Monthly Archives: July 2014

WIRED

Date: July 11, 2014

Author: astottler

I hope everyone is doing well! My Friday night plans fell through, so I’m hanging out here blogging, after a super long google+ chat with my family.

This morning, after being stupid and staying up way too late finishing my book, I was up bright and early for half marathon training. 4 miles today! Since I’ve done a variety of pace/speed based runs this week, today was just comfortable pace. It was actually pretty cool out at 6am!

Now I totally get why Anne runs with her camera-there’s just so much to capture here!

Post run, I had the best breakfast ever. It’s been a year since I’ve had a combo like this. I added blueberry lemon banana bread to vanilla yogurt, and topped that with blueberries and sunflower seed butter. Seriously, so good.

Stonyfield has some of my favorite vanilla Greek yogurt because the sugar content isn’t bad. Only 12g including lactose sugars! That’s way better than most!

At work, I got coffee.

Pleas note the size of that cup. It is not big. 12oz. It is not full. But it apparently was WAY too much caffeine for me. I’m pretty sensitive, and it was bad. I felt awful the whole day. And, I have a family history of heart problems with too much caffeine (granted it was from way more than this) so it freaks me out if I get at all over caffeinated. I’m not sure if the coffee here is just extra strong, but it’s gotten to me a lot more than usual. My cappuccinos at school are even on the small side for cappuccinos I guess! The weird thing is it is sort of unpredictable when it’s going to hit me too much. I had a little less than this on Monday and was seriously dragging all day (maybe they slipped me decaf?). Anyways, it was enough for me to vow off coffee all together for at least a week. It will be just tea for a while! Ugh. Not good.

Since I got caught in the storm and didn’t cook last night, I bought lunch. I tried something slightly new-a humus sandwich! It’s just hummus and veggies on a whole wheat pita. It was good! The cafe also has other interesting varieties of hummus that I should try at some point.

Also, because I’m doing the whole full disclosure thing-I had a piece of my weakness, marble bread.

After work, I headed to Crossfit. We worked on headstands (!) (yeah, I’m not good at them) and bench presses before going outside for a running related WOD. Which is probably not the best thing for me right now, to be honest, because this week has been very running heavy. My calves were really tight. I’m doing a fair amount of running this weekend as well, so it’s something I need to watch. I’m also going to have to figure out a schedule that isn’t going to torch my calves running every day. That would be a great way to get injured, especially as the long runs get longer. I’m doing OutRun again tomorrow, and it probably will be one of my last because the mileage is adding up quickly!

After Crossfit, I snacked on some chocolate yogurt while making dinner. Definitely not as decadent as it sounds, but still good! And perfect for after a tough workout.

I roasted brussels sprouts while I chatted with my family, and had a black bean burger to go with them.

I also threw together something I’ve seen going around the blog world-2 ingredient oatmeal cookies. First of all, calling them cookies is quite the exaggeration. They are just banana and oats. I added cinnamon, vanilla, and raisins for cinnamon raisin. These will be perfect pre-run/workout for me though!

And now I’m off to finally catch up on blogs!

Drenched

Date: July 10, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Friday! Anyone have big plans for the weekend? I’m not really sure what I want to do. I might try to check out one of the Smithsonians!

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been trying to keep my posts more as daily recaps of food+exercise. It doesn’t get too long and I’m forcing myself to include some things that might have been better left out. Since I’m cooking for myself finally, I can have way more control over what I eat, which is fantastic! I think it will be interesting to see how this evolves over the summer. Plus-ideas, right?

My morning did not start off with a workout. Yayy sleeping!

I got ready and went to Starbucks for breakfast because I was lacking in the quick and easy breakfast food department. Plus I was still a bit woozy from the Benadryl (although everything I took it for seems to be getting better!), so I wanted a little caffeine. I went with a latte because they seem to be really week, plus a spinach and feta wrap.

Lunch was a repeat of yesterday-leftovers! No picture because I was in a meeting. Then a little dessert…

From the vending machine-which I became more familiar with because it gives me quarters for laundry! Not the worst things for you, but definitely not the healthiest.

Later in the afternoon, I also had a piece of banana bread.

After work, I headed to the gym for run club, with the full knowledge that a storm might come in. Hah.

Let’s just say I don’t think I’ve ever been that wet before in my life. If I jumped in a pool, I wouldn’t be that wet. It started to rain about 5-10 minutes in, and it came down hard. We decided to push through it because we got pretty wet, pretty quickly. This is the first time I’ve been caught out in a DC storm. I felt like someone was pouring buckets of water on my head. We don’t get rain like that in CA!

