Post-Murph Pain

Date: May 27, 2014

Author: astottler

I’m not linking up for WIAW today because I have so few food pics!

But let’s start with last night. I knew I was in for it when I starting getting sore the day of Murph! I didn’t sleep very well thanks to lingering allergies (or something-more on that in a minute). But when I woke up…WOW did my shoulders hurt. I’m not sure if my shoulders have ever been that sore. Like, to the point of lack of function. I went to spin, and just jiggling up and now on the bike was excruciatingly painful! Thank goodness yoga was mostly stretching-I don’t think I was capable of a Vinyasa! Most of the time I don’t mind soreness, but sometimes I get grumpy sore. Like when I”m so sore it inhibits function and just makes me irritable. Yeah, that was today.

Post-workout breakfast was yogurt+berries+sunbutter.

My whole body was aching, plus my Achilles wasn’t great, so I took some Advil. Well, when the Advil wore off, I realized I was a little too achy, even post-Murph. And my forehead was hot, and I was feeling overall blah. So….yeah, I’m sick. I have a fairly low grade fever that I’m warding off with Advil, and lungs/nose that are going crazy from a combination of allergies and maybe sickness. I’ve had a low key day, so I’m hoping it passes in a hurry! Since I barely slept last night, I’m going to take Benedryll tonight to help me sleep and ward off any lingering allergies! Meh-this is what I get for going home for the weekend with my sick mother- my first sickness in over a year!

I only have a few other food photos. A slice of my bread (a lot of you were super close!) and all of my carrots.

Excuse the selfie-it was my selfie of the day and I didn’t get a pic alone of the food…but me being the biggest weirdo. I wanted sunbutter+jam (berry compote) but I had NOTHING to put it on-no crackers, bread, tortillas, nothing. But what I DID have was some free samples from some race or another…of seaweed! So yes, I put sun butter and jelly on seaweed. And yes it was a little weird, but not bad!

I also got chocolate milk for post workouts today. One thing I remember a Nutrition professor saying is that while protein+carbs are super important post workout, protein is even more important when your muscles are building, AKA when you are super sore and in pain, but most people don’t think to consume the protein then. Well, if you’re in enough pain, you do! So chocolate milk was consumed mid-afternoon.

And my last random picture: microwave brown rice and quinoa, and microwave Indian lentil dish (which tasted more Mexican than anything thanks to beans!).

Ok, since I’m taking Benedryll, I need to get to bed early! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Memorial Day Weekend

Date: May 26, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First, a huge thanks to all those serving or who have served.

(Source)

I also want to spend a moment honoring those killed in the Santa Barbara shooting. This truly is a horrific thing, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for the students there. They are all in my thoughts!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! I had a pretty busy one-not a million pictures but packed with fun, friends, and family! As we speak, I’m fighting heavy eyelids, and it’s still early!

Friday night was a retreat for my sorority. The girl’s house we stayed at had a wood burning oven, which was awesome!

And a cat-even more awesome!

Here are some other Friday food pics: cappuccino, berries+banana+sunbutter, and dining hall lunch.

Saturday morning, I drove the early car back to campus and went to 10am Crossfit. The workout included lots of ring dips, ring rows, and burpees, plus a long farmer’s carry at the end! (Farmer’s carry is holding a heavy weight-I had 2 20kilo kettle bells!)

Saturday was spent doing housekeeping related things-I FINALLY got a car wash, cleaned, and did some laundry.

I then proceeded to stay up much too late prior to an early morning run. I went home to run with Crossfit people there-at one of my favorite places to run! It’s the trail I did all my long runs on last summer!

I did 6 pretty fast (for me) miles. Running with a group definitely makes me run faster than I would have otherwise! Our overall pace isn’t indicative of how we ran most of it, since the first mile was pretty slow. When I split off with a few other people from the main group, we picked up the pace quite a bit and ran most of it around a 9:15 pace.

I was definitely sore from this! I then returned home to visit my parents and kitties-but not before being convinced to spend the night at home so I could do Murph at my home Crossfit today.

I refueled with a simple egg sandwich and some of my mom’s leftover birthday cake.

After catching up with my parents, I was off to the mall for business casual shopping with my high school friends! The only picture I have from that was a froyo break.

Dinner with my family was a favorite of ours-BBQ chicken salad. The salad consists of chicken breast with barbecue sauce, on top of a salad of lettuce, fresh corn, red pepper, onion, tomato, avocado, and olive oil and lime juice.

I also managed to get plenty of kitty time! Although my allergies definitely flared up. Worth it!

