Ending California’s Drought One 5k at a Time

Date: March 2, 2014

Author: astottler

How’s everyone’s weekend going? It’s been a wet one over here! I’m about to go on this week’s long run, and am hoping the run holds off! Yesterday I did a 5k-but we’ll get to that.

I woke up Friday morning and went for a walk. I wanted to do something to get my blood flowing, but seeing as Saturday was race day, I wanted to take it easy!

It started raining just as I slipped into the dining hall for breakfast!

Toast with cream cheese and hard boiled egg, fruit, and spinach with a cheese cube.

After my one class of the day, I had grand intentions of being very productive in a little cafe. As it turns out, out of my 3 tasks I set aside for myself, I forgot the materials for 2 out of the 3. But I did manage to eat lunch!

A veggie hummus wrap.

I spent Friday afternoon running errands and trying to stay dry! Then, one of my best friends from home came and visited me for dinner.

(Super old picture!)

I took her to my favorite cafe, which is outdoors. They were playing a Spanish song that we had to learn together in high school! We walked back to my dorm and ate inside. It was so great to see her!

I ordered a chicken pesto crepe. So good!

She apparently was inspired by my project, so now she’s going sugar free for 40 (or 50?) days! I’m so proud of her!

Saturday morning I was awake bright and early. I had my current 5k pre-race meal of homemade granola bars.

By the time I left my dorm, it was already pouring. We’re in a drought. It’s rained once this winter. Can anyone guess the last time? Oh, that’s right. My one other 5k. Fabulous. We had to park pretty far away (my parents brought me), and I was pretty much drenched by the time we reached the start. We feet certainly were!

The 5k started a few minutes late, and they managed to hold off just enough for the rain to stop.

The race was also a half marathon and 10k, so it was a decent sized race! The course was very nice. Some rolling hills but pretty flat. (I’m planning on doing some long runs here!)

Given that it stopped raining, the conditions were not bad for a PR. The first mile I think went pretty well. I was keeping pace. But then it just wasn’t happening for me. I just did not feel that great out there. This was my slowest 5k to date, although according to my watch I was about 4 seconds off my pace from my last one. The course was a tiny bit long, and I had to stop and walk the last little bit to the finish because it was a giant slippery mud puddle. I actually had to run through several streams because there was so much water coming down that everything was overflowing. We had to run through a foot of flowing water multiple times. I thought my Tough Mudder wasn’t until April? Haha!

I actually saw someone from my dorm in the race! He did super well-he came in 2nd overall!

An while this definitely wasn’t my best race ever, my parents actually got some good running shots.

All done! After the race, there was food. Like, food like I’ve never seen before.They had literally everything! Fruit, bagels, chips, pretzels, hot chocolate, pastries, chocolate cake, brownies, cookies-they even had It’s-it’s! Crazy!

I definitely had to try quite a few things!

While this wasn’t my best race by a long shot, the race was small enough that I somehow still managed to win my age group! Hey, I’ll take it!

I also think this race is a big testament to the project (which I swear I’ll do a recap of REALLY soon!). I have not been feeding my body that well since then, and I did not feel that great out there today, and was definitely slower despite better conditions. I’m working on a plan for the future though. I have been eating a fair amount of sweets lately and I’m getting seriously concerned for me health-nto just because sugar is “bad” but because my heart has been racing a lot and I know my family has a history of heart sensitivities. I’ll talk more about this in the project recap!

After the race, we all went to Whole Foods in search of granola bars. And of course had to get some hot breakfast!

AMAZING french toast casserole, plus fruit and some really spicy Mexican breakfast dish.

I also got some young coconut, pre cut and everything! It was a great snack later in the day.

And since this seems to be photo overload day, here are some pics from my sorority event-we did a Murder Mystery dinner, where we acted out a murder plot and then had delicious Indian food!

Roomie love!

It was a fun night! But I stayed up way too late watching KPop videos, thanks to a friend who is a bit obsessed!

What did you do this weekend?

Christmastime is Here

Date: November 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Since 12 Days Of Christmas is going on, I haven’t had much opportunity for a normal post! I wanted to catch you all up on some things and eats!

