Spring Break 2018

Date: March 26, 2018

Author: astottler

Well, spring break is coming to a close. I figured I would share some fun and food from the past couple of days!

Thursday before spring break, my parents came to school to take Chloe to a behavior appointment (she has anxiety) so we went out for pizza afterwards. My mom and I shared a salad and a GF pizza with garlic and ricotta.

Here’s a meal from Friday: salad with balsamic, turkey, goat cheese, and butternut squash seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper.

Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day.

That morning, I did 18.4 and then drove home for break!

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with food. See’s has mint scotchmallows (mint marshmallow+ caramel) and they are amazing.

We had an Irish meal. I skipped the corned beef and focused on sides!

Cabbage, glazed carrots, potatoes with truffle salt, and a GF biscuit with dried cranberries (AKA a better version of Irish soda bread).

…silly.

I have to share some animal pictures.

Now food!

We tried a Chicken and Dill spring soup that was really good. Side of Brazilian cheese bites.

I also picked up a GF berry and peach pie from Whole Foods, since I missed pi day!

Breakfast basically every day has been GF bread with sunbutter and a mango.

On Monday, I decided this week should be like a “stay-cation,” so we had happy hour with Longboard Lager (my favorite Hawaiian beer). For dinner, we stayed with the theme and had a salad with grilled teriyaki chicken, papaya, parmesan, and poppyseed dressing. I also had a passion-guava juice drink mixed with sparking water.

A Sweetgreen, my favorite DC place, just opened up super close to here so one night after spin (it’s right across the street from the spin studio I like), we went to dinner. I had the winter squash salad, but I added chicken and chose goat cheese instead of bleu cheese, so my salad has roasted winter squash, apples, raisins, chicken, goat cheese, and a balsamic vinaigrette. YUM.

Wednesday, we had our big outing of the week. One of my best friends from back home works at a high quality chocolate company, so we went on a tour and visited her! The tour was great, and I learned a lot about both the chocolate making process, and tasting chocolate!

SO MUCH good chocolate!

Afterwards, we went to Gilman brewing, which turned out to be a really awesome brewery.

They had like 15 beers on tap, and they were much more aligned with the style I like. I love saisons, and they had 4 types of saison, including a nectarine saison and a dark saison! Everything was fantastic!

Thursday night, we celebrated my sister’s birthday…1 month late…with pineapple upside down cake. I made a little mini GF oat flour based one, and it was actually really delicious! Not quite good enough to share the recipe though. It was oat flour and applesauce based, and then I used vanilla pudding mix to flavor it.

For lunch on Friday, I made a wrap with garlic and herb laughing cow, turkey, lettuce, and avocado sprinkled with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. On the side, I had a sale with aged blackberry balsamic and goat cheese.

That evening was the final workout of the Crossfit Open, 18.5, for me! It was really fun to be able to do it at my home Crossfit.

18.5:

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:
3 thrusters
3 chest-to-bar pull-ups
6 thrusters
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
9 thrusters
9 chest-to-bar pull-ups
12 thrusters
12 chest-to-bar pull-ups
15 thrusters
15 chest-to-bar pull-ups
18 thrusters
18 chest-to-bar pull-ups

This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

Women use 65 lb.

So this in theory would be super cardio heavy, however, I had never been able to do a chest to bar pull up. I spent like 15 minutes before the workout trying everything to get a chest to bar, and nothing was working. I got advice from all the coaches but i couldn’t get it. Despite that, I got talked into Rxing the workout, and just planning on spending 6:45 attempting to do chest to bar. Well, I tried literally everything. Over 5 minutes in, I FINALLY GOT ONE! It wasn’t the prettiest. I knew I was getting high enough, but wasn’t able to touch my chest to the bar. My chest to bar ends dup being a reverse grip (like a chin up) and involved me pulling all the way up and pausing, confused, at the top, and then pulling into the bar. Once I had that technique figured out, I got another. And then another. And then I sprinted over and did 6 thrusters, and back for one more pull up. So I got a whopping 13, but I GOT CHEST TO BAR PULL UPS FINALLY! I think I could have redone this and gotten a lot more reps now that I figured that out!