Monday morning, I did” Murph”! Murph is a Crossfit workout named after a fallen soldier, Mike Murphy, and is traditionally done at Crossfit boxes on Memorial Day. It’s one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, and consists of the following:

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

It’s one of the longest Crossfit workouts, and is recommended if you’re beastly to be done with a weighted vest (which I of course did not do).

I’ve done this workout once before. Like last time, I broke up the middle circuit into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups (banded), 10 push ups, and 15 squats. I was conservative on the run, but I’m definitely slower running than last time I did this (although my legs may have been a bit heavy from the previous day’s run). I was about 20 seconds off of last time on the first run, and significantly slower on the second. 300 squats makes the second mile feel like death! Although I didn’t beat my previous time (3 minutes off), I was the 3rd person to finish, and the first female! My time was 47:30. But here’s the super crazy part. The pull ups were so easy! I used the same band I always use for WODs, and it just never got difficult like I was expecting! So after I finished the workout and gulped down water, I figured, what the heck. I’ll try some unbounded pull ups. (If you’re keeping track, I’ve done one pull up once.) So, I just did it. And it wasn’t hard, at all. So I did another. And another. What…?!? It felt just like doing the banded pull ups! So I’ve clearly been slacking off! I think doing 100 pull ups with the band really honed in my kipping technique..or something. It was awesome though! I’m going to try to keep up this new found ability!

And here’s a group shot post-Murph.

Right before leaving this morning, I threw my experimental loaf in the oven. It was good, but still needs some work before it’s worth sharing. Any guess as to what it is? 🙂

After Crossfit, I refueled with some of that, plus some egg salad and roused carrots. No pic, so here’s breakfast pre-Murph: egg sandwich with Monterey Jack, on whole wheat.

And some of MY leftover birthday cake was consumed as well.

And now here I am! I may not have had the healthiest weekend in terms of sugar consumption, but it was definitely active-I got some great workouts in! And I loved the time spent with friends and family. Now, I just gotta push through these last few weeks until summer!

What did you do for the long weekend?

Positive Beliefs and the Results

Date: May 22, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

You know one thing about having a blog? You take a ton more pictures than normal people. Or than you would have otherwise. My friends were talking about how they want to do a selfie a day for a year. I agreed to do it with them-but I promise I won’t be obnoxious and post them!

I have a couple of things to talk about today.

1. Struggles to eat healthy that don’t normally appear on the blog

and

2. PR city!

I just want to address 1 briefly. I know I’ve mentioned over and over how I’m still working on my college eating habits. I feel like there’s ALWAYS temptation, through muffins at breakfast, cake at hall meetings, or mug cake in my dorm. One thing I distinctly remember in high school was when my sister visited home from college, she just ate a lot more sweet things than we ever did. Now this has become me! It is just a different eating environment, and I’m still working on avoiding those temptations.

Breakfast after Spin: egg and cream cheese on an English muffin, with a piece of cinnamon french toast and a dab of a sweet french toast casserole thing.

Blueberry muffins are definitely one of my weaknesses-this is definitely something I give in to!

This actually isn’t sweet or particularly unhealthy-but I wanted to show you guys because it was a test run of a recipe I’m going to be making up this weekend, so stay tuned!

Mug cake before Crossfitx2 because the first one was over baked. Pound cake mix and lots of egg, with chocolate chips. This was probably not the best thing before Crossfit because I felt really full and gross, but I had a major PR so maybe..?

These are just an example of some of the things that don’t make it onto the blog. That being said-apart from this I still ate my veggies and other things today! I just want to be transparent-I’m not gaining weight from all those roasted carrots!

And now, done with all that negativity-onto the second topic. First, let me warn you that I’m probably going to pull an insert from my college admission essay which is super embarrassing, but totally relevant so I’m going to roll with it!

“My hard work had taught me discipline, but in these new activities, I discovered the amazing things my mind could do. Yoga allowed me to explore my physical and mental edge, while instilling a sense of calm. In weightlifting, I learned to push through mental roadblocks, launching myself into uncharted territory. With my mind, I could push my body further than with sheer strength. With difficult lifts, I found that if the thought of failure crept into my mind, I would instantly fail. So I pushed failure from my mind.”

Now, let’s get past the fact that this was an admission essay and I was clearly trying to portray myself in the best way possible (but hey-I’m in college!) I really love the last two sentences though-I think they’re very powerful. Literally, I was talking about weight lifting. The second you think about failing a lift, you’re going to fail it. Today-I wasn’t that confident that I would PR (today was back squats)-and definitely not this much. But I went up to the bar with an attitude, with confidence. (For those that know softball/baseball, it’s the same thing with hitting-you need an attitude!) I never thought I was going to fail a lift-and I didn’t! I actually called it a day after my last squat was not pretty.