First, here’s a Turkey Trot photo! The biggest reason I chose to do a Turkey Trot 10k specifically was to increase my ability to eat. I think that may have been counterproductive-I am incapable of taking a race easy and pushed more than I was planning, which ended up kind of killing my appetite. Not that I still didn’t stuff myself! But I swear I must be getting old-I feel like it takes less and less each year to fill me up. Bye bye teenage metabolism…

I had a healthy dinner of cheesecake on Thanksgiving before being dragged out “Black Friday” shopping. I put that in quotes because it wasn’t even Friday so you really can’t even call it that. I of course went with the blessing of my parents-to be honest I didn’t want to buy anything but it was a chance to hang out with some friends form high school who I basically haven’t seen in 2 years. It was crazy-at the mall we ran into SO many people from high school! That was fun! But after being awake at 5:30 for the turkey trot, shopping at 1am was the last thing I wanted to do. And my feet were demolished-they’ve been bothering my lately in eh arches, and standing around a lot on the day of a race was not good.

Here’s Friday breakfast-ambrosia and an english muffin.

A lot of time yesterday was spent prepping things for 12 Days of Christmas, including tons of baking.

Then, it was time to get a tree! Whole Foods has a ton of beautiful, full, healthy trees, for a very good price. They were probably half of what we’d pay at a lot.

Here’s the winner!

We could tell how fresh it was quite easily-we’ve never had a tree anywhere near this heavy before (meaning it’s full of water). My dad can normally manage the tree on his own, but this time I had to help him carry it and load it onto the car-putting those Crossfit skills to work! Push press to the top of the car?

I also bought some dorm decorations-a mini tree that came with lights, plus this cute little poinsettia! We can’t have poinsettias at home since they’re poisonous to cats (and my cats like to eat flowers), but there are no cats in my dorm!

This means we’re going to have 3 plants in our tiny dorm room, so it’s basically going to be a forest.

In the evening, I had the pleasure of going to a class at my old Crossfit! It was great. So, so great. I miss that gym so much. I can’t even explain what is so different, but they are so much more my Crossfit family.

The strength portion was bench presses. I haven’t bench pressed in a good 2 years. And even then I’ve only done it like 2x. Needless to say my bench press was pretty weak. I’m not great at arm strength things in general-my legs much stronger than my arms.

The WOD was 400m run-12 deadlifts and box jumps-400m run-10 deadlifts and box jumps-400m run-5 deadlifts and box jumps. It was a good and fun one! There’s no question my box jumps have improved-this height seemed a bit scary for a WOD before I left but it was no big deal this time! Maybe what I don’t like about my school Crossfit is that not a lot of the WODs involve lifting really heavy. Who knows. I actually stayed a little late to help them build a giant structure to hang 15 foot ropes from-which was an interesting process to say the least!

Then, it was dinnertime!

My grandma is the best-she made a ton of butternut squash soup just for me! It is absoutely amazing topped with creme fresh and cranberry orange relish. So. Good.

Plus some other leftovers!

Then, one of my best friends came over to help me bake the Healthy Polka Dot cookies. We had a blast. I totally winged the recipe (I guess you guys probably don’t want me to tell you I had no idea what I was doing and said YOLO multiple times when adding ingredients), but it came out PERFECT. Exactly what I was hoping and more.

Selfie with a dirty blender.

Confession-we weren’t really sure what the texture would be like-we thought it might turn out more like cake, so here’s a shot from the outtake reel:

I mean, they did make perfectly fine mini cupcakes, but I preferred the cookie form!

Then, we went and saw Catching Fire! I’m not sure how I rallied myself for a 10:30pm movie, but the movie was really good!

I actually went to the midnight premier of the first Hunger Games! I read the books a while ago, and the 2nd and 3rd book kind of blurred together in my mind, so I wasn’t exactly expecting the ending, but I really liked it! Although cliffhangers? Not cool. (At least I considered this a cliffhanger.)

Well, now we’re all caught up! I have a track workout and weights planned for today-I’m not the Jingle Barbells workout-and then dinner with another friend later! Hope you all are doing well!

Best movie you’ve seen lately?

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?

