^officially 1/4 of a vet!

In the past week and a half I: went to a wedding in DC. Spent time at home in the Bay Area. Moved to Nashville. Whaaat? It’s been a crazy couple of weeks to say the least. So before I start with the Nashville posts, I wanted to recap my DC trip! It was a whirlwind for sure, but so fun!

I basically went straight from my final to the airport. I was traveling alone, but my friend had a flight out around the same time as I did so we got celebratory beers.

I didn’t get to DC until midnight thanks to the time change. I slept in Saturday morning (does it count as sleeping in if you’re on the wrong time zone?) and then headed out for a few of my favorite DC things: monument run and Sweetgreen. Can you believe it’s been 4 years already since I lived there?

I mostly stayed at a hotel nearish the airport, on the blue line of the metro (which was under construction all weekend so the delays were crazyyy). For my run, I took the metro to Arlington Cemetery, and then ran from there.

^ducklings!

It was really crowded so I definitely had to walk in some sections because of all the people.

It was also quite warm and humid! I definitely missed these sights though! I ended my run at the Sweetgreen in Foggy Bottom (the area I lived). I got a beet and goat cheese salad with chicken and wild rice, and balsamic dressing. SO good.

When I got back, I picked up a rental car to drive to Maryland for the wedding. It was held about 30 minutes outside of DC, and the drive was terrifying. Look, I’m a good driver. I’ve driven in Southern California. I’ve driven in San Francisco. But this drive….not fun. The roads were confusing and the drivers were so unpredictable! I had a terrifying moment when another car swerved into my lane, nearly into me, out of nowhere. Thankfully, I arrived at the hotel safe and sound, and got myself ready to go to the black tie wedding!

It was held at a beautiful mansion. It was supposed to be outside, but minutes before we were supposed to be seated, the skies fell and it started POURING. They had a wonderful back up indoor area, and it was a beautiful, intimate ceremony!

Congratulations Jenni! We went to undergrad together and I knew this couple from the very start!

Sunday morning, I packed everything into my backpack (yes, including my floor length dress), checked out of my hotel, and dropped off my car. I decided that Sunday afternoon would be my Georgetown time (read: cupcake time), so I took the metro into Rosslyn and had a quick lunch at The Little Beet. It’s similar to Sweetgreen, but different flavors. I got a bowl with chicken, brussels sprouts with cranberries,  pickled onions, avocado white bean spread, and chimichurri sauce. It was one of their suggested bowls, and while there were a lot of flavors going in, they worked together!

I then walked across the bridge into Georgetown, straight to Baked and Wired! The Georgetown Cupcake line wasn’t too long either, and I honestly probably should have stopped there too…

I got the one gluten free cupcake option, which was vanilla with chocolate chips!

So good!

Then, I walked along the waterfront and settled on some big steps to read my book for a little bit.

At this point, the sky was getting DARK and I thought for sure I would get poured on. Somehow though, it held out. I checked back into my original hotel and relaxed for a few hours before heading out into the drizzly weather to go to Alexandria. Old Town Alexandria is super cute, and wasn’t too long of a metro ride from where I was staying. I went to Le Pain Quotidien for dinner, another place on my “must gos” for my trip. I got a chicken and mozzarella tartine on their delicious seedy GF bread.

When i saw there was a Kilwin’s in Alexandria, I knew I needed to stop. I went to one in St Charles (near St. Louis) for ice cream and it left an impression! I got the salted caramel, which comes with chocolate covered pieces of caramel! I actually ate this outside in the rain because there wasn’t anywhere inside to sit. Worth it!

After dinner and dessert, I had a relaxing night in at the hotel. When planning this trip, it was tempting to try and fit in 101 things into the short 2.5 days, but I eventually decided that I was going to be exhausted post-finals so I decided to try and make it a little more relaxing.

