Fun on the Run!

Date: September 2, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey! I’m currently in Hawaii, but I have some seriously awesome guest posts planned for you guys! I’ll let Holly take it from here 🙂

Hey everyone! First off a big THANK YOU! to Aurora for letting me guest-post on her blog while she is off on vacation basking in the sunshine (not that I’m jealous or anything). My name is Holly, and I am a Canadian running & coffee obsessed chick from Vancouver Island. I am here with a fun little post with five reasons why it is FUN to be on the RUN.

No, I’m not talkin’ on the run from authorities, responsibilities, the dishes, etc. Sorry, those rules still remain. I’m talking about why it’s fun to lace up your shoes and hit the pavement (or the treadmill).

The almighty endorphin rush: It’s no lie that the runner’s high will keep you going back time and time again. Sure, it may hurt the first time, but once you realize how far you ran, how fast, etc, you will be addicted to that euphoric feeling!
Cute shoes: Yes, I run for the cute shoes as well as those endorphins. One of the best things about taking part in a sport is being able to wear the gear for it, and running shoes are definitely my favourite piece. Plus, I’m a sucker for pink!
The swag: One thing about entering a running race (especially longer distances like a half marathon or full marathon) is that you can get some pretty awesome race swag, whether it’s a medal (bling bling!) or a t-shirt. You may even get both! There’s nothing better than showing off your race shirt or your medal and listening to people’s shocked reactions. “You ran HOW far!? WHAT? Are you crazy in the brain!?” Why yes, yes I am. Crazy and looking like a rockstar with my medal.

4. Carb Loading: Nothing better than loadin’ up on spaghetti before a race. As a runner, you can use the excuse “I’m carb loading!” on the reg. While it is a bit easy to over indulge in not-so-healthy carbs (my weakness is CANDY!), loading up on the good stuff will be more beneficial for your body.

5. Recovery: On the same note as cute running shoes, one of my favourite post-half marathon rituals is throwing on my compression socks to help my muscles recover. Nothing like that squeezy feeling on your tired calves as you hang out at home (or walk around the mall with them hidden by jeans). You can find compression socks in so many colours, and I do honestly believe they help relieve pain and soreness after a hard race or training run!

What’s your number ONE reason why you love to run? Thanks for reading folks!

Xoxo Holly

Aloha!

Date: September 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Aloha from Maui! I wanted to pop in really quickly today-I have a few minutes before my 6 mile training run!

Yesterday was a looong day thanks to a 4:30am wakeup and a 3 hour time change. Our flight left at 7am, so we were at the airport at 6.

Starbucks for breakfast-I actually didn’t want any caffeine since I wanted to sleep on the 5 hour flight as much as possible. A chocolate smoothie did the trick-plus it is one of the less sweet options at Starbucks.

As expected the flight felt long. And the plane was FREEZING-and I was wearing pants and a sweatshirt. Sleeping didn’t happen much, but what are you gonna do? And get this-you had to PAY to even watch a movie. Whattttt. So I did not do that!

Upon landing, our first stop was a local swap meet (crafts plus farmer’s market). We had a couple of hours before my sister’s boyfriend’s flight landed so this was perfect. I loved looking at all the exotic fruits. And look at the size of those avocados!

I’ve never seen non-CA avocados! I can’t wait to try them! Another highlight was freshly pressed green juice. Soooo good.

The perfect start to a tropical vacation!

Once we picked up my sister’s boyfriend, we headed out for some traditional Hawaiian food for lunch-one of my dad’s all time favorite things.

My mom and I split a giant papaya seed salad and teriyaki chicken.

We then visited our hotel and shopped around at a very touristy but awesome Hawaiian store-Hilo Hattie. Fact: my dad owns 10000 Hawaiian shirts.

