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Hug a Cat

Hey guys! I haven’t exactly checked in in a little while. Not with a more normal, day in the life type of post at least. I don’t exactly have an excuse-sure Wednesday and Thursday were fairly busy, but I kind of decided to watch TV at night instead of post. I felt bad yesterday so I threw up a post I had been saving. I had a specific topic to write about but I’ll save that for another post so this isn’t crazy long. 

Wednesday morning, on the way out to 5:45am spin, I was greeted by this:

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Silly cat. 

My spin teachers are in the habit of talking about doughnuts. Meh. After spin, I headed off to run, only to be met by a dead Garmin. It died about 5 minutes in to my 5 mile run. I thought it would have given some type of warning to charge it BEFORE it died?? Then again, maybe I left it on again….Luckily I had done that same distance at the same place so it was fine. And I took a super easy pace.

Since I had woken up at 5:10 that morning, caffeine was in order, especially with the day’s midterm (and studying for midterm…). My mom has been meaning to use her espresso maker more so we made a cappuccino!

ImageIt was really good! Cappuccinos are about the only coffee drink I’ll have. I’m kind of obsessed with milk foam. And extra bonus-I can add as much as I want (read: a lot)! So this was even milkier than what I would order. Would they look at me funny at the coffee shop if I order extra milk foam? Image

My midterm went well. I suffered from the fact that I haven’t actually written anything on paper for the last few months. There were essay questions, and my hand was dying. But at least I got to write about the obesity epidemic, one of my favorite health topics!

I had a softball game Wednesday night, and my sister and her boyfriend decided to come home for dinner when they realized we’d be having waffles. I’ve been dying for waffles or pancakes lately, so when I saw a whole grain mix in our pantry, I knew it was time. 

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I topped mine with butter and hot blueberries-just the way I like it! On the side (because obviously the waffles are the main dish), I had a frittata with spinach, goat cheese, and caramelized onions. And some frozen cherries! Yummm. By the way, that’s not the only waffle that was consumed that night. Just the only one that would fit on the plate. 

Thursday morning was a rough one at the kitten nursery. One of the kittens has scabies, which is a skin disease that can be transferred pretty easily to other kittens and to humans. Everything was basically on quarantine, and we had to wear gowns the whole time. The poor kitten was feeling just fine, but we weren’t allowed to play with her at all. However, this wasn’t the worst part of the morning.

One litter of kittens was not doing well. They were new 2 weeks ago, and I remember them all being super active and playful. This week however, they were much mellower and clearly not feeling well. They had pretty loose stools, and some were loosing too much weight. One little kitten was just not doing well at all. She had lost a lot of weight and wasn’t eating much, so we were supposed to bottle feed her, but she resisted that as well. The only positive is she did purr when I picked her up. Last night, they sent out an email that they had to euthanize her because she was suffering and wasn’t going to make it. That’s the hard part of this job-these kittens are so tiny (she was .27 lbs today) and who knows what has happened to them before they come in. As volunteers, we do as much as possible to keep them healthy, but sometimes there really isn’t anything we can control. When I got home, all I wanted to do was give my kitties a big hug. I’m so grateful they’re healthy, happy, and loving. I have to be thankful for the cats that I can save-we rescued Charlie from Stockton. ImageThis is Charlie the day we found him.

He was wandering around the hotel we were staying at (for softball) calling out to us. Stockton is not a nice place-it has some of the highest crime rates in the country. At one of the softball fields we played at, you could hear gunshots from the field. The hotel was adjacent to the highway, and it was clear he had been dumped. We saw him that morning meowing at us before the game, and between games we returned to search for him. We bought some cat food at the store, but couldn’t even find any boxes-we ended up finding some cardboard (like a box, but no top or bottom) that kind of held him in. It was 90 degrees though, and he was an escape artist. He ended up in the engine of two different cars. On the 2 hour drive home, he sat on my lap in the box and cried if I didn’t constantly have my hand in the box. 

If we hadn’t taken him home, the hotel would have called Animal Control-my dad was looking into nearby shelters, but they were full. When he talked to the hotel front desk, they told him to call animal control. Animal control would have euthanized him.