PRing today was just such a great feeling. Before my last lift, my coach actually came over and said “Shit, she’s about to out lift me!” (Not sure if I actually did though, haha.)

I ended up PRing by 25 pounds, for a backsquat of 205! I was DEFINITELY not expecting that! I feel crazy strong after that!

(Shiny new bars at Crossfit today-perfect for shiny new PRs!)

The moral of the whole quoting my college essay thing is that positive thinking really does work. I reread my college admissions essay for the first time a few weeks ago, and I’m struck about how passionate and driven I was-and it makes me realize how complacent I’ve become! Positivity and passion are definitely things for me to work on this summer!

On a more sad note, our little campus cat passed away this morning-he was hit by a car. Every time I saw him, it truly did make my day, and he was the sweetest, friendliest cat. That being said-cat owners, please be careful about letting your cats out if you live near busy streets!

One Day to the Next

Date: May 21, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Want to know something crazy? I slept for 9 hours last night, and it was FANTASTIC. I can’t even remember the last time I did that! I decided to try to run in the afternoon (spoiler alert-it didn’t happen), because at this point I really needed the extra sleep!

Breakfast this morning was leftover lemon poppyseed oatmeal with sunflower seed butter. It was definitely better yesterday-I think the poppyseed started to disintegrate a bit so it was a tad bitter! Also, one note I should have made yesterday: if you make lemon oatmeal, you should probably use non-dairy milk or water. It definitely curdled a bit-I was expecting this but I didn’t have anything else to use so I just lived with it.

Lunch after Bio was enjoyed in the sunlight. More frozen meatballs, half an avocado with lemon sea salt, and some roasted veggies.

Today was actually really hot, which I totally wasn’t expecting. I didn’t even think to check the weather! However, I was smart and brought a warm jacket to Bio because that lecture hall is always FREEZING!

After finishing eating, I was still a bit hungry and realized I didn’t have many carbs with the meal, and I was craving lemon. As a result, I picked up a bar at a local cafe.

And since I’m on this lemon kick, I have an idea of something to make! Hopefully this weekend I can make it happen-and hopefully it turns out! Any guesses? 😉

As a snack before Crossfit, I ended up having some carrots with avocado, and a banana with sun butter. Which was large enough to eliminate my run. On the plus side, all my Advil, ice, and elevation seems to have paid off-my Achilles was much better this morning, and nearly perfect by the afternoon! It’s so bizarre how it flares up-but it’s good that I can treat it fairly well. To be perfectly honest, 50% of the time that it gets bad, it’s totally my fault. If I’m really with with ice after runs and Advil, I can usually manage it much better than I do. One problem with running in the morning before class is I sometimes run out of time to ice.

Crossfit today was some work on cleans, and then am AMRAP of push ups, double unders (I did singles-didn’t want to push my Achilles too much!), and single arm dumb bell snatches. I must say, the single arm snatches brought me back to my high school weight lifting days-I used to do them all the time, although I landed in a split stance!

In terms of fitness, I’m kind of on the fence on…well, everything. I really miss the weight lifting workouts I used to do with my trainer in high school. And I’m pretty sure if I did some of them on my own (I wrote a lot of them down), and made some of my own lifting workouts with a specific schedule/program, I could get a lot stronger, faster. But I really do enjoy Crossfit-it’s something I do for fun! And I guess I don’t see an immediate need for getting super fit. So it’s something to think about I guess! And it’s not like I’m going to do 2-a-days with weight lifting just to fit them both in!

After Crossfit, I was hungry enough to decide to forgo the run, but full enough from my big snack earlier that I wanted something on the lighter side. I made a giant salad with lemon dressing, and had a few pieces of pesto on the side. Hit the spot!

Today, I got my housing assigned for next year! Junior year has the worst housing, but I got exactly what I wanted-a 2 room double on the quiet side of campus (and next to the shiny new gym), right next to the best dining hall on campus! Win!

WIAW-Nothing Crazy

Date: May 20, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! Here we are, in the middle of the week. Who’s ready to celebrate WIAW? Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting the weekly party!

Before I get into some eats, I want to talk about my nutrition and exercise as of late. I recently posted about some weight gain that I wasn’t happy with. As a result, I’ve been taking a closer look at my eating habits and I’ve been working on my nutrition. I read a few chapters from one of my favorite sports nutrition books-Nancy Clark’s Guide for Athletes-and formulated a plan that is reasonable and long term. I’m not looking for a quick fix because I have habits I developed in college that need to change. One thing I did decide to do was to build in a small amount of sweets each day. While I usually feel best when I completely eliminate sugar, I tend to also feel deprived. And this way, I’m not tempted by every sweet that comes my way because I know I’ll have a little something later.

