MIMM-Hills, Sweets, and Pigeons

Date: August 12, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey guys! Happy Monday! Today is going to be a big studying day-I have my health Psych final on Wednesday and I have a ton of reading to do! Since I have so much fun to share with you all, let’s make it a MARVELOUS Monday!

Thank you Katie, as always 🙂

As promised, Saturday night held delicious cake. My sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner to celebrate his birthday. They came straight from their run-they got lost and ended up running 17.5 miles. Craziness! We went to our favorite local fancy restaurant. I even wore a dress-who am I?

The happy couple, and the delicious food. For my main course, I ordered salmon on a bed of couscous. It was superb.

For the birthday cake, we made German Chocolate cake. It’s delicious, but so, so rich.

More marvelousness-my first attempt at coconut yogurt.

I’m thinking this collage would look better if I waited enough to take a picture before digging in…

I mixed together unsweetened coconut, chia seeds, and vanilla kefir, plus a drizzle of maple syrup. Since I didn’t have any vanilla yogurt, just kefir, I added the chia seeds for thickness. Overall, this was pretty good. I think it’ll work better with regular yogurt though.

Sunday marvelousness?

We family and I drove up to San Francisco to scout out the route for the Nike Women’s marathon. On the way up, we stopped for sandwiches.

The first half of the course is almost identical to the first half of the Giant’s Race, but instead of starting at the ballpark, it starts at Union square and heads downhill. The difference comes around mile 6 when, instead of turning back like in the Giant’s Race, we climb. A freaking. Huge. Hill. The worst hill is Mile 6, with the peak at Mile 7. Imagine the hills of SF, and how high they are. Now start from sea level and climb to that height in a mile until you’re at the top of everything. That’s a brutal hill. To be fair, it is a really great view. But somehow I don’t think I’m going to be thinking about that at the time…

After the peak, there’s a significant downhill. As in, you have to slow down to go down unless you want to go head over heels. I personally thought that was by far the worst hill, but according to the elevation chart the next one was equally significant.

The verdict? I have a lot of hill training in my future. And this is really not a good race to try and PR. Apart from the hills, apparently the first few miles are super crowded with walkers, so I can’t really get ahead on my pace. But I’ll train for a 9:30 pace in my tempo runs and see what happens.

More good news-we’re going to stay at a hotel the night before the race. It’s literally at the finish line, so my parents can drive me to the start and then wait at the finish line. AND, we got the last 2 rooms (for my sis and her bf too). Score! Transportation was going to be a big issue!

Marvelous-amazing ice cream. Since we were in the city, we stopped at Smitten, a place that makes nitrogen ice cream from scratch in front of you.

There was a pretty sizable line when we got there-and it wasn’t exactly in a building. The store was kind of out of an old shipping crate. Very hipster, if you ask me. But let’s just say there was a reason for the line.

I spent the entire time in line debating about whether I should get salted caramel ice cream with TCHO chocolate sauce, or TCHO chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce. My dad solved that problem by ordering an extra chocolate in a cone for the family to share (pictured above).

OMG.

That was BY FAR the best ice cream I’ve ever had, ever. Without a doubt. I was IN LOVE with the chocolate ice cream-I would order that instead of the caramel next time. It was the smoothest ice cream I’ve ver had-apparently flash freezing with the liquid nitrogen prevents any ice crystals. It also had a hint of salty flavor. I could eat that every day. And, the cone tasted like a crunchy, light sugar cookie. If you’re ever in SF, you need to try this place! Order the chocolate 🙂 Plus, TCHO is the SF chocolate.

The salted caramel was excellent as well. Just not quite as good as the chocolate. But just look at that!

Yummmm.

We sat on a bench inside (ish) the store to eat. The pigeons were awfully…’friendly.’ They would just walk over you feet to get to crumbs. So glad I wasn’t wearing flip flops-one decided to take a bite out of my shoe!

Marvelous is…grilled peach and chicken salad.

Marvelous is….cats. I petsat for one of my neighbor’s two cats for almost two weeks last summer. One time, when they were supposed to be taken care of by someone else who didn’t do it, they came and waited at my house. Well, yesterday, an entire year later, they came and waited at my house again. I’m not sure who was supposed to be feeding them, but they remembered me from a year ago! Crazy!

Marvelous is…rowing workouts. I’ve been trying to work them in again. I did a really short one before spin yesterday, and I did 12×2:30 today at differing speeds. It feels good to get back on the erg again! Maybe this is why I had a rowing dream last night. But last night I also dreamed about softball and Crossfit-those three things pretty much sum up the last year of my life, from beginning to end. Wow.

