Thanksgiving | Fitness is Sweet

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a terrific weekend! I was busy, busy!

Sunday morning, I went to Crossfit. The WOD was rough-it took me 46 minutes and involved lots of push ups, pull ups, and double unders. I actually did all 100 double unders! It was hard. And I have a bruised pinkie to show for it!

Immediately after Crossfit, I headed out to Big Game-the football game against our rivals.

It must have been my lucky day-I caught a free water bottle AND a free t-shirt!

Things started well when we scored a touchdown in the first 30 seconds or so.

I ended up leaving at halftime-we won 63-13! It was great. I actually ran into some of my high school friends who now go to my rival school while I was biking around after the game-how crazy is that? It was great to catch up-it had been way too long!

Then, it was time for a mass packing and room cleaning. I had to take home an insane amount of stuff, especially given I’ll only be back for a week! Since finals are coming up, I had to take every single textbook. The number of shoes I brought back is embarassing as well-like 7 or 8 pairs, and I am almost positive I’ll wear them all. When you have Spin shoes, Crossfit shoes, workout shoes, running shoes, old running shoes for if it rains…etc. It adds up quickly. Getting everything to my car was an adventure to say the least.

For my first meal home, we brought back food from a local restaurant, and I had huevos rancheros and a salad.

As well as a delicious pumpkin cookie with sticky toffee icing from my grandma.

The best part? I was reunited with this guy:

He sheds like crazy. I’m pretty much a ball of fur at this point. My dad picked up my turkey trot shirt from the expo, and it got all furry just from ME. Well worth it though. Want to know a lesser known about Aurora fact? I’m actually allergic to cats. I just put up with it because they are 100% worth it-but it’s amazing how fast allergies come back-it’s not something that ever even crosses my mind at school!

This morning I went to my home gym to go to one of my favorite spin classes. I did a bit of erging and ab work beforehand. The class was amazing. It’s so nice to have good bikes-it’s a completely different experience. I left the class feeling exhilarated. I have a new appreciation for spin classes now that I’ve been making my own!

After spin I spent way too long in Whole Foods, mostly buying granola bars and THIS. I could not resist.

Almond milk eggnog. Guys, this was seriously amazing. And so much less sugar than regular egg nog, but the flavor was still spot on.

I also picked up lunch-an Asian chicken salad wrap and Thai carrot ginger soup for my mom and me.

Then, we did a little shopping-some Christmas decorations, some workout clothes, and some real people clothes-so basically it was great.

This is going on my dorm door. My roommate and I may or may not be going crazy with the Christmas decorating this year.

The mall was so festive! Santa is ALREADY doing pictures with kids. It seems ridiculous that this all is happening before Christmas, but I guess Thanksgiving is really late this year.

For dinner, I had a teriyaki chicken bowl. I can’t remember the last time I had one of these!

We also may a trip to Starbucks for some berry coffeecake and a peppermint brownie cake pop. They’re good. Get one. They are more or less moist brownies with peppermint bark on the outside. Yum. And so pretty!

The rest of the evening has been spent planning 12 Days of Christmas. And cranberry bread is currently in the oven-we’re going to Napa tomorrow per our usual Thanksgiving tradition, so we’re baking it to take along.

Throwback to Napa trip 4 years ago!

And here’s a question: What do I wear for a rainy race??

Is Fitness Thoughts Monday a thing? I guess it’s going to be because I have a lot of fitness thoughts.

I thought I was a lot less sore this morning. But when you have to pump yourself up to walk halfway across the room, maybe that’s not the case. Well, either way, I started the morning off with a timed mile. My legs felt fresh and incredibly sore at the same time-is that possible? My time was 24 seconds faster than my last timed mile (soon after mono), but about 40 s from my PR, but I didn’t feel dead at the end at all, which I think means I could have gone a lot faster. Actually, to be honest, I think that actually might be an attainable 5k pace. Maybe. With lots of adrenaline and fresh legs?