This is how you celebrate. Apparently that’s what I thought last year, check out what came up on my time hop:

I hung around watching and judging the next heat, and then for a bit for the post-Open party. Then, I went home for Sweetgreen again, and got the same salad because it was so good.

I also made flour less brownies again.

I was up early on Saturday for a dog walk with friends, followed by a spin class. Check out this view!

Also:

I spent the rest of Saturday working on engineering a cat toy for a vet school contest. An engineer I am not, but it turned out really well!

Sunday morning, I did a 5k that I’ve done the past 4ish years. I am still coming back from my ankle injury and have hardly run in the past 6 months, but the good news is that my ankle felt really good! It’s a little sore today, but it was fine during the race! Thanks to the small race, I managed to snag first in my age group.

Sunday afternoon, I went to tea with my high school friends. It was so nice to see everyone! Also, their GF scones <3

And now it’s back to reality!

Crossfit Open 18.1 and 18.2

Date: March 6, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s been a little while, but I wanted to pop in today to talk about the Crossfit Open! We’re 2/5 workouts deep in the Open right now, so I thought I would recap them! Plus, I’m in the blissful 6 days between Neuro exams!

Also, obligatory Jackson photo:

18.1:

20 minute AMRAP

8 toes to bar

10 dumbbell clean to overhead (35# dumbbells)

12 calories on the rowing machine

I signed up for the Open this year because it’s always a lot of fun. That being said, I haven’t been taking it too, too seriously.

At my Crossfit here, I think there are around 80 people signed up for the Open! Saturday mornings are pretty busy!

This workout was a long one, and pacing was definitely important. I haven’t done a whole lot of toes to bar lately, so I was pretty happy to maintain sets of 4 throughout the workout. My biggest issue was grip strength. I had really great advice before hand to hook grip on the dumbbell, and that definitely helped a lot. Honestly, the cardio here didn’t kill me until the end, but my grip was going. That being said, it’s definitely possible I was a little too conservative on pace and should have pushed myself harder! I got 225.

18.2:

12 Minute Timecap

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

dumbbell front squats (35# dumbbells)

burpees over the bar

18.2a: 1 rep max clean

This one was a little bit different. You had 12 minutes to both complete the squats and burpees, and find a maximum weight clean. This may be an unpopular opinion, but this was actually a fun one. I actually didn’t feel great going into it, and it was really the last thing I wanted to do that morning. Last week was just rough, and my body was just over it. I woke up a little sick on Saturday (though thankfully the very low fever only lasted that day?), so I was just not feeling it. For the record, I did not have a fever when I went to class. That being said, if it wasn’t for the Open I would not have worked out that day.

Anyways, going into this workout, I was a little concerned about even making it to the bar for the clean, and I was banking on only having 1 attempt. It’s sort of hard to guess an opening attempt because you have to take into account how your legs will feel after all the burpees and squats. But I also wanted to get a high number, obviously. I ended up opening with 120#, something that I was pretty confident I could get, but a number I would have been happy with.

I thought I did a decent job pacing the burpees especially, since burpees are just not a fast movement for me. I finished the work in 9:45, giving me plenty of time for the cleans. I easily got 120, then 125. 125 I power cleaned easily, so I decided to just jump all the way to 135 for my final attempt. My 1 rep max is 148, but the closest I’ve gotten in 2.5 years has been 135, which was recent, and I’ve failed at 130# since then. With 15 seconds left on the clock, I went for 135 and just slung it up. It came up SO easily, and I actually ended up power cleaning. Go figure.

I’ve always known for my Olympic lifts, I can get in my head a lot and mess up technique. I guess I just need adrenaline and not giving myself the option to fail it! Overall, again, I really liked this one. It had a lot of different components.

I’m excited to see what’s next, but I have a feeling around this week will be the point they start introducing movements that I can’t do (like muscle ups and hand stand push ups…). But we’ll see!