Want to know what’s sad? When my family has come to Hawaii in the past, it’s usually in the winter or spring. It’s HOT in the summer. And….my weather at home is nicer. Like a lot nicer. Not hot or humid-it’s been in the 90s here and humid, and THIS California girl is drowning in her own sweat. #spoiledCAgirlproblems

This evening, we attended a Luau. More pictures on that for another post! My Internet is slow so uploading takes a little while, and I only have about 3 minutes until I have to run. It was tons of fun-and I was SO ready for bed at 9pm. What’s weird is that my ankle swelled up kind of a lot yesterday-and I don’t usually swell much. It’s the one I sprained a couple of months ago that is still kind of stiff. I guess a lot of being on my feet plus flying contributed to that…weird.

Hope you all are having a fabulous long weekend!

Who’s Excited??

Date: August 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of regular posts the last couple of days. I felt kind of off-sort of like I was stuck in a rut. That kind of bothers me since I haven’t really felt like that all summer, but I did feel that way some during school. I just didn’t feel like DOING anything. I skipped Crossfit last night, but I did get my butt in gear for a nice walk, which kind of threw me out of the funk. I’m pretty sure the funk may have been partly because I ate too many carbs…they mess with my brain!

Anyways, now that I’m done complaining, I’ll highlight some pictures from the last couple of days and get onto TODAY!

A pretty view of San Francisco from my walk the other today. Sad news-I finished my audiobook mid walk. This sure as heck beats mid-12 mile run, but meh. I feel a little nostalgic about that audiobook-it took me through my long runs of my first half marathon training!

This dinner was not really supposed to be this. The plan was to make a quesadilla with this recipe. However, my mom had to brief the guy taking care of our cats while we’re on vacation, and before I knew it it was 9pm and still no food. Instead of going through the effort of making the tortilla, I just microwaved the leftover meat we were planning on using with a can of diced tomatoes and pepper, plus taco seasoning. I also whipped up some guac. Add a bed of lettuce, and we were good to go! I may have gotten a little seasoning-happy. This was SPICY. (Well, keep in mind all the seasoning was mild…#wimp).

Thursday morning was the kitten nursery. I really do love working with them.

Followed by breakfast-it turned out to be much bigger than this but this is what I got on camera. Yesterday, I discovered I had 2 days to eat 6 mangoes. Challenge accepted. There’s one left.

I also took a “cat nap.” Haha…I’m going to miss that when I go back to school!

Aaaand here’s some more food. Nothing too crazy. I want to get to today’s workouts!

Ok, onto today! 5:45am spin was cancelled due to Labor Day weekend. Booo. But it did give me an opportunity to sleep in a little and make my own spin workout. I really want to be a spin teacher someday, and it’s been a while since I’ve made my own class. Plus, I want to do a post on my local fitness blog about HIIT training, but…I’ve never done it before. So that would be a little hypocritical. I’ve been reading about the benefits in the book I’m reading, and so many bloggers do HIIT training. I designed an hour long class, which included 18 minutes of HIIT training. I did 1:00 of intense, all out work, followed by 1:15 of moderate intensity. I did this sequence 8 times through.

OMG I was DYING. I have NEVER worked that hard on a Spin bike before. To get the true benefits of HIIT, you really need to go 100% max effort during the minute on. Whew. Ouch. And why did I put this at the beginning of my class? For the intervals on, I did a mix of high resistance fast speed, and pretty high resistance super fast speed. My legs hurt….

Anyways, in case you’re wondering, I thought I’d post the “class” so you can all go out and feel my pain. Sound good?

Here’s the playlist I made.

And here’s the sequence:

(Song #)

1-Warm Up

2- Hill: increase resistance every minute and hold 80 RPMs

3-hill: heavy, hold 1:30 and then repeaters

4-first 2:00 downhill then start Hiit

5-9 HIIT then downhill

10-flat road endurance-hold 100 RPMs at working pace

11- hill- 30 sec intervals in/out of saddle

12- hill: heavy repeaters

13- hill: jumps (8 sec on saddle, 8 out/4 in/out, 2 in/out)

14- downhill, high speed (over 100 RPM)

15- flat road intervals

16- flat road intervals

17-cool down

*Repeaters- 20 seconds in saddle, 20 seconds standing straight, 20 seconds standing over bike

I followed this with 10 minutes of abs.

And then cursed myself for being dumb and not running BEFORE my spin workout. It’s one thing to not run before a 5:45am class, but when I could spin ANY TIME, and it’s not even early, I should run first.