I can’t even imagine how someone could have dumped him. He’s one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever met-I’ve never once seen him angry. He’s never clawed anyone. And the only time he bites is if he gets a little too frisky. He’s such a softie-I can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t have wanted him. 

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I guess what I’m saying is appreciate your pets. Give them a hug and be thankful for them, and feel happy you saved them. Not all animals are so lucky.

Kitten Updates

Hey guys! I haven’t posted in a couple of nights so let’s go through a 2-day recap! Wednesday morning started with a kefir/granola/sunflower seed butter cup, with a side of a plum. 
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Note to self-this is not the best pre-run fuel. I was getting a little tired of my pre-run breakfast, so I went with something different and it was not a great idea. I had a stomachache before the run even started but it ended up not being too much of an issue. 

I pushed the pace a little bit more than I have lately, but here are some scenes WHILE running, since I ran with my phone for music. 
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This was my attempt to catch a picture of the bunnies I saw. You can sort of see them in the distance!

After my run, I had to go down to school to work in the lab, and then go to class. I drove half an hour down there, only to realize I forgot both my key card to get in the building and my key to get in the door. Awesome. I had to go all the way back home, losing an hour. That was a pain. 

After class, I had a slowpitch softball game. The difference? I was pitching. Yikes. For those of you that don’t know, I was a fastpitch pitcher for…well basically forever. Our normal pitcher was gone, so that left me to give it a try. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Fastpitch and slowpitch are slightly similar, but very different, which basically made it a mess. Let’s just say that pitching fastpitch does NOT translate to slowpitch. Plus, in slowpitch there are these weird rules that females bat with an eleven inch ball, while males bat with a twelve inch ball. As a pitcher in the past, I was super sensitive about different BRANDS of balls (I could name the brand and model of the balls with my eyes closed). So you can imagine what different SIZES of balls did to me. Needless to say I drowned my sorrows in froyo. 
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YUM. This is my favorite froyo place. I got salted caramel pretzel and chocolate with heath bar on one side, and tart mango and tart with fruit on the other side. Since my goal this week was no gluten, I had to make the sacrifice of choosing heath instead of brownie. I know, I have a hard life. I was going to blog last night but then I made the smart decision to actually go to bed at a reasonable time!

This morning, I was up early for the kitten nursery. There aren’t a ton of litters right now, so that all was fairly quick. A lot of the kittens are sick-nothing serious, just eye injections and colds, but it was spreading at an alarming rate. When we deal with kittens and clean their cages, we bleach EVERYTHING. Everything is bleached between litters, including the scale we weigh them on. Well, it turns out someone replaced all the bleach bottles with water, which is why things were spreading. Anyways, I did get some pictures of the youngest litter. They were even smaller last week!

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The kittens are very vocal, especially when they’re hungry!
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We actually had a little issue with this litter. As in, one kitten went to the bathroom right on top of ALL the kittens paperwork, which included where we record their weights and eating habits 3x a day, for al long as they’ve been here. So that was an issue.
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This is from the litter that we bottle fed a few weeks ago. How on earth did they get so BIG? It’s crazy! 

Here’s the steps going up from the kitten nursery to the cat shelter. I love this. 
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After finishing up at the shelter, I had to hurry down to school to meet with my research professor, only to get there and find out the meeting was cancelled. That wasn’t a huge deal because I had to be down there anyways to do research.
After lunch, I headed out to the bay to run. I wanted to see how far north the trail I’ve been running on goes-I had previously thought I was at the end but then I discovered another path. Before my run, I made the decision to take it at a super easy pace. I pushed the pace yesterday, and this is my heaviest week of my training plan, so I want to just get through it. It turned into a no music run because it was too windy to hear anything. I actually enjoyed the run, although it seemed to take forever. And as it turns out, a slower pace is way harder on my calves. Which have been sore ever since I didn’t wear compression socks after my long run. Smart.
For some pre-Crossfit fuel, I whipped up a smoothie with the dark chocolate almond milk in danger of expiring, a handful of spinach, half a frozen banana, a pinch of xantham gum, and a handful of ice.