Marvelous is…a new challenge! I’m taking a 7 day no sweets challenge! I kind of love doing these. I was thinking about doing one earlier, but….I didn’t really want to. I guess when I don’t have a problem overeating sweets I have no desire to do a reset, but lately, it’s been feeling like it’s time, and I’m ready. I’ve started eating desserts out of habit, not because I want to. This will give me a good opportunity to really rethink what I’m putting in my mouth. And as you can see, I wanted to wait until after that ice cream!

Ok, that’s that for what’s marvelous! Have a great day!

Have you ever had nitrogen ice cream? Any sports you miss? Bird fears? Has anyone run the Nike Women’s Marathon in SF? I would love advice!

Overnight Oats

Date: August 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s the weekend! This morning I did a killer workout at Crossfit-my arms were JELLO. It was a partner workout:

800m run

300 double unders (or 400 regular jump ropes)

200 hand release push ups

100 pull ups

Between you and your partner, you have to do that. Even with banded pull ups and knee push ups this was killer! I stayed an hour after class to steam clean the mats. Confession: my hands were getting blistered from this. #wimpyhands

Let’s back up a bit though, shall we?

Thursday night I played in an All-Star game for my slow pitch softball league. I was a little nervous going in-I hadn’t played in over 2 weeks because of my calf injury (which thankfully feels fine-I’m going to give it another week probably before I really start training again). Well, it turns out I had nothing to worry about! I played first base, which as it turns out, I like way better than outfield. In slow pitch everyone kills the ball, so outfield usually means chasing down home runs. I hit well too-and landed the title of female MVP!

I’m ready for playoffs next week!

We went out to dinner afterwards to celebrate. Since we were in Palo Alto already (my games are at Stanford), of course I chose to go to Lyfe Kitchen, which is basically my favorite place ever.

We started with guacamole and house made tortilla chips, plus garlic roasted artichokes.

The food came sooo quickly! For my main course, I wanted something with veggies (I had eaten a lot of carbs earlier in the day), so I ordered the quinoa crunch wrap, which comes with a side of hot sauce.

It was delicious and fresh-and of course totally up my alley since it was loaded with avocado.

For a little after-dinner treat, we went to a local pastry shop and found this:Have you guys heard of the Cronut? It’s a cross between a croissant and a donut. My spin teacher was talking about them last week-apparently there’s a donut place in New York that sells them, and they’re super popular! What are the odds that less than a week alter, I’d find them right here in Palo Alto?

I didn’t get one-they were out. To be honest, I’m not sure I like the idea of a Cronut…But I’d probably try it once. We ended up with some other assorted pastries to share.

My favorite was the twist-it had sweet potato filling!

Friday morning at spin class I got to tell my teacher about my findings-and of course enjoy a great workout. After spin, I took an awesome nap (5:45am spin…) and awoke with the biggest craving for overnight oats. This was really strange. Why? I’ve only made them once. And I didn’t really like them. But my mom bought me a few flavors of Chobani to try (pomegranate and banana), and I haven’t really been feeling my yogurt bowls lately. So, I whipped up a batch according to Julie’s recipe. I used the pomegranate yogurt for these. I then popped it in the fridge, and let it sit for…all of 10 minutes. Good enough for me! It still thickened up quite a bit! Topped with fruit and sunflower seed butter, and I was good to go.

The rest of the batch was enjoyed as a snack before Crossfit, topped with cacao coconut butter.

Not quite as photogenic, but still delicious.

Crossfit included wall balls which really stunk. On the plus side, nothing required chalk in the workout, so that made my job cleaning up a lot easier.

Also, the owner of my box gave me this Crossfit shirt-apparently when you finish the intro program you get it, but I never did that.

And finally, that brings us to today. For lunch, I tried my hand at avocado egg salad. The result resembled a cross between egg salad and guacamole. I have absolutely no problems with that. I mashed up avocado, hard boiled eggs, yellow mustard, garlic powder, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper. I served it on a slice of whole wheat toast, alongside yellow watermelon (!) and carrots with hummus.

What a colorful lunch! I have never in my memory had yellow watermelon, and I really like it! It tastes similar to watermelon, but has a slightly different flavor. I found it at Whole Foods and just had to try it.

After lunch, I decided to whip up more overnight oats with the banana Chobani for when the craving struck later on. I split the batch in half, and added cocoa powder to one half. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching baseball and helping my mom bake a cake for my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday. And by helping, I mean licking the spoons. I’ll post a picture of the cake tomorrow!

Have a great night everyone! I’ll leave you with this-apples from my neighbor’s yard. I swear, his soil can grow anything! In our hard, we’ve had zero success. Do you grow any fruits or vegetables? What is your favorite type of cake? Thoughts on overnight oats?

Never Have I Ever….

Date: August 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

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!