Monthly Archives: August 2013

Never Have I Ever….

Date: August 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Happy Friday! Anyone planning on getting together with friends this weekend? I have the perfect game for you. (Ok, maybe it’s more of a workout…but still!)

Have you played Never Have I Ever? There are a ton of variations on this game. You go around and say things you’ve never done, and if the people in your group have done them, they lose a straw, put a finger down, etc. The goal is to find things that you haven’t done that most others have. But here’s the catch. Instead of putting a finger down, we’re going to steal some fitness! Assign a move to each person-this is the exercise everyone who has done the thing must complete for that person.

Example: Person 1 is Susie. Susie’s move is 25 burpees. Susie has never been to Europe but I have, so I have to do 25 burpees. Tom’s move is jump squats. He states he has never had Mono, but I have so I have to do 25 jump squats. Get creative-make each other suffer!

Here are some ideas for workout moves:

Burpees

Squat jumps

Push-ups

Sit-ups

Squats

Deadlifts with a milk carton

Plank

Calf raises

The possibilities are endless! And remember:

Friends make friends suffer. 🙂

Have you ever player Never Have I Ever? What is one thing you haven’t done?

A Call For Guest Posters!

Date: August 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’m making this a separate post because I can’t for the life of me remember to include it in a normal post. But anyways.

I’m going on vacation in Maui at the beginning of September (I’m leaving Aug 31). I’ll be gone for a little over a week, so I’m looking for some guest posters! Please email me if you are interested! Astottler @ gmail.com. I’d need the posts by August 28th!

Thanks a ton!

(Awkward photo because I’m wearing a shirt from my rival school…)

Cleanup Crew

Date: August 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Thursday everybody! Only a couple of days until the weekend, right?? I’m thinking this weekend might be a good time to go up to the city (San Francisco), try out the frozen yogurt place I had no appetite for post-race, and drive the route of my next half marathon! It’s hilly-I want to know what I’m getting myself into!

Yesterday was a good day, AM spin-VERY early. I am no longer ever having dark chocolate before bed-I was seriously dragging! I spent the rest of the morning finishing up my final presentation for Health Psychology. I did a study on the effects of aerobic exercise versus yoga on reducing stress. Fun fact-in Psych studies, to induce stress, you make your participants count backwards from 400 by 7s, yelling at them to go faster and making them start over if they’re wrong. Fun!

Lunch was a basic one-tomato soup with cheddar (seriously SO good) with a side of popcorn. That popcorn is kind of significant-it was some of the swag I got from my half marathon’s expo!After my 3 hour class, I hustled my way over to Crossfit for a 6:15 class. It was a decent WOD-not a lot of heavy lifting so not one of my favorites. We did kettlebell clean and jerks, which were really weird. I’ve never done them before so I stuck to a low weight; I didn’t want to smash my wrists!

I stayed after class to clean up the box. That was my first day of cleaning. It’s really not too bad-wipe stuff down, sweep, mop. I actually really like just being around the box/fitness environment. There was a small WOD going on while I was cleaning, so I got to watch them ~~suffer~~. It’s a cool way to get to know the trainers better (and earn a free membership!). It took me about 45 minutes.

At that point, I was more than ready for dinner! We had asparagus with garlic aioli, plus cornbread (with whipped butter and honey). The main dish was a butternut squash-chicken vegetable soup, recipe found here.

This morning I was awake early for the kitten nursery morning shift! And since you obviously need to see kitten pictures…

You know how I’ve said many times before how I’ve picked out which kittens I’m dying to adopt? Well this time I REALLY have. The difference is this one kitten really does need me. He’s a little black kitten. He’s by himself, and he’s misunderstood. (Cliche, right?) To some he may seem like an anti-social cat, but I know better. He demonstrates all the personality facets of a typical black cat. On his sheet, someone notes he doesn’t like to be touched, and is kind of antisocial (TYPICAL black cat). He seems quiet and withdrawn, but given my black cat experience, that’s not exactly it. I’m worried that this behavior might not be conducive to future adoptions, or future success in his adoptive family. Even worse, he would really do better in an environment with fewer variables-different people caring for him everyday, people with not enough time. He’s losing weight, which is bad. I think this is because people are not putting enough time into him. I had him out for at least 45 minutes today. He doesn’t eat a ton on his own, so I had to syringe feed him. He’s fussy but eager to eat; if one didn’t have enough patience he’d be written off. In addition, he kept wriggling away while I was feeding him to wash his face…yeah that’s a black cat all right.