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This came out a lot better than I was expecting-I could only taste a hint of spinach, which just made it all the more refreshing. Oh how I love my Vitamix.
My afternoon was spent hanging out with my cat, wearing compression socks, and catching up on blogs.
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I love that guy.
While doing the WOD at Crossfit today, it occurred to me that I should probably consider the running I do in Crossfit. I mean, I ran a mile in Crossfit today, which pushes my mileage to 5 for the day. I might stick to 3 tomorrow instead of 4 because it’s likely I’ll run more at Crossfit tomorrow. Thoughts?
Dinner tonight was a good one.
Guacamole for the vegetables: the before and after.
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Plus turkey burgers (my current favorite thing) and zucchini fries.

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My dad also grilled up some pineapple, which I ended up adding to a little vanilla frozen yogurt.

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Overall, it was a good day! And, now I have brand spanking new tires so I can nail those hairpin turns going 60. I kid. Have a great week everyone!
Do you have any funny pet stories?
Hmm maybe mine is the time my GIANT black cat chased the pet sitter around the house? The pet sitter refused to come back!IMG_1334

A Day of First: Kitten Nursery and Crossfit

Hey everybody! I just got a Twitter and Instagram so follow me at @fitnessissweet and fitnessissweet!

Yesterday morning was another early wake up call-I had the morning shift at the kitten nursery at the animal shelter. Before running out the door, I had a quick breakfast of yogurt with banana and sunflower seed butter. Image

As soon as I got there, we went right to work. We had to clean out the kittens cages, weigh them, feed them, play with them, and then set up their cages again. ImageImageWhen we took them out of the cages, we kept them in cardboard boxes, and then carried the boxes to a table and took them out there to play and eat. They were pretty mischievous- the boxes were so hard to close because little paws and heads kept popping out!ImageTo put it in perspective, most of them weighed about .5 lbs. ImageImageImageImageThe next pictures are the group of kittens we took care of last. Since we were basically done after them, we had them out for longer to play and socialize with them. ImageImageThis group was fast asleep when we took them from their cage. Anyone who has had kittens knows this is a recipe for disaster! Kittens have this instant on switch that brings them instantly from 0 to 60! These guys were rambunctious! So much so that the little stripy kittens wouldn’t even eat at first, they were so busy playing! On top of that, they kept trying to wander around. When there are 4 kittens on the table and one of me, there are going to be problems! They kept trying to climb onto the windowsill. The white and striped one was quite the adventurer- somehow he made it off the table without me even seeing him get near the edge! By the time we were all done though, all the kittens were snoozing. We then went back to the other kitten nursery where the even younger kittens are. These kittens can’t really eat on their own, so we learned to feed them with a syringe. It was pretty difficult-the kittens were pretty fussy! I ended up finally being able to get some food in by wrapping the little guy up in a kitten burrito. I managed to feed him enough-he even went for the food bowl a little himself! Soon though, he stopped opening his mouth, and a minute later, he was fast asleep! Having a tiny kitten fall asleep in your arms is the best thing ever. I can’t wait to go back!

When I got home, I wanted a snack, which turned into a snacky early lunch. Image

EdamameImageImageLeftover sweet potato fried from dinner the previous night. ImageTurkey roll ups-big leaf lettuce with deli turkey, onions, avocado, and ketchup.ImageI also wanted to try and recreate the delicious iced tea from the previous day. I brewed Earl Grey tea with mint leaves, and then added ice, almond milk, and a touch of honey. I loved how refreshing the mint made it, so I concentrated on that aspect. Overall, it was good but nothing really like what I had had the previous day. I think it would have been better with coconut milk, or something slightly thicker than almond milk. And the Earl Grey tea flavor kind of overwhelmed the mint. But it was quite thirst quenching all the same!ImageI then spent some time on the old blog, attempting to figure out Twitter. ImageI sent this to my friend asking her what it meant my username was. #clueless

If you follow me on Instagram, you can see tons of cute cat pictures such as this one 🙂ImageBefore I knew it, it was Crossfit time! It was in a warehouse right next to an indoor batting cage where my high school softball team would occasionally practice. 