New Beginnings

Date: March 25, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Yeahh so guess who is behind posting again? Me! I swear I planned on posting Friday. And Saturday…Here’s what ends up happening. I usually like to post at night to recap my day. Makes sense, right? But see the thing is, when I am at home, my family likes to watch TV episodes at night, so we end up getting really into it and watching until late (we have the shows on DVD). And then it is late. And since I’VE BEEN ABLE TO WORKOUT (yay!) I have to wake up at a reasonable hour. So I don’t want to stay up even later…yeah let’s just say I should not try to wait until late to blog because at that point it just doesn’t happen. So since I’m a bit behind…I was really sore from yoga on Thursday! I have now found my downward dog muscles…It’s amazing what a month off can do to you! Friday I ended up decided to skip my planned run, especially since I was planning on running on Saturday. I’ve been trying to have SOME type of activity to do each day, and I ended up decided Friday would be baking day. I wanted to make something complicated, and the winner was…Boston Cream Pie! For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it is 2 layers of sponge cake with pastry cream between the layers and a thick chocolate glaze. I just used the recipe from our America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook. I’ve made the recipe once before, and it’s pretty complicated although not terribly difficult. It is just a lot of steps. And hey, it was the perfect opportunity to use the new mixer! (Note: I’ve misspelled “the” every single time in this post…) Here’s the process:Yes. It was delicious. I like how this isn’t SUPER sweet. I think I could have taken the cakes out a bit sooner though. Eek looking through my pictures, I realized I’m getting ahead of myself on meals! I had some good eats! Guess what? I had my first yogurt bowl! I know so many of you swear by them, so it was time to try it! (Sidenote: Kefir and cereal is seriously delicious as well, for all you yogurt bowl lovers.) Plus, I got some sunflower seed butter, which doesn’t seem to make my skin break out. I’m pumped. These guys, plus some pumpkin bread I found in the freezer, which I swear we didn’t have any left of, but hey, I found basically half a loaf, so I’m not complaining!Yogurt bowls? I’m a fan. I’ve been dying to recreate this since but I have had to eat really lightly because I’ve had morning workouts. Lunch was also good on Friday. Apparently we had some whole wheat tortillas hiding in the fridge. I filled it up with rotisserie chicken, jack cheese, tomato, spinach, and pesto, and then popped it into the microwave. Yum! Plus half an artichoke.

Dinner was a scramble filled with veggies, plus some oranges. I wanted to keep it light to save room for my day’s work!

Saturday morning I head over to the track for a workout (!). I did some running, mixed in with some abs and sprints. I ended up running 2.5 miles, which were broken up into miles chunks (plus the half mile). Given this was my first time running since I got so sick, and the first time in over a month, I’d say it went pretty well. I have a ways to go to build up my stamina, but I felt pretty good, and my legs didn’t really feel tired at all until the final half mile. It also occurred to me while I was running how much better running is than erging! However, I’m REALLY sore today. I’ve never been this sore from running. Even my arches are sore. So once again, I have a ways to go! After my workout, I cleaned myself up and my parents and I drove over to Berkeley to have lunch with my grandparents, since we won’t be seeing them on Easter. Their new favorite place is a Korean restaurant called Bowl’d, so we all went there. I got a chicken bowl, and here’s what it looked like:It was really good! The bowl had various types of rice, noodles, and vegetables. Topped with a citrus soy sauce, which was vaguely sweet (almost like a teriyaki sauce). I liked it! But the bowl stayed VERY hot the whole time, and I was constantly in danger of burning myself!

My whole family was ready for a nap by the time we got home, so I read in bed with this little guy:I love my cats. We ended up ordering a quick dinner from a local diner-type restaurant, and I chose huevos rancheros.Hey, anything with avocado and I’m sold!

This morning I headed over to one of my favorite spin classes. I had to get there early to sign up, so I did some crunches while I waited. It was a great class, I was able to push myself more like I normally do. My stupid bike seat started sliding back towards the end of class though, even though I tightened it. I got off my bike once to fix it, but when it slipped a second time, I just gave in and finished the class. 4 hills! Whoop! Which, I must say, is way better than 1 30 minute hill…

I didn’t snap a picture at breakfast because I was in a hurry, but I had a sort of yogurt bowl: kefir with peanut butter puff cereal and sunflower butter, plus a mango (of course). We still have like 8 mangos, which are all starting to be ripe. This will not be a problem.