4 miles were on the schedule for today. I actually did a decent portion of it on trails-which I hate but need to practice. It was pretty hot. And I did not choose my clothing very well. A big, thick, cotton t-shirt, already drenched in sweat. I was literally drowning in my own shirt. Eh. Oh well.

I decided to mix it up a little today shoe-wise and wear my Brooks. They actually felt better than I remember! Maybe it was my new inserts?

The rest of my day will be spent getting ready for tomorrow- I’M GOING TO HAWAII! I leave super early (well, as a regular at 5:45am spin it won’t be too bad…), so I have to get everything ready to go tonight! I need to go to the library for fun books and to look for new audiobooks. I also have Crossfit tonight…legs rest up quickly! I refuled from my sweaty run with my post-workout recovery drink (aka homemade chocolate milk) which I made in my Vitamix so I wouldn’t have to heat the milk, and could add in an extra ice cube or two.

In Hawaii, I actually have quite a few workouts planned. Which is probably good-it’ll keep me sane. I have 4-5 days of running, including 2 long runs. I’ve contacted some of the Crossfits in Maui, and will drop in for a class or two while I’m away as well. How cool is that??

I might pop in once or twice with a post while I’m away since I’m brining my laptop, but don’t worry-I’ve got you covered with some AWESOME guest posters while I’m gone! Like, really great. While I read the posts I kept wanting to comment!

I hope you all have a GREAT holiday weekend! I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures while I’m gone!

What are you doing this weekend?

Fitness Hacks

Date: August 28, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’ve kind of been a rut all day. It could be the impending end of summer. Or it could be an overdose on carbs…Either way, I don’t have a ton for you guys today, but I DID finally get around to posting on my little local fitness blog. Confession-the guilt of not posting in a week or two was getting to me.

Either way, I did a post on “fitness hacks”- you know, ways to sneak in exercise, and quick exercise ideas for people with a busy lifestyle. If you want to see it in print, check it out here.

Otherwise, read on and see it right here on the ol’ blog. Have a great day everyone, and here’s to hoping tomorrow is a good one. Kittens first thing in the morning shouldn’t hurt that one bit 😉

Many people claim they have no time to exercise, but I don’t believe that. Anyway can squeeze in five minutes a day, enough to make significant changes for both physical health and stress. Here are some five minute workouts:

Pick five different exercises and do each for one minute. An example workout would be one minute each of squats, push ups, sit ups, jumping squats, and lunges.

Run around the block for five minutes. Simple, yet effective.

Check out a workout video on youtube- search “five minute abs” and you are sure to find something to get that heart rate up and those abs burning.

Turn on your favorite song and dance around for five minutes.

If you are still not convinced you can spare five minutes of your time, or if you would like to sneak in some extra fitness, there are plenty of ways to do that as well.

Do wall sits while brushing your teeth. To perform a wall sit, “sit” against the wall, as if in a chair, with your back flat against the wall. Your legs ideally would be parallel to the ground. Brushing teeth should take two minutes, twice a day. That’s four minutes of strength training right there! Work on building up your endurance-I’m sure your teeth will have never looked better!

While grocery shopping, park at the far end of the lot. Make yourself carry heavy grocery bags a little farther, or walk several extra laps around the lot.

Instead of reading a book, get the audiobook and take it on a walk around the neighborhood. This is a new favorite activity of mine!

While watching TV, do jumping jacks during the commercials.

Instead of walking around the house, do lunges around the house.

There are so many ways to sneak exercise into your daily routines!

For additional workouts, you can check out the Workouts page on my blog.

WIAW-A Taste for Coffee

Date: August 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Phew. I am pooped right now! I have to wake up in 6 hours, but I really couldn’t miss out on the What I Ate Wednesday party-hosted by Jenn! This seriously does make Wednesday so much more fun!

First, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your comments on yesterday’s post. It was really interesting to hear all your perspectives!

Today was a really relaxing day. Kind of. I’m trying to cure my social media addiction before school starts, as well as soak in the last bits of summer. Therefore, I’m trying to spend more time outside and ditch the technology a little more. Yesterday I felt like I was in a computer-induced fog all day. When I spend too much time with my technology, time passes in a blur and I don’t really experience anything!