As for anti-social? Not exactly-he’s a sweetie if you get to know him better. I tried to feed him in my lap, and that didn’t work because all he wanted to do was sit on my shoulder. I’m not sure how I’d be able to at least foster him, but he needs something.

In other news, I had full intentions to work out after the kitten nursery, but instead went to Whole Foods and ate a muffin. And bought cinnamon kettle corn-ADDICTIVE. In my defense, I probably needed a rest day anyways.

One more thing-I posted my first “real” article on the local fitness blog- The Link Between Heart Disease and Mile Times.

What’s you mile time?

Back in the day I was able to break 7:00. I definitely can’t do that anymore! I want to do a timed mile soon though!

WIAW-Post Race Recovery

Date: August 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy What I Ate Wednesday! Thank you to Jenn for hosting!

After my half marathon on Sunday, I’ve been trying to refuel well for as fast as possible of a recovery. This means lots of carbs and lots of protein. The good news? I’m no longer hobbling around like an old lady! Score! Here are some of my eats from this past week.

Taco salad from the Abs Diet cookbook. Plus some fresh guac-it’s been too long!

What I love about this salad is the dressing-it’s simply salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime juice with chopped tomatoes. This salad recipe has inspired my family to make our own dressings for salads-even a simple dressing like this makes the salad taste so much fresher! Most dressings can be whipped up in just a few minutes. If you haven’t made your own dressing before, I highly recommend trying it.

This morning, I awoke with a stiff/sore calf. At this point, it seems that the best remedy is Spin class-how convenient. I left Spin feeling much better. Once again, I am so grateful my calf held up for my race. The race igniting a running fire under me, but I’m forcing myself to take AT LEAST a week, probably two, off of running before I start training for the Nike Women’s half. My calf needs to be 100% better before I start again!

After spin, I had been planning on trying a new protein smoothie recipe. Instead, I decided to put my pineapple Chobani to work.

Instant pineapple frozen yogurt! I didn’t actually need to coconut water-I only added a splash and I had no trouble blending. I simply blended a pineapple CHO with frozen pineapple chunks!

This probably could have used a bit more time in the blender-it was super chunky and not as thick as a result.

Cinnamon raisin toast has been happening a lot lately. I blame the race 🙂

Cinnamon raisin toast topped with a little butter and cinnamon sugar is a great treat that’s on the lighter side. It’s healthier than a cinnamon roll while still hitting all those key flavor notes, but it won’t leave you in a sugar coma!

Midmorning, I was craving banana bread. I made a microwave version!

I mixed up a banana, egg beaters, coconut flour, a pinch of baking soda, and a splash of almond milk. Plus bittersweet chocolate chips, which obviously MADE the dish!

In the future, I think I would omit the coconut flour. It masks the banana flavor a little too much!

More carbs were the name of the game later in the afternoon. I made a spin-off of PB&J. Did you know that in middle school/beginning of high school I ate a PB&J sandwich every day at lunch? I was quite the connoisseur. I had the brand of PB all figured out. I also used to put two different types of jam on the sandwich.

My aunt makes the best jam in the world and sends us tons of it. My favorite is the raspberry-she grows her own raspberries for the jam! I’ve always loved PB&J, but somehow my face seems to object to peanut butter now. Sunflower seed butter and jam isn’t quite the same, but it’s a close second!

I also had some leftover turkey taco mix from the previous night’s dinner.

I made the mistake of eating a fairly large snack, and then another granola bar, right before Crossfit. Ugh, not the best idea!

At Crossfit, we worked on snatches. I kept being too far out in front on mine, probably because my hips are so tight from my race!

The WOD was harder than I was expected. The Rx for the deadlifts was 155, but I stuck to 135 since there were so many reps. Here’s the workout:

25 deadlifts

25 toes to bar

25 box jumps

25 toes to bar

25 deadlifts

I really liked this workout! I really need to strengthen my abs though-my core was really quaking on the deadlifts! Also-I start cleaning my box tomorrow! I mean, a membership in exchange for cleaning is awesome, but to be honest, I just want to spend more time around the box. And hey, if I’m in there anyway, it’s an excuse to work on my pull-ups!

I was not hungry AT ALL after Crossfit, but I decided I needed to refuel. I made a chocolate coconut protein smoothie.

The coconut flavor came from shredded coconut and coconut extract. I’ll post the recipe once I perfect it-it could have used more coconut extract! This time I think I added a little much xantham gum and not enough ice. I’m kind of at a loss with the amount of xantham gum to use-I either add to much or too little! Help?