I think I need to get used to running fast again and pushing myself. It’s a totally different mental game, and practice makes perfect! I think next time I would run without my Garmin, and just a stopwatch. Knowing my pace has the tendency to make me a little too complacent-I was already planning on running the race sans Garmin; knowing the pace shouldn’t help me-if I’m not dying I should be going faster! It’s as fast as I can go and that’s that.

After my timed mile, I ran to total an hour of running. My feet started hurting a bit so I found a field and did some barefoot running. It was nice and wet-yuck! Anyways, after half a lap, my foot pain faded away. I ran for about 10 minutes shoeless, and my feet felt awesome. Even when I put my shoes back on, my feet felt better and I was going faster. I might start some runs without shoes just to get feel for proper running form-it’s definitely something I need to work on!

Some more fitness thoughts-I was starting to wonder if I’m lifting too much and it’s hindering my running. And then I realized that last Thursday I was thinking I was not lifting enough. Ohh what soreness will do to you.

Also-today I was really missing rowing. I was looking at some of my rowing friends’ facebook pictures and it made me really miss that time! I miss my team, I miss being in amazing shape, I miss the water.

(I’m in the blue.)

I also miss my rowing body! To be fair though, I actually lost quite a bit of muscle in my legs because I didn’t lift much last fall.

At the same time, today in Physics, I was sitting near one of my former teammates. I had slept a lot in the past few days, and was well rested and alert. She was nodding off the whole class. So there are definitely some parts I don’t miss!

I really do want to gain some of the rowing fitness I had last fall-I think it really did help my running, even if it was only because it increased my pain threshold. The most painful workout I’ve ever done is by far a 6k test. Yes, worse than hitting the wall in a half. A 6k test was an all out sprint on the erg…for about 24 minutes. I want to get serious about working more erging into my routine-it just hasn’t happened so far!

On another note, I actually finished my Crossfit workout in the fastest time all day. How did that happen?? To be fair-I can’t do real pull ups so I did them banded, and I can’t do handstand push ups so I did them off a box. But I did do the front squats at full weight!

(Old pic-I definitely did not do the WOD this heavy!)

One thing that is super frustrating to me right now is my weight. I’m very fit, but I know that the few extra pounds from where I want to be are preventing me from reaching some fitness goals. If I was where I want to be, I’m pretty sure I could do a pull up because I’m getting really close! And my running would be a lot faster too! And I’m a little worried about the upcoming holidays, to be perfectly honest. This all is part of why I made a meal plan for myself-I want to increase my fitness and strength while dropping some body fat. Which means fueling smart-the right things at the right times. For example, after my squat workout on Saturday, I didn’t refuel until at least 2 hours later, and I’m pretty sure that’s part of why I’ve been insanely sore. I stuck pretty closely to my plan today-with a few exceptions:

My roommate is the best. She went home over the weekend and brought these back from her trees. SO good.

I was 3 persimmons and half a Thinkthin bar off today’s plan, which I consider to be pretty good! I just regret the bar and persimmon #2 because they were a little close to Crossfit and gave me a little bit of a stomachache. My food isn’t terribly interesting right now-if I’m not a fan of dining hall food (it just is really boring), I might as well try to eat really clean for performance. But here are a few things of interest!

I’m not sure what I think of this. I guess I’m not a fan-it didn’t taste that spicy but just kind of made my throat burn! And while I do like Kevita, it has Stevia which I really don’t like, and leaves a weird aftertaste.

And my post-workout dinner: sundried tomato chicken sausage, green beans, and brown rice.

Overall, I felt really good today about my food intake. It’s good to eat something besides dates! (I’m only sort of kidding about this. Plus I’m out of dates…)

You know what is interesting though? When I have my favorite dried fruits on hand (mango and dates), I’m not tempted at all by other sweets! And dried fruit doesn’t cause the same cravings that table sugar does, which is awesome.

And yayy we’re only two weeks away from Thanksgiving! I can’t wait for the time off, plus kitty time!

Do you have any Thanksgiving plans?

My family always goes to Napa fro Thanksgiving, but this year we’re going the few days before so I can do a Turkey Trot!