Anyways, I started my morning by waking up before my alarm (yay!) and heading to the gym for my first ever tempo run! I was a little nervous. Which was actually really silly-the run was only 3 miles, the splits being 10, 8:30, 10. And I know I can run 3 8:00 miles…so not sure why I was worried. I then spent the rest of the time before yoga doing some of my all time favorite lifts-back lunges off a step and single leg RDLs.

I walked out of yoga feeling fantastic and totally at peace. It wasn’t quite lunch time, so I stopped into Peet’s for a cappuccino. Yes, I actually chose to drink coffee without desperately needing it! This is probably my favorite cappuccino-the milk foam was so smooth! It’s all about the milk foam with me 🙂

I wish they sold extra small coffees though. I can never finish it-I was a low caffeine tolerance, and a high caffeine awareness. I was sad I couldn’t finish this, but realized my heart would be racing if I had tried. Sad. You better believe I cherry picked all the milk foam though!

To say I developed a taste for coffee is an exaggeration. I’ve developed a taste for cappuccinos….Which could become an expensive habit….

After sipping my drink and reading in the sunshine, I stopped by Whole Foods for some protein bars for my trip (I have quite a few training runs while on vacation, and vacation food before a training run=bad idea) as well as lunch from the hot bar. I had some lackluster Chinese vegetables, a chicken potsticker, avocado and kale salad, and sweet potato polenta. I wish I had skipped the Chinese food though-the kale salad stole the show. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like the citrusy salad, but it was perfectly light and summery.

I couldn’t find ThinkThin Divine bars (which are chocolate and coconut), so I had the taste for chocolate and coconut. I happened upon these bars-they’re also gluten free!

They fit into my sugar standards for a granola bar (only 8 grams!) as well, so I was sold. These far exceeded my expectations-they tasted just like fresh coconut! The perfect sweet finish to my meal.

Confession: I wanted to sit outside of Whole Foods to eat, but I opted to sit inside because my pictures would look bad outside. #bloggerproblems

I then sat outside on a bench to read some more. This was my view. Isn’t this a cute little neighborhood?

Later in the day, I changed into shorts for a walk with my audiobook.

So here’s a question-did I purposefully match my outfit perfectly or are those the only colors I own?? I’ll let you guess the answer to that one.

I’ve been really enjoying these walks lately-I like my book!

Afterwards, it was time for a snack before a possible softball doubleheader.

I had a delicious farmer’s market nectarine, carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow, and one of these guys.

I’ve fallen in love with the peanut butter flavor in the past, but the cranberry orange was just as good. If you see these guys- BUY THEM.

My softball game went well-it’s the playoffs, so we play until we lose. We won both games tonight, and were pretty hungry afterwards. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom and I all went out for Bermese food in downtown Palo Alto.

You know you’re underdressed when the waiters pull out your chairs for you and place a cloth napkin on your lap…whoops.

The food was delicious though!

We were right next to a gelato place…Let’s just say it’s taking a little time to wrap my head around eliminating sugar for good. In good time my friends.

But for now-caramel chocolate and creme brulee FTW.

And since this is supposed to be What I ATE Wednesday, not what I DID, here are some more fun things from the past few days.

Ask and you shall receive-the recipe for banana chocolate chip custard is here.

I’ve been loving my snack plates lately-this one is an Asian pear from the farmer’s market, a fig, and carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow. This is my first time trying the flavor, and I must say-I’m a fan!

Dinner last night was a good one as well-Asian Lettuce Cups from the Cooking Light app, served with steamed snap peas and garlic and herb brown rice and quinoa.

And lastly-one of my favorite meals from the week. We bought green onion pancakes from the farmer’s market (seeing the theme here?), and served them with a fig and goat cheese salad (with leftover chicken).

As you may have noticed, I’ve been kind of obsessed with figs this summer.

And I’ll leave you with that. Have a great day!

Do you like Farmer’s Markets? Favorite find? Do you ever unplug for a day? Are you addicted to social media?