it was only Saturday. Some R&R is necessary. 

Brunch. I have a love/hate relationship with it. The food is really good, but it completely messes up my entire eating schedule for the day. This may be why I struggle with eating well on the weekends. I went with half of a whole wheat bagel, toasted with cream cheese and eggs, plus a salad with guacamole. Half of a waffle was also consumed, although it went unphotographed. 

Brunch always leads me to snacking. Which causes problems. I had a big grand workout planned, but I kept eating and then having to digest. Here are some snacks:

Greek yogurt, cranberry orange quinoa, and cocoa sesame seed butter. Citrus+chocolate works, right??

Blueberry-pomegranite kefir, zucchini bread (from the freezer), and sunflower seed butter. 

Numerous other snacks included bananas with sunflower seed butter, and granola with a protein bar.  Dinner was just meh but here it is:

Well guys, this is it. It is the ending of an era. That’s right, I’m finally getting over my sunflower seed butter and my yogurt obsession. Since ditching some of the sugar in my diet, I don’t find these items as enjoyable. Or maybe consuming 10,000 jars of sunflower seed butter in a quarter is too much. I’m not sure. But I’m feeling ready to move on. It’s not that I dislike these things, but they don’t hold quite the same level of joy for me as they did in the past. :'(

I may try plain yogurt and see if that is more appealing. But as it is, I only have a bit of yogurt remaining anyways. I guess I’ve been more into produce lately: fruits and veggies. Produce kind of shaped how well my week went last week; I focused more on eating fruit and veggies, and it helped me eat more healthfully overall. Which takes us to the next topic of conversation.

As any normal American, I don’t eat as nutritiously on the weekends as on the other days of the week. For me, starting Monday on a positive note is crucial, and sets the tone for the week. Last Monday, I really focused on clean eating, and ate mostly fruit and veggies (minus the pizza that may have slipped its way in). As a result, I felt great the whole week, and had no difficulty eating well. Which is why I want to try something different this Monday. Before I say anything. let me first iterate that it is not necessarily something I believe in, but just want to give a try. A juice cleanse! I was inspired when last Monday I tried Trader Joe’s Green Juice and actually enjoyed it. It is a bit sugary (from the fruit) so the plan is to mix it with a more unpalatable and veggie heavy drink. I wasn’t sure whether to blog about this, but since it’s only a day, it’s not really going to change anything anyways. And the idea has always intrigued me. 

But on to the title of the post! Lately, I’ve been finding workouts online and writing them on Post-its. I regularly take these post its to the gym with me when I work out, but they get really rumply and crinkly and gross. So I decided to laminate them with tape!

Most of them are WODs, and I thought it would be easier to have them in one medium, together. The ultimate plan is to make some type of pretty poster to put on my wall that I can stick all of them to for easy access when I want to pick one for a workout. I haven’t figured that part out yet, but I’m satisfied with the finished cards!Most of them came with names, but I gave names to most of the ones that didn’t for ease of reference. For example, the one I did the other day that featured pull-ups, push ups, and squats I titled “Popeye” because it killed by arms for several days after. And Popeye has huge arm muscles, right?

I’m slightly obsessed with Crossfit. Yet I’ve never even tried it. Sad. This summer though I want to try it!

Aaaand to tie this post together again: Happy Mother’s Day!

Tell me something awesome about your mother.

As usual, I began my day by going to morning Spin. Then, I made breakfast. Ok, specifically, I made breakfast look nice and I made myself late for class. But it is a 9am so no one is on time anyways. So I had this genius idea that I should work on making my food more photographable as a way to slow down and be really mindful of what I am eating. My mom even brought me some fabric swaps to uses as background! So since a picture of a banana with a bite out of it and a jar of Sunflower butter isn’t very pretty, I did this:Not the neatest, but spreading sunflower seed butter on a banana is not the most graceful thing ever. Idea for when I have more time: put the sunflower butter in a plastic bag and squeeze it through a hole in the corner like frosting. Genius, right? We’ll see if that ever actually happens…

After my 9am, I studied for a bit before grabbing coffee with one of my friends from crew who I haven’t seen or talked to in so long! It was great to catch up and hear about the team. I ordered a yogurt parfait and a cappuccino. Because apparently I was super tired. And guess what? I actually have a favorite coffee drink. Which is saying something since I hate coffee in general. I love the milk foam in cappuccinos! Also, I really hate sugar in coffee, for some reason. That’s supposed to make it better for people who don’t like coffee, but that doesn’t do it for me. 

I had all my workout clothes in my backpack which I carted around all day. However, I realized I forgot my iPod, which I really wanted, so I ran back to my dorm. Despite the coffee, I took a brief nap. Interesting…

After class, I headed to the gym for another rowing workout. It was nothing too intense. I ended up doing less than I was planning; my knee had been a little sore today and I didn’t want to push it. I was doing an ab circuit and thinking about how I really need to work speed and agility workouts into my life since I really miss them, when I decided, hey, why not do something now? I left mid-abs and biked to the field near my dorm and did some of the agility drills I used to do as part of softball conditioning. I think my joints (knees and ankles) have gotten a little weaker because I never do anything that involves changing direction, so I want of work more of that stuff in. 

