I’m Getting Sleepyyy

Date: July 9, 2014

Author: astottler

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?

I can cook!

Date: July 6, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So today I came to the conclusion that I can actually cook. Now that I’ve entered into the meat-cooking world, I think it’s fair to say that! Exhibit A is tonight’s dinner-Greek salad!

From the few times I’ve cooked chicken, I’ve learned that the key is to season the #$%# out of it. I have a few spices, and I basically go after it with all I’ve got. Seems to work!

Also on the food front, I have something to share with you guys. I’ve made the coconut flour quesadilla from Blogilates a few times now. Recently, I started making just a plain quesadilla, with the coconut flour tortilla base, and then cheese in the middle. It whips up in minutes, and all the ingredients are staples. In the past couple of days, (especially as my fridge grew sparse) whenever I was hungry I’d whip up one of these guys.

I turned it into a pancake version this afternoon by adding mashed banana and some white chocolate chips.

Those came out as kind of a fail (I burned them a bit) but it is versatile.

Now, onto the run. I had planned to do 6 but ended up deciding on 5. I’m really hoping it’s the heat and humidity getting to me, and I’m not just super out of shape, but every time I run it’s so HARD. Which is concerning given I was running fast(ish) 6 milers at the end of school.

At least the scenery was nice. I headed out along the waterfront. I had originally planned to go North to the Georgetown area, but it was easier to go south.

I ended up turning around at the Arlington Cemetery-not that I was trying to go there in the first place! My parents lived in DC and would talk about how they would always accidentally wind up there, so I guess it runs in the family!

With a mile left, I decided to run to Georgetown Cupcakes, a super popular place I had yet to try, instead of heading back. Sadly, when I got there the line was insane (to be expected).

Georgetown^

Instead, I stopped at the Pinkberry across the street. SO good.

Another thing I learned today? I’m not in California anymore. I sunburned the heck out of my shoulders today.

This picture doesn’t come close to doing it justice, but you can see my nice burn lines from Friday as well.

Other than that, it was a very low key day. Nothing crazy!

What did you do this weekend? Can you cook?

Patriotic City, Patriotic Day, Patriotic Banana Bread

Date: July 6, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How was everyone’s fourth of July?

I had a great one-I’m pretty much in the perfect place for it!

I kicked off the festivities Thursday night. I had planned to do a run club workout that evening but with heavy rain coming, I wimped out and stayed in my bed watching Netflix until the evening when I Metro-ed over to a friends apartment for movie watching and banana bread making. I’ve been hinting at red, white, and blue banana bread, so here it is!

I don’t have a specific amount of the ingredients, but I made my banana bread recipe without any sweetener and added about a handful each of blueberries, raspberries, and white chocolate chips. The only white chocolate chips I could find were mini, and they kind of dissolved in the baking process, but it was still SO delicious!

Friday morning I had intentions of going for a run, but I slept in because my sleep schedule is really off right now-it was much needed!

I met up with my friends to watch the DC 4th of July parade!

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a parade before! It was fun, and I took a ton of pictures, but I condensed them into a little collage so I don’t bombard you guys!

After the parade, we wandered around looking for a lunch place that was actually open. We ended up at a cafeteria where I had a chicken gyro sandwich.

Then, we walked a ways to get gelato. It was perfectly refreshing on a hot day! I had vanilla chocolate chip and dark chocolate.

After some downtime and some weirdly shaped sunburns (I always miss a spot! Or two…), we met back up at the National Mall for the concerts and the fireworks show.

Except we never found the concert. We weren’t particularly close, and a random weird band was playing on a stage between us and the big main concert. It was ok though-I was mostly there for fireworks!

I swear it was like a movie watching the fireworks with the Washington Monument in the foreground. You know-the end of one of those rom-coms? Just me? Ok…They were really good, and I definitely haven’t watched fireworks with that many people before! The amount of screens you could see from people taking pictures was crazy!

I don’t understand how people for such good pictures…mine sort of just looked like the Washington Monument was exploding…

After the fireworks, I experienced the madness that is the Metro on the 4th of July. The first station I tried to go to was so full they were sending people away. The next one was also insane but after waiting in hoards of people to get through the gates, I was lucky enough to be one of the few people to get on the first train that I needed. It was PACKED. And people just kept trying to get on, even as we got further from the National Mall! Even the station I got off at was being held up due to crowds. Crazy!

After a couple of rest days, I hit the gym hard yesterday. Since I missed a training run, I started with a treadmill interval workout. 1 mile at a fast pace, then 5x of two minutes at a past pace and two minutes walking. I haven’t done this in FOREVER, and traditionally I do it 10x, but I didn’t have time for that, or the endurance! It did go better than I was expecting though!

Then, I did a short circuit (like 8 minutes) of push ups, squat jumps, mountain climbers, and sit ups, before heading to a spin class.

The class was AWESOME. The instructor was good and the music was great. I really pushed myself at the end, and the only thing that kept me pushing was seeing the big guy at the froth desk totally rocking out to our music. So great.

Since this post is getting crazy long, I’ll finish up quickly. I got a Whole Foods green smoothie, which was kind of watery but that was fantastic because it was so refreshing!

That afternoon, I met a friend and went to the zoo. It was fun, and the pandas were so adorable! I was EXHAUSTED by the end though, and my feet were far from happy.

I went back, grabbed a guacamole salad at SweetGreens (with blueberry basil lemonade-not a fan though) and planted myself on the couch with a movie.

Such a fun couple of days, but I’m ready for a low key day today! The only thing I have to do is a 6 miler!

How was your 4th?