Today while pumping gas, I thought about two things. 1. This freaking car is such a gas guzzler-I just got gas last week! 2. My irrational fear related to pumping gas. I’m scared that somehow I’ll manage to blow up the gas station by spilling gas. It kind of freaks me out when the nozzle drips because I’m imagining that scenario.

Aaaand once last thought for the day. I FINALLY got my first post up for my town’s fitness blog! It’s just an introductory post, but here it is! Don’t worry-this new blog won’t change anything about Fitness is Sweet. I’ll link to the other blog from here, but I’ll mostly discuss different things. I’ll definitely discuss anything relevant (such as workouts, interesting studies) on here as well!

Have a great week!

Do you have any irrational fears? Do your cats like to “help” you blog? Mine does…He’s here right now!

How do you recovery from a race or competition?

So Much Excitement

Date: August 5, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I really should have waited to post again so I’d have more to show you guys, but I’m brimming with excitement. I’ve caught the running bug.

Why is it that we catch the running bug after a race-when we are physically incapable of running? I’m feeling way better now, but I am SORE. I was shuffling around like an old lady all morning. My hips-ouchhh. I guess this is what I get for racing way faster than my training runs…oops.

To further my old lady tendencies, I drank my breakfast through a straw….in the form of a chocolate green protein smoothie. And now the exciting news-what I spent my morning doing! GUESS WHAT? I’m now going to write a fitness blog for my hometown’s local online newspaper! I am so incredibly excited for this opportunity! I’ll share the links with you guys, and of course any fun workouts 🙂

However, I had so much trouble with the site today. I created the blog-it’s called Fitness 101. But man oh man did it make me miss WordPress. The site was not cooperating with me AT ALL. So I have my post sitting here on my computer, with no way to actually post it….

But still, I am extremely excited for this. I saw the ad for the position, and didn’t really think I’d actually get this opportunity. But hey, sometimes you just have to take a chance, right? I can’t wait to actually get some posts up! I’m thinking my next one will be First Half Training 101.

After some frustration, I broke for lunch. English muffin pizzas- pizza sauce (which for some crazy reason we had), spinach, and mozzarella on a whole wheat English muffin. As you can probably tell, all we had was string cheese.

Plus some celery and orange fleshed melon on the side. No, that is not cantaloupe; it’s better! I’m not exactly sure what kind of melon it was, but I think it was a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew. SO delicious-it was sweeter than plain old cantaloupe!

After lunch I started ~~plotting~~ planning. My next race is the Nike Women’s Marathon (the half) in October. My goal is to break 2:10. This race is known for being hilly, so I looked up as many reviews of the race as possible. Apparently it’s really poorly run, and the race etiquette is awful. A ton of people walk it, and don’t really move for runners. Even worse, a ton of people commented saying that walkers starting in the wrong race corals, like 9:00 pace. Given all that, it may be a frustrating race for me to try and PR, just because of all the traffic. I’m still going to train for it though!

I’m planning on doing training a little differently. After my race, I know I can run faster than I trained for. Now, to break 2:10, I think my goal is to be to maintain a 9:30 pace on my Garmin-for almost the entire run my Garmin read below 10:00 but I stopped a few seconds to stretch here or there, and walked through water and to take my goo. Plus, hills will definitely slow me down. If I stay below or at 9:30 (which now I really think I can do), I should break 2:10, taking into account the above factors.

Since I now have a half under my belt, I’m going to do training a little differently. I’m going to do speed runs, instead of just trying to get the mileage in. What does that mean? I’m going to mix in some intervals, some repeats, and some tempo runs. All my training will target a 9:30 pace.

But then I started thinking towards the future and getting even more race happy. I decided to make a Race page on the blog-check it out! It has all the races I’ve run, including PRs. Although I’ve only run each distance once, so everything is a PR….

So looking even farther into the future-after Nike, I think I’m going to take a break from halfs. I think maybe a late spring/early summer would be a good time for another one. The Giant Race was an awesome race, and might be a good one to try and PR on a half, but Im seriously considering doing the 10k….and racing to win. First place in my age group (for next year) was 47 minutes. If I ran an 8 minute pace, I’d place. And I think with training that’s definitely doable.

As for the slightly more near term: post-Nike I’m going to train to PR a 5k at the Santa Run. I’ve been dying to do a Turkey Trot, but I’m planning on doing the 10k for that (and probably not trying a PR). I actually looked up my Santa Run time from last year….and it’s a minute faster than I thought it was. I had an 8:01 pace, which means to PR I’d have to break 8 minutes. I do think that’s doable but it’ll take some work.

Here’s to some new PRs this fall!

How do you train for races? What’s your favorite distance? Do you like nerding out about running too? (I’m looking at you Beth.)