For dinner, my roommate and I went to the nearby dining hall that we have not gone to all quarter. SO MANY VEGETABLES. It was awesome. Brown rice, tilapia, and tons of veggies. Plus some fruit and later a small slice of gourmet looking pizza. While there, we ran into one of my friends from my dorm who I haven’t talked to in a while. We had a great time; I can’t remember the last time I laughed that much! And hey, nothing wrong with dinner taking an hour and a half right??

That’s about all that happened today. And now, the title of the post: next race??

I’m running the Giant’s Half Marathon in the beginning of August (it’s in SF and finishes at the ballpark on the field). I hadn’t thought much of anything beyond that. BUT THEN. I got an email from a girl in my sorority about the Nike Women’s marathon in SF in October. I had thought about signing up for the half, but since it’s a draw even after you sign up, I figured, ehh. But I was informed in said email that as a college student, I could get a special code when I registered that would not only give me a discount, but guarantee me entry in the race. How awesome is that? And the race is basically in my backyard, which is incredible given people travel to do this race.

So, what do you guys think??

Most sororities here roll their girls out around 6, and get them black out drunk by 8. Yeahhh we didn’t do that. They took us to a nice breakfast with delicious pastries, and they gave me this:

SO CUTE. Breakfast was very carb-y, and I knew it would put me to sleep. Afterwards, I hit up the dining hall for some protein in the form of eggs and a little coffee. Yeahh my first class was interesting. I felt like the caffeine and carbs were at war in my body, one fighting to put me to sleep, the other to keep me awake. But I made it through. So maybe I can eat carbs if they’re always accompanied by coffee? Great plan, right?

For lunch, I decided I shouldn’t be spending so much money, and should take advantage of my meal plan, so I went to the cafeteria area to pick up a premade southwestern salad. 

Truffles are on my meal plan too.

I was sort of planning on an afternoon run and yoga, but my knee was bothering me a little. I think I did something funny when I was catching one of my heavy cleans in a squat. I guess the rest worked, because it feels fine now! Snack was a yogurt bowl.

I believe that is the end of my yogurt.

For dinner, I ventured to the far side of campus to experience the finest dining hall. It turns out it was faculty night there, so the food was extra good, and it is already the best dining hall on campus. 

Salad, breaded salmon, brussels sprouts that are actually cooked (crazy concept, right??), and the famed honey biscuits (in whole wheat and regular form). Yum! And dessert was chocolate fondue with the all kinds of things to dip. No picture though, whoops! Plus, since this is a peanut free dining hall, they had sunflower seed butter. Let’s be honest; I could never have that as my primary dining hall, and I’m glad it’s far away. I’d be 500 pounds! They had a menu up…they have CINNAMON ROLLS for breakfast. We have…toast. Meh. I’m sooo full though.

When I got back, I spent about an hour talking/complaining to my roommate about Nutrition and why our government stinks in this respect. I love that we can have conversations like this. There is some program that we saw that delivers produce to your doorstep, and I think we’re gonna split this. Kale is on sale…kale chips anyone? Finally something I can make in the kitchen that no one will want any of, haha!

So, some of you may have heard of Run for Boston. The idea is you get a big group of people together wearing blue and yellow and hold up signs saying Run for Boston, and then post them on the facebook page. Someone sent an email out at my school, and it sounded like it was going to be a big event. It was after dinner, and Iw as running on a very full stomach (and I may have eaten a cookie literally 2 minutes before leaving) but I figured a little stomach discomfort was the least I could do (it ended up being fine, by the way)

.

I was expecting to get there and see a huge crowd of blue and yellow.

Nothing. All I saw were 2 people in blue running, and some frat boys pledging. 

Shot gunning beers and then running in bathrobes and dresses? Why not?

I have never been so disappointed in my school as I have been regarding their response to the Boston tragedy. People talk about the “bubble” here, where you don’t really experience the outside world. I’ve never felt that more than with this. On Monday when I found out about the bombing, I went to the lounge to break the news to the people there. They knew. They just didn’t seem to care. I didn’t get it. How could their worlds not have shattered, like I had felt mine did? And today….really, no one could step away from their busy lives to show their support? I love my school, but my complaint is that they don’t seem to care about important events outside of school, and frankly I see that as a little selfish.

Either way, I’m glad I went. 

Once I reached my destination, I decided to walk, because it offers me more time to think. I can never seem to get lost in my thoughts while running. I’m too busy thinking about running. Walking, however, is perfect. I don’t often walk in peaceful places, so this was the perfect opportunity to gather my thoughts. 

I decided that not only is my body strong, but I could be getting more out of it. This Marathon tragedy has inspired me to really get into running and push my limits. I really want to do a long run on my birthday. I would LOVE to get a 10 mile run in, but given my birthday is coming right up, I’m not sure that is possible. So I’m going to run for as long as I can on that day. For the next couple of weeks I’m going to shift my fitness focus towards running. I’m nixing my timed mile on Friday in favor of a longer run. Since I ran a 5 miler last week, I think I’ll try 6 on Friday. Happy running!

What do you do while running? Think? Listen to music?