First, let me just say- I loved it! Everything about it-I love throwing heavy things around. I really liked the warehouse atmosphere as well-it seemed very hard core (in a good way). If you are thinking about trying Crossfit, do not be intimidated! Everyone is super nice and of different fitness levels! We began with a warm up run and stretching with the regular class, and then another new person and I broke off with a trainer to be assessed and to go through a mini WOD. The WOD we did was actually one I had done on my own before,but a shorter version. I had had to modify it when I did it at the gym at school, and it was much harder yesterday. 

10 AMRAP

100 m run

5 pull-ups (banded for me)

10 push ups (chest all the way to the ground)

15 air squats

I made it through 5+ rounds in the 10 minutes. I really, really loved the atmosphere. The workouts are very similar to what I did with my trainer at the gym in the past, and the atmosphere is more what I liked about softball conditioning with other people, except everyone actually cares about working hard! 

The only thing for me is since I know all the Olympic lifts (there are very few Crossfit moves I don’t know), I would really like to try and skip some of the Intro classes and dive right into the normal WODs. I really don’t want to have to sit through classes learning the lifts I’ve been working on for the past 3 years. Plus, watching everyone throw heavy weights around kind of had me drooling-knowing I can do the lifts at the same weight that they are make same want to join right in! I totally could have done the normal WOD! I need to try and see if I can somehow be fast tracked at least a bit. 

But I really, really loved it. I would say I’ve been bit by the Crossfit bug, but I know I’ve been obsessed for much longer! I’m going back again Saturday, and I seriously cannot wait!

Dinner was black bean soup from this Whole Foods recipe. We didn’t want to have to wait for the beans to sit, so we got canned, and probably didn’t add enough beans, because it was pretty liquidy (normally it’s pretty thick). Still delicious though! I highly recommend this recipe. HOWEVER. One major modification I made was using vegetable broth instead of water in the soup. It’s super plain without, but has a ton of flavor with!

My bowl was really weird/pathetic looking so I took a picture of my sister’s instead!ImageImageImagePlus a side salad.ImageAfter dinner, my wimpy mouth was burning! What better solution than frozen yogurt (with chocolate sauce)?ImageWhat a fabulous way to end the day!

Have you ever done Crossfit? WHat did you think?

Five Things on Friday

Happy Friday! This is a weird week-no school Thursday or Friday for me!

This morning’s workout I got from Shannon.

5 sets of 8 reps:

Back squat

Deadlift

Front Squat

Plus half a set of split squat. 

Then, I added 4×250 sprint on the erg and an abs circuit. Still on tap for today is a 4 mile training run (because I didn’t do it yesterday), and maybe yoga since it’s been a while!

5 Things:

1. After seeing Sunnie’s post about her Coconut Lemon birthday cake, I was inspired to make something delicious with coconut for lunch. Given the like 3 ingredients I still have in my dorm room. ImageUnsweetened coconut, vanilla protein powder,vanilla, a little sweetener, milk, and a touch of salt (this is key!) all microwaved for about 45 seconds. I’m not sure how I feel about my protein powder, so when I get home I think I’ll try a version without, that is still high protein.

2. I’ve decided that I am actually a fan of Psychological Thrillers. Since we’re learning about mental disorders in Psych, I thought that the most logical way to study was to watch a movie. Did you know you can rent movies on iTunes?? I watched Black Swan and Side Effect, and really liked them both. #productive day

3. I think I need to revisit the whole “grains make me fall asleep” thing. I hadn’t really been noticing anything, but the past 2 days I’ve been seriously dragging after having a giant waffle for breakfast. ImageLast night I got plenty of sleep, but was seriously dragging after breakfast, so I took a nap and pushed back working out. I haven’t avoided grains lately and I’ve been dragging a lot lately. Coincidence? Seems unlikely.

4. Training for a race while in school is way harder than in summer. When I trained for my 10k last year, I did maybe one or two training runs off schedule. This time around training for my half, I feel like I’m always a day or two behind. Since this is my first half, I want to follow the plan as much as possible. However, when I do the Nike Women’s half in October, I need to realize that flexibility is necessary, since a majority of the training will be during school.

5. Yesterday was a complete rest day, mentally and physically (hence the 2 movies). I think that was much needed going into finals! Although some studying would be helpful as well…

Have a great weekend everybody! Tomorrow is my Kitten Nursery Orientation! SO EXCITED.ImageThrowback to Lilly’s kittenhood 🙂