Now let’s talk about today’s workouts! My Achilles was understandably inflamed after Bay to Breakers. It was feeling surprisingly good on Monday evening until I ran the bases during softball. Now, it’s flared up pretty badly. As in, I couldn’t really walk this morning. It’s always worse in the morning before I loosen it up, so I hobbled to the gym in hopes of loosening it up gently. I took a spin class, which helps because it’s not directly using the part that hurts, but it moves it enough to break through some of the stiffness. Then, I went to yoga because I think tightness throughout my legs is a big part of the problem. Just to clarify-neither of these activities were a major problem for it, and I was walking a bit better afterwards. In yoga, we sat with our feet up against the wall to begin class. Given my Achilles is inflamed, elevation definitely helps! After class, I was still in quite a bit of pain so I triple multi tasked by icing, elevating with my legs up the wall, and practicing my oral presentation (and I looked ridiculous).

It felt SO much better after that-though definitely still painful. I’m hoping I can reduce the inflammation through lots of ice and Advil in the next few days! I wanted to run this afternoon, but I decided that would be stupid. I went to Crossfit, which had no running, and nothing that would bother it.

The workout started out with 10 minutes of 3 reps of push press on the minute, with strict pull ups for the rest of the minute.

Then, we did 3 sets of 500m rows, with negative splits on each. I actually felt like the rows were getting easier-I felt stronger on the later sets! However, my legs were majorly jello. We followed this with abs, so I was pretty much just jello.

OKAY. Now, I promise we’ll get on to the food! One thing to note-I only have 3 weeks left of school, and I seem to have build up quite the supply of frozen meat (what? right??). So that will be featured quite a bit in lunches for a while!

Monday morning I had a strange but energizing breakfast of a much needed cappuccino (yayy 2:30am bedtimes!) and roasted carrots with an orange.

Lunch was courtesy of the freezer-frozen turkey/chicken meatballs from a Blogilates recipe, topped with Garlic and Herb Laughing Cow. Served alongside more roasted carrots. Notice all the roasted carrots? I finally decided to stop being lazy, and I made some in the dorm oven. The verdict? Definitely not the best I’ve made-they needed to be cooked longer!

Monday was spent frantically cramming for a midterm, so dinner was eaten with a side of Photosynthesis. I had a turkey burger with cheese (no bun), a salad, and originally rice, but I wasn’t a fan so I went back and got sweet potatoes. Also, there was a warm, buttered roll. It’s amazing how good warm bread with butter is!

Tuesday morning after my workout, I refueled with some oatmeal I had made in the microwave the previous day-Lemon Poppyseed Oatmeal! I loved the freshness of the lemon, although I did add some honey because the oatmeal was pretty sour-but this could be partly because my banana wasn’t super ripe! I topped it with sunflower seed butter, because everything is better with nut/seed butter of some kind, right?

I really want to try this recipe, but with key lime instead of lemon! (And omitting poppy seeds-maybe some graham crackers crumbs though?) This is so perfect for summer! (I actually ate this cold because I made it the day before.)

Lunch was more frozen meat-but clearly not in the frozen form! Plus more roasted carrots, and an avocado I picked up the other day.

Since my lunch was packed and I brought my avocado unopened, I wanted to salt my avocado, but I knew my salt shaker would spill salt everywhere if I brought it. Instead, I decided to try a new salt seasoning from Trader Joe’s, which has a grind dispenser. I really, really liked it! It tasted very summery as well-this summer may just be the year of the lemon for me!

Snacks through out the day included half a banana with sun butter, snap peas (such a good impulse buy the previous night), and a much, much needed cappuccino that tasted like milk of the gods. Let’s just say that I haven’t slept anywhere near enough lately and didn’t have time for one before my first class, so it was actually the best thing ever.

After Crossfit, dinner was at the dining hall.They had barbecue chicken today, which was a change, so I centered my meal around that. I put my chicken atop a salad with lemon vinaigrette-and I just realized that lemon really does seem to be the theme today! I also grabbed a mystery tamale which turned out to be chicken and cheese, and a few bites of polenta.

And for my daily dose of dessert?

Yummm.

That’s all I have for today. I’ve dead tired and my room currently looks like sorority exploded on it, as if it wasn’t messy enough already! It’s Big-Little week for my sorority so I’m breaking out the arts and crafts.

What’s one of your favorite summer flavors?