Then the lightning started. It was closer than I would have liked (but not dangerously close by any means!), but at that point, we didn’t really have anywhere to take cover from it so we forged on.

The theme of the run was a hill run. We were going to do hill sprints but it was so wet out we just ran up it. Definitely nothing like the SF hills I’m used to though! Not that I didn’t slog up it, but everyone talked beforehand about how big it was…that’s a SF foothill…

I’m pretty sure I was dying during the run because the pace was so fast, but I didn’t really notice because I was pretty busy trying not to drown. It’s a legitimate concern. How to you keep the water out of your mouth?

When we got back, it was comical how wet we were. And somehow I forgot my umbrella..I was going to go straight to the grocery, but I decided to ride the storm out in SweetGreens over dinner of a guacamole salad.

When the rain let up, I ran into Whole Foods (on the way back) for some quick groceries and a muffin.

Muffins/quickbreads are officially my favorite desserts. I’m calling it-muffins will be the next gourmet dessert trend! At least I hope they are…Whole Foods has such good muffins too.

Meanwhile, I’ve been dreaming up new variations of my banana bread. Chocolate raspberry may be next!

Do you like running in the rain? How do you not drown?

That’s a legitimate question!

I’m Getting Sleepyyy

Date: July 9, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hope everyone had a great day! Today’s post will be short and will just cover the basics…I am going to get very sleepy in a hurry. I just took Benadryl…my skin had been horrible this past week, and normally I don’t break out like that unless it’s an allergic reaction to nuts. I know I haven’t had any, and I had no idea why it would be, but my mom reminded me my allergy tests showed a minor coconut allergy-I never noticed a reaction before, but maybe since I’ve been eating all those quesadillas? I’ll probably make arepas one more time to get a recipe, but after that I’m going to lay off the coconut for a week and see if anything changes! I will try to make a normal flour version of the arepas as well! 🙂

My morning began at 5am…way too early. This is the first week that getting up was nearly impossible! I ran down to the 5:30am November Project. Given how much I was dragging out the door, I was amazed by how good I felt during the workout! I am proud to say that here in week 3, running the stairs definitely is getting easier!

I am out of non-speckled bananas, so breakfast was different today. I hate bananas that have any brown…I’m more of a green banana girl! Breakfast was a big slice of lemon-blueberry banana bread, and a mug of milk (because I don’t own glasses).

I left early enough to grab an extra big coffee-a grande cappuccino.

This was my lifeline today. Although I was on the edge of over-caffeinated early in the morning, I was still kicking into the afternoon. Tonight will be an early bedtime though!

Lunch was leftovers from last night‘s dinner.

And snack in the afternoon was more banana bread.

After work was Crossfit, where we worked on cleans and handstands, both in the strength portion and in the WOD. My handstands (against a wall) felt really good today!

Dinner came together quickly. I snacked on some banana bread and pretzels while I cooked the chicken and chopped up veggies for a Greek salad!

Favorite salad topping?

I’m a HUGE fan of goat cheese!

WIAW-The Battle of the Can

Date: July 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! Thanks for your feedback on length of posts-I’ll try to Goldilocks it and have it juuust right-not too long or short!

Thanks to Jenn for helping us celebrate this day!

My morning began with a hazy 5:30am wake up call. I’m pretty sure I was hungry when I woke up but too dazed to realize it. I’ve had the worst time falling asleep lately so I’ve been dragging a bit!

Somehow I made it out the door…but managed to drop my iPod on the cement twice. The on/off button jammed down and it turned itself off…indefinitely. Hopefully it can be fixed!

The first run of the week was a 3 miler. I’m going to run the same 3 mile route for a while to compare paces.

And you can’t beat this view! It never gets old.

My pace this week was 30s/mile faster than last week, which is much closer to where I need to be! My legs have still been feeling sort of off though!

Breakfast was a quick fruit bowl with a beautiful glob of sunflower seed butter.

…And then coffee at work.

I had a lunchtime meeting thing at work so I didn’t have time to buy anything there, and I got back too late last night to deal with cooking anything. So I grabbed what I could.

I swear, this was the crunchiest lunch ever! Everything was SO loud, in a very quiet room. Whoops!