After spin, I went to the farmer’s market.My best find? Avocados! They were 6 for $5. They also had mini avocados, which I naturally had to get.I think I am going to try to sprout the pits, and see if I get a mini avocado plant! I’m not sure they will sprout though; they are so tiny!

Have you guys ever gotten kettle corn at the farmer’s market before? It is by far the best kettle corn out there. So naturally we bought a reasonably sized bag (as opposed to giant. See? Showing restraint). We also bought an apple pie from a stand that came from a local pie restaurant that we used to always go to when I was little. My mom and I have both been dying for apple pie lately because it keeps coming up in the books we are reading. It cost just as much if we bought slices as to buy a whole pie, so a whole pie it was!

After the farmer’s market, I began this blog post and then went out to Indian food with Jessica, one of my best friends from High School.

It ended up being a buffet, which was just as well since neither of us would have known what to order anyways. She had never had Indian food before, and I never know what to order since I’m not exactly sure what anything is. The end result? We basically got some of everything to try.It was really tasty! It wasn’t too spicy, except for one thing, which I figured out fairly quickly and avoided. Jessica didn’t fare as well. Her plate got completely mixed together, so she couldn’t tell what anything was and couldn’t identify the really spicy item! We used the warm Naan served on the side to take away some of the kick.

After a fun lunch, we saw a froyo place that I had not tried yet right across the street, so NATURALLY, what choice did we have? And hey, it’s been over a week since my last one! It was a Tutti Fruiti. The yogurt was good quality and the toppings bar was a good variety, but the flavors weren’t especially interesting. But I guess at this point that’s hard to expect given how many places I’ve been to. It was a great afternoon; we probably stayed in the yogurt place chatting for an hour! I miss that girl!

Other than that, I haven’t done too much up until now. There’s one last thing I want to talk about though (hence the title of the post). As some of you may know, I walked onto my college’s crew team this fall after never having rowed before in my life. My school has a program for novice rowers, so the fall was spent teaching us all how to row. It was an awesome experience, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. I met some truly amazing people. Come winter, the novices moved in with the varsity rowers, recruits and Olympians alike, starting with winter camp (which you can see in my earliest blog posts). Through blogging about this, I found some other rower/former rower bloggers (shout out to Brittany and Theresa!), which is totally awesome. But then winter quarter got hectic. Rowing took up 5 hours every day, and I was only getting about 6 hours of sleep a night, and certainly not putting 100% into my classes. I can’t help but think this is part of why I got so sick. It probably didn’t help that the first day I was sick I spent a couple of hours freezing my drenched butt off in the bay…ANYWAY. These past few weeks have given me some perspective. I realize there’s no way I can keep that type of schedule up anymore. I spent a lot of time on softball in high school, but that was MY sport. I had to remind myself that while I loved rowing, I had only been doing it for a few months, and it really wasn’t MY sport. I had such an amazing experience, but I’m not up to full strength. Racing starts in less than a week. And most importantly, an aftereffect of this stupid illness (mono) is that I will need more sleep for a while. So I decided I cannot continue to row. One again, I wouldn’t trade anything for the opportunity to row at a high college level, but it is time to move on, hence the name of the post. Right now, I’m training to get back into shape for Intramural soccer, which I’m pumped for. I started playing soccer when I was 5, and haven’t played since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve really missed it. And I want to really get into running. I can’t wait to have more flexibility in my workouts and in my life. Seriously, I’ve never had this kind of freedom. For so long, anytime there was any event or activity, I automatically knew I couldn’t go. In high school, it was because I had softball, and this year it was because I had crew. I’m excited to try new things and meet new people. I feel like I have so many more opportunities now, and I think I will have a chance at not going through life as a sleep deprived zombie. (Speaking of which, has anyone done a zombie run? I think it sounds like fun!) It’s also important for me to have a good quarter academically, given I had to drop 2 of my classes because of the mono last quarter. Like I said a minute ago, a really want to get into running. I really want to try one of those “Mud Runs” where you have to go though/over all kinds of obstacles. That’s total body fitness right there! Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what is going on with me. I decided a little while ago, but i wanted to wait until everything was finalized. To end, here’s a picture of my favorite flowers, which my cats have been leaving alone so far (last year I found my birthday bouquet scattered around the house).The picture doesn’t do them justice!