In other fitness news, I’m starting to slowly run on my ankle again. It gets sore when I run on it, but I think this is the next step in the recovery process. I just need to slowly build up distance, and not run more than once a week, and definitely not back to back.

The biggest thing though is that my powerlifting competition is next week! Weee! Thankfully, things finally started coming together last week, and I’m hitting the numbers I was expecting to be hitting. My squats were coming along really slowly early on, I think partly due to poor nutrition. I wasn’t getting enough carbs in before my workouts, so I didn’t have enough in me for the strength. Plus, I was neglecting protein in general. Another change I made was adding my accessory strength back in once a week for squats. In the past, whenever I did my squat program, I would do single leg squats and pistols on the same day, just to round out my leg workout. I didn’t do that for the first part of my prep, partly because hitting my 3 lifts was already taking a while. A couple of weeks ago I added it back in, and now my lifts feel WAY stronger. Go figure.

In terms of life, vet school is going as well as can be expected!

We’re currently in the Neuro block, and from what I’ve heard, this is where it gets REAL. It is definitely a cool topic though! I also found out I got accepted into a program that will allow me to work in Nashville this summer, so to say I’m excited to get back to Tennessee would be an understatement!

I haven’t taken many food pictures, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been eating the same things for the past month. I’ll share a few of the ones I have.

Butternut squash needles with cheese and an egg.

Salad and really delicious GF white pizza with ricotta.

I FINALLY made it back to the produce stand for the first time in months. Can’t beat $0.69 a pound zucchini.

Salads this time of year are with bosc pears. This is basically what I eat every single day for lunch, but with goat cheese instead of aged cheddar as pictured.

And finally, avocado toast with cumin (this is key), an egg, and feta. Super simple side salad with aged white balsamic vinegar.

That’s all for now!

17.5, Goats, First Place

Date: March 26, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Thursday night, Dave Castro announced the workout for the Crossfit Open 17.5, surprising absolutely no one.

That’s right. I think pretty much everyone guessed that 17.5 would be some type of couplet with thrusters and double unders.

Thursday dinner: roasted carrots+spaghetti squash mac n cheese.

Friday was a rainy day in these parts. Low key day, but I have to highlight a trip to Costco because one of the free samples was Ghiradelli bunny shaped caramels! So cute!

Lunch was another Quick and Easy meal I’d like to highlight.

This salad is crazy simple, healthy, and delicious. It’s literally just lettuce with hummus as dressing, goat cheese, and an egg. This is one I’ve packed for lunch countless times, with just a microwaved. Of course, when the egg is perfectly runny and the goat cheese is higher quality, it is taken up a notch.

Finally…17.5!

17.5 was simple: 10 rounds, 9 thrusters (65# for women), 35 double unders.

I figured the double unders would slow me down. My double unders can be pretty hit or miss based on the day, and they go downhill a lot when my arms get tired!

The other little interesting part for me was that my jumprope has a little wire sticking out the bottom, and if I whip myself a certain way, it cuts me. So sometimes I randomly start bleeding during double unders. Fantastic.

My only real strategy for this was to try and go unbroken on the thrusters for as many rounds as possible, with the goal of getting at least 5 rounds unbroken.

17504602_1111769758969923_6235603063868287223_o

^From our Facebook page.

This workout was definitely a gasser. I was breathing heavy early on, but nothing at least was too crazy heavy. I struggled with double unders early on. I came out the first set of thrusters way too tight, and had a lot of difficulty stringing together sizable sets. After a few rounds though, I started to find a better rhythm. I kept up my unbroken thrusters throughout all 10 rounds. I wasn’t planning on it, but by the time I got to rep 5 or 6 and wanted to put it down, it seemed like more effort to put it down and pick it back up than to just push out a few more reps. Also, I’m very glad it was 9 and not 10. Because I kept for some reason thinking 10 and then being pleasantly surprised to be none at 9.

About halfway through, all I could think was “f*** this.”

I didn’t start really REALLY gasping for air until the last round, but it was a short enough period of time (one round) that I figured, ehh who needs to breathe?

I finished in 19:19 Rx.

After watching and judging some other people, we had an end of the Open party.