After work, I headed to Crossfit. It hasn’t been anything too crazy the past couple of days. Today we worked on split jerks, which really needed work for me. For the past 3 years, I’ve had my left leg forward as my dominant leg. Today I learned I’m much better on my right leg now. Go figure…

The WOD was a 10 minute EMOM of 10 double unders (or 20 single unders if you are me) plus 2* russian kettle bell swings. Except every minute, the amount of swings increases by 2, so the last set had much less rest time!

As soon as I stepped outside, I could tell a storm was coming. It was INSANELY windy, and also dark! I wasn’t worried about getting rained on though because every time I’ve carried my umbrella, the rain has held off. And I had my umbrella. I literally got back 2 minutes before the storm started.

While it was all dark and gloomy outside, I whipped up a new to me recipe. Anne’s “Cheesy” Mushroom Quinoa. I added extra kale in place of boo choi (I could’t find it) and olive oil in place of coconut oil because I couldn’t rationalize buying an entire jar of it. I also had a nice little moment when I realized my beans were in a can and I lacked a can opener. I got it open, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend my methods! But I still have all my fingers so I guess it’s all good!

This was such a good dish for a gloomy evening, and i’m already looking forward to leftovers!

I also whipped up some more banana bread! This is the third time since I’ve been in DC! It was lemon-blueberry banana bread, but the recipe is not ready to share yet.

It tasted good still, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting the lemon flavor to come through. Any suggestions? I used the juice of a lemon, lemon rind, and 1.5 teaspoons of lemon extract. More lemon juice? Maybe lemon concentrate? Is that a thing?

And there’s my day!

What was the best thing you ate this week?

Yoga Again…Finally!

Date: July 7, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everybody had a fantastic Monday! Mine was good. It wasn’t insanely hot today here-only like 90 and humid. Tomorrow is supposed to be 98…

I’m debating whether or not I should become one of those bloggers who posts shorter posts more often-what do you guys think? Although not that I could really post at work anyways!

Breakfast this morning was simple. I haven’t been feeling the yogurt AT ALL since I got here, so I’ve just been rolling with the lighter breakfast of fruit bowls with sunflower seed butter mountains.

On the way to the Metro, I stopped at Starbucks for a latte. I hardly ever get lattes-typically only if the coffee place has lack luster milk foam (and really strong espresso). The one from Starbucks? Is there actually any coffee in there? So milky…And I didn’t even have time to finish it because it took longer than I was expecting. Ah well.

Lunch today was good (although not as amazing as dinner). I made an extra chicken breast, and sautéed some spinach with spices and nutritional yeast. The sad thing is that little mound of spinach started out as like half a bag…

After eating, I decided to go for a walk in the 90 degree heat to thaw and get out some restless energy. My office building is SO freaking cold! The heat was much welcomed.

Snack in the afternoon was an apple and some oatmeal raisin cookies from the vending machine (super healthy, I know). But a trip to the vending machine was necessary-at this point in my life I desperately need quarters. Yet again, when I did laundry Sunday night, I failed to have enough quarters to actually, you know, dry my clothes. The change machine was broken, and a sign said to try getting change from the vending machines in the building. Yeah…I lost about $3 trying to get it…So I have a TON of wet laundry hanging all over my room. It takes forever to dry in this hot climate! Anyways, at the work vending machine I stocked up on quarters so I can actually finish my laundry and dry my clothes. Wearing wet shorts for my workout was not the most pleasant feeling in the world…

After work, I headed to the gym for Crossfit+yoga. At Crossfit we worked on handstand push ups (or modifications!) and squats. Afterwards, I headed over to a yoga class. It’s been WAY too long since I’ve taken a yoga class, and the classes I took most recently were basically entirely stretching. Anyways, the moral of the story is I’ve become even more tight. Sitting at a desk all day has not been good to my body, and my back has been a little wonky lately thanks to it.

The yoga class was a Power Vinyasa, right up my alley. It was the FASTEST paced yoga class by far that I’ve ever been too! Whew! So many vinyasas, so fast. My arms are going to be sore tomorrow. It felt amazing though. I will definitely be returning, especially as I get deeper into half training!

Dinner was AMAZING. It could be because it was 9 o clock by the time I ate it, but luckily it came together quickly! Inspired by my latest food craze, I decided to modify the coconut flour quesadilla things and make coconut flour arepas! Seriously, SO good. I filled it with smoked gouda, and served it with another side of spinach cooked the same way as for lunch.

A recipe will be coming your way soon!

Now, it’s basically bedtime for me-half marathon training week 2 kicks off in the morning!

Have you ever had an arepa?