What fun or interesting runs have you done?

I’m Back!

Date: March 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I’m finally ready to re-enter the blogging world! These past 2 weeks have been pretty rough, so I’ll give you an update on what is going on with me. I have Mono…and according to my blood tests,a pretty bad case of it. Since my spleen and liver are swollen, my stomach is super puffed up and I secretly believe an alien is growing inside of me. The thing is, it’s not just Mono. I tested positive for Strep throat a week ago, but that should be over now with antibiotics. But then somehow I managed to pick up a cold too. Which turned into an ear and sinus infection, which is why after 2 weeks I wasn’t feeling any better. I am convinced that I picked up the strep and cold at the ER. It was disgustingly unsanitary. I am finally on different antibiotics for the ear and sinus infections, and I am starting to feel better, although I am still partially deaf in my left ear. The biggest problem now is I have had a killer sore throat for the past week. Fortunately, I finally got prescribed with a steroid yesterday that brings the swelling in my body in general and my throat down, and I think the pain is improving.

I have basically been in bed for 2 weeks straight, though the last couple of days have been better. I have to take Advil and Tylenol around the clock because otherwise I feel like I am being strangled…and my temperature goes up. The good news is with my new antibiotic, I feel way stronger. I recently realized that I have been taking 28 pills a day. Although that was before the steroid (though I am trying to cut the Advil and Tylenol some). That is crazy. 2 years ago, I couldn’t swallow any pills at all. Embarrassing, I know! It was a huge problem, and I had the hugest fear. Well guess that is gone now, especially since my new antibiotics are giant!

I have been living at home these past 2 weeks as well. For a long time I literally could not get out of bed in the morning, and I doubt my roommate would have wanted to do EVERYTHING for me! Luckily I’m local to school. I had to drop half of my classes though, and will have to retake them next quarter. It is all I can do to keep up with my couple of classes now! My days consist mostly of watching Friends!

I haven’t blogged because my food choices haven’t been too interesting. With a swollen stomach comes a small appetite. And for a while no food at all appealed to me, so I couldn’t even think about food. Exciting news though! We got a new blender! A Vitamix. It’s amazing. And smoothies have been a top choice lately given my throat and my earlier lack of appetite. For a while nothing sweet appealed to me. Yeah I seem to have gotten over that. Frozen yogurt has been a big part of my life lately (yesterday I tried salted caramel pretzel….BEST. THING. EVER.). One night my dad ran out and got me a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. SO GOOD. Sweets do tend to send me into coughing fits though… Eh. One thing that didn’t appeal to me that I haven’t forcibly reintroduced is nuts/nut butter. And guess what? My skin is better than ever! Silver lining right?? I don’t have any food pictures. Well, except this sequence.

That was my turkey and avocado sandwich. Charlie is crazy about meat. And, oddly, bread. I stood no chance.

This morning for breakfast, I was feeling much better and wanted to go out for pancakes. I ordered Blueberry wheat germ, which were pretty good but the wheat germ was a little bitter. My pea sized stomach stood no chance for the giant stack though! Now that I am eating more though, I think I need to go back to worrying about my sugar intake. Especially if I plan on developing a frozen yogurt habit (hey, there are still HOW MANY nearby places I still have to try??). I’m thinking I need to limit my sweets to frozen yogurt…I guess part of the problem is that fruit is a little hard on my throat (it is pretty acidic). Ah well. I guess I just need more smoothies! Now while I don’t have a lot in the way of food pictures, I do have cat pictures (benefit #1 of being home).

Just look at that face!

DEFINITELY not about to fall off or anything!

Who really needs to fold laundry? Or have non-furry towels?

I’m so glad to be back blogging! Unfortunately it will be a while on the workouts…I think the first things I’ll be allowed to do are spinning and running. No weights, and probably no erging, until my spleen has no possibility of rupturing….but hey, now I know where my spleen is! Going back to crew is going to be so difficult…Seeing the erg workouts they are doing just seems impossible. I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it!

How’s everyone doing?