Barbells and beer. Nothing better. Semi-still considering changing this blog’s name, hah!

We have such a great community here, and it was a fun way to celebrate the Open.

I thought I escaped without too much rope damage, until I was getting ready for bed and saw the tell-tale tiger stripes. Yeah. No blood though!

Saturday morning, I realized why having mostly beer calories for post-workout recovery was maybe not the best idea. I had some food at the party, but no real protein until about 3 hours after the workout. I woke up Saturday sore already!

For breakfast, I had another throwback yogurt bowl: vanilla Greek yogurt, pumpkin bread, sunbutter. This is always a good one.

Saturday morning, we learned that my sister’s cat had somehow gotten out the previous night, and was missing. We spent a lot of the day Saturday helping out with that (with Chloe as well), to no avail. Thankfully, we got word early Sunday morning that he came home all on his own!

In between this, I spent a few hours driving down to Pescadero with some high school friends to visit a goat dairy! We had the pleasure of petting 5-6 day old babies!

As well as some 1 month year old kids!

And of course the ladies! We also had the opportunity to sample some really delicious goat cheese. Not only was there chèvre, but also really delicious ricotta and feta.

The drive down the coast is always beautiful!

We made a quick stop at the beach at Half Moon Bay before heading home.

Dinner was assembled in no time at all later that evening. We got precooked chicken stuffed with rice and broccoli as well as a kale caesar salad mix at Coscto, which I served with some of my fresh chive goat cheese on toast!

A little later in the evening, I went back out with the same friends for some wine and a really confusing board game.

I was in bed nice and early Saturday night, so I awoke well before my alarm on Sunday for RACE DAY!

I did the Hellyer 5k, which I’ve done 3 times in the past. Fun fact: when I did this race last year, I had a broken foot. I just didn’t realize it yet. This was one of the early indications that something was wrong. It was also 2 days after Crossfit Open 16.4, which destroyed my lower back and I legitimately could not straighten my body. So I figured I should do better this year!

Once again, Chloe came! She made a friend again, before even leaving the parking lot!

Obligatory awkward stretching picture:

Race ready!

(Also, aren’t my shoes so pretty?? I got them for myself with graduation money, but they didn’t come before I left for my summer internship so now I get to use them!)

I knew I wasn’t PR trained for this race, so I wasn’t even going to go there. I’ve been putting in some work, but the reality of it is I haven’t run as much as I probably needed to to be there, thanks to lots of travel, plus teaching spin 3 classes a week, plus the Crossfit Open. I decided to just do my best, but race smart. Negative splits, my friends! My original plan was to go for miles at 8:25, 8:15, and then 8:05 for an average of 8:15ish, but pushing the last mile more if I could.

My spectator! She spotted me on the course about halfway through and had a fit!

My first 2 miles clocked in at 8:20, which I decided was just about right. Since it was a small race, I also didn’t think there was anyone in my age group ahead of me! During the middle miles (aka the rough part of a race), I thought about one of my training runs. It was really awful. It was 6am in Philadelphia (3am CA time) on a treadmill at the hotel, before I had to board my flight. The whole thing was sluggish and I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I didn’t turn down the speed. It’s the little moments in training you remember when it’s time to dig deep.

I picked up the pace for the last mile plus!

The race course was changed due to some flooding, so they actually had to lengthen it a little bit. My watch did notify me of my 5k time though!

And overall:

I’m not sure if you can tell in this picture, but we have matching blue ribbons!

The cherry on top was finding out I got 1st place in my age group! Gotta love these small races!

As wild as Chloe was for the race and race festivities? On the drive home?

After reading last year’s recap, I knew we needed to stop at the local gluten free bakery for brunch. My mom and I split a turkey avocado sandwich on foccaccia.

As well as a cinnamon roll and a lemon poppyseed loaf. YUM.

When we got home, my family and I iced our various ailments. My dad recently pulled a muscle, and I’ve been dealing with a wonky knee lately. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but my left knee has been sore lately. It doesn’t seem like activity I do hurts it, but it hurts when I bend it a certain way, off and on. It started after my long trip to the East Coast, and I think I might have hyperextended it a little bit by slipping on snow. Either way, it’s not a big issue but it get creaky on and off. While icing, we tried a Campfire Stout from Costco, which was basically S’Mores Stout. The verdict? Delicious.

That’s all for this post, but look out for another quick and easy idea for tomorrow!

17.4 on St. Patrick’s Day

Date: March 18, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day, wore plenty of green, and ate plenty of Irish food!

I began my day with a greenish smoothie. I added spinach to my typical smoothie with banana, salted caramel protein, milk, and just a touch of cocoa powder (so as not to ruin the green too much).

On the side, I had half a packet of maple brown sugar oatmeal with some extra plain oats thrown in to cut the sugar.

For lunch, I made a wrap that I’ve been loving lately. I’m planning on doing a full post on it for my quick and easy series, but basically it’s a tortilla stuffed with white cheddar laughing cow cheese, turkey, spinach, and red pepper.

PicMonkey Collage

I actually rarely like red pepper, but I do in this context! I had that with a very simple salad: just high quality blueberry balsamic vinegar!

For a little lunch dessert, I had the remaining bite of a leftover Rule Breaker brownie. I think the brownies taste better than the blondies, but they would be improved with chocolate chips.

Friday was all about preparing for the death that was 17.4. I made sure to carefully fuel myself. In the afternoon, I had some tea (the house was cold!) with a Luna bar and a ginger chew.

Cat nap:

And then about an hour before leaving, I had a few crackers and another ginger chew.

Then, it was time to get pumped up to go!

17.4 was 16.4.

13 minute AMRAP:

55 deadlifts (155# women’s RX)

55 wallballs (14#)

55 calorie row

55 handstand push ups

First of all, I remember last year being awful well enough, but I also have blog documentation. I was super happy and proud of how I did last year. I finished the row in 12:59, which was perfect since I don’t have handstand push ups. The problem with that is that I felt like I needed to improve upon last year, and I was happy with last year, so anything less than last year’s performance would be disappointing. On the other hand, I knew this workout played to my strengths a lot more than some of the other ones.

I actually looked to last year’s post for how to do my deadlifts. I started with 2 sets of 10, then moved to sets of 5, and smaller at the end. (In retrospect, one method I heard was good was going 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). I was actually in theory far better trained in deadlifts this year, because we did weekly 20 rep sets at a fairly heavy weight. I definitely regretted 1. not going as heavy as I probably could have during those workouts and 2. missing so many due to travel!

I think the deadlifts crushed me roughly equally this year vs. last year, but maybe I was a little stronger. It’s really amazing how much you just lose all core strength! After the deadlifts, I did the all too familiar 16.4 waddle from the bar to the wall. Last year, the wall balls absolutely destroyed me. This year, interestingly, not so much. I feel like with the workouts that have been repeated, it always surprises me what has been improved. Last year in 16.5 which was a redo of 14.5, I was shocked by how much “easier” (it’s all relative) the burpees felt. This year, the wall balls were shockingly fine. I did my first set as 15, and then did sets of 10 the rest of the way. Last year, I was getting no repped (or coming very close to it) and couldn’t do more than sets of 5 or less. I only got no repped once this time. Maybe all the long, heavy sets of squats and presses helped this? I got off the wall maybe 45 seconds earlier than last time?

The row was not fun. I don’t think I had as much grit in me here as I did last time, because I was pretty sure at that point I could make the time cap. It was not fun. I wanted to die. I didn’t actually die though, so that’s good. I finished my 55 calories on the row at 12:43, sliding in 16 seconds faster than last year. Hey, I’ll take it!

Last year, I was immobile for probably a week after, so I immediately refueled with chocolate milk to try and ward off some of the impending soreness.

I repped South City Crossfit (St. Louis) green for the workout!

After watching a few other heats (I went first. Always.), I returned home to an Irish feast and my dad’s green pants.

I of course had to have a taster glass of Guiness. I actually didn’t really like it. The flavor is good but it needs some fizz!

And the meal: cabbage, roasted carrots and potatoes, rotisserie chicken, ketchup (necessary for chicken and potatoes), and Irish Soda Bread. For the soda bread, we basically just added dried cranberries and raisins to biscuit mix.

For a little something green for dessert, I made a single serve sugar cookie with green sprinkles.

That evening, I went out with a high school friend. We went to a British-style brewery, which was definitely a first for me! The beer I got wasn’t very fizzy, but it was full of (non-bitter) flavor. Interesting!

How was your St. Paddy’s Day? Anyone do 17.4?

17.2 Going Down in Maui

Date: March 4, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know I said there would only be one more Maui post, but we’ll make it 2. I’m the first one up so I have a little bit of extra time, so why not? This will just be a short recap.

Friday night, I did the Crossfit Open workout 17.2. Which meant I had to actually be a little more careful about what I ate during the day so I didn’t feel like death. Go figure.

Breakfasts have been the same around here: mango, cheerios, yogurt bowls. After breakfast, we spent the morning at the pool (and saw our favorite kitty).

I’m not a big swimmer, but I actually deigned to go in the water this time. There was a very tame water slide that I ever went down a few times.

We cleaned up for lunch, which was Subway. Again, I wanted something familiar before the workout.

I even chose to skip the afternoon ice cream (gasp)!

We had a low key afternoon. Mostly lounging around the hotel.

Then it was Crossfit time! I dropped into Lahaina Crossfit again to do 17.2. They had a 2 hour window on Friday night for people to do it, and when I showed up, I signed up for the first slot! I quickly warmed myself up and was ready to go.

17.2:

12 minute AMRAP:

50ft walking lunge with dumbbells in front rack

16 toes to bar

8 dumbbell power cleans

50ft walking lunge with dumbbells in front rack

16 toes to bar

8 dumbbell power cleans

50ft walking lunge with dumbbells in front rack

16 muscle ups

8 dumbbell power cleans

50ft walking lunge with dumbbells in front rack

16 muscle ups

8 dumbbell power cleans

Repeat for 12 minutes.

I obviously cannot do muscle ups, but I did Rx anyways. The weights were 35#. I knew this meant I would have some time left to stare at the bar!

I was worried 35 would feel heavy for dumbbell cleans but it was a non-issue. I honestly don’t have a ton of commentary on this. It killed my grip much more than I was expecting, and my second set of toes to bar had to be more broken up as a result. My tiebreaker time was 6:37 for 78 reps, so I had about 5 minutes to “attempt” muscle ups. In reality, I’m nowhere near a muscle up. But I spent some time doing some really high quality pull ups, so there’s that.

I do appreciate how this workout didn’t have muscle ups right in the first round, so people could still do Rx and have something to do. The atmosphere is always fun, and it’s so cool that this is something I can do thousands of miles from home, because it’s something Crossfits do worldwide. I stayed an extra heat to judge someone else, and it was all a blast!

Right afterwards, we headed to Kohola Brewery in Lahaina. We stumbled upon this tiny local brewery when grabbing lunch, so we figured, why not check it out?

It was a cool vibe. It was out of a warehouse! We got a flight to start.

Apparently beer flights are becoming a post-Open workout thing for me?

Then I got a pint of my favorite, the Lilikoi Saison.

It was a great way to celebrate 17.2!

After our little happy hour, we went down to the water for dinner at Honu. We had originally made reservations for much later, but we were able to snag seats by the bar with no wait.

This place was awesome. They had a whole gluten free menu (including pizza), and the waitresses were super helpful figuring out various dietary restrictions (coming to Hawaii with a coconut allergy stinks). On top of the great service, the food was top notch. To start, we shared a date salad.

For my main dish, I had a taro burger on GF bread with truffle cheese. (How could one pass up TRUFFLE cheese??)

For dessert, my mom and I shared a beet chocolate torte. This was really delicious, and I couldn’t exactly taste the beet! It seemed a tiny bit earthy, which did a grey job counteracting the rich chocolate.

And with that, 17.2 is a wrap!