Monday, my flight left in the afternoon so I didn’t have a ton of time to do things. Since it was Memorial Day and Murph is legitimately one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, I decided to drop back into Crossfit Foggy Bottom to do it. That was my box when I lived in DC, and although I don’t think any of the same people were there, it was good to be back! The interesting part of this Crossfit is that it’s in the basement of a fancy hotel! That made the running of Murph a little more interesting…we had to run through the locker room and then the hotel lobby, and up stairs to go outside! I wasn’t super concerned about my time, I just wanted to do the workout, so the time difference as a result was fine. This workout is a great reminder to remember those who have served and lost their lives.

The workout went well for me. it just doesn’t crush me in the same way it used to. Plus, my pull ups just get better every year. I maintained sets of 5 until the very last round. And my legs didn’t feel quite as heavy on the second run as they have in the past! I think one of the worst Murphs I had was when I did it with a semi-broken foot (the boot came off later that week)….I hadn’t squatted at all in a month or so, and 300 squats after all that time off….ouch.

Thanks to the humidity and 100 pull ups, I was a sweaty chalk monster at the end!

This Crossfit is part of a gym with fancy showers, so I was able to get cleaned up there before traveling!

I made a couple more stops before arriving at the airport. First off, Sweetgreen one more time! I got the Guacamole Greens and subbed sweet potatoes for the onions.

And the final stop? Shake Shack. Their frozen custard is SO good. When I was in Philadelphia in the middle of winter, I ventured into sub-freezing temperatures at night just to get some! I got the vanilla concrete with hot fudge.

Then, it was back home for 4 short days!

Nashville recap coming soon!

Memorial Day is a time to remember and honor those who have served. Thank you.

When we left off, I was getting ready for my freshman dorm reunion on Saturday evening.

I had a lot of fun at the reunion, but left with sort of strange feelings.

Dinner was delicious. I was trying to be careful with my stomach so I didn’t eat a lot, but would totally go back to the catering restaurant at a later date.

Make your own tacos! Mine with chicken and veggie filling.

It was great catching up with people. I actually saw the end of the Warriors game with a table of guys who were streaming it. I did find myself mostly talking to the people I’m still in touch with though.I guess there’s a reason we’ve stayed in touch! I actually think I’m still pretty close to all my good friends from freshman year.

I left a bit early to hang out with another friend, and I feel like I missed out on a bit of fun, as everyone migrated back to visit our freshman dorm. I think it’s probably for the best because walking clear across campus in a boot wouldn’t have been a good idea, but I missed hanged out with those people.

After spending the evening being careful with my stomach, I actually had a really, really bad flare Saturday night after I got back. Our chef made GF chocolate cake, and my friend made me GFG snickerdoodle cupcakes, and I just had too much, and the fat in them sent me into a bad flare. On the one hand, I do feel like my stomach has healed a ton. But this is a reminder I have to be careful. Now, pretty much every flare or mini flare I have, there’s a clear cause, and in this case it was the fat in the cake/frosting. I had a pretty rough night. I had to stay up far later than planned because I was too nauseated to get in bed. Finally after a second dose of stomach meds, I started feeling better. Luckily, I woke up feeling much better, although tired.

Sunday morning, I went to another farmer’s market with a couple of friends. I’ve always heard that there were kittens there, but I never actually saw them until this week. How adorable!

I got a large quantity of fruit (after 2 days of farmer’s markets, I’m totally stocked), and my friends and I stopped at one of the stands for lunch. It was a sandwich place, but you could get it as a “paleo plate” over lettuce with an egg, instead of bread, so that’s what I did! I got the avocado, which was mashed avocado and fresh mozzarella. SUPER delicious.

After the farmer’s market, I stopped at a sorority alumnae brunch to celebrate my chapter’s birthday. We had bagels and died tea, and it was nice to catch up with those who have graduated, and hear about life in the real world.

Monday, I went home to clean out my closet. Both my home Crossfit and school Crossfit were doing Murph, which is one of my favorite Crossfit workouts. I had a tough decision as to which gym I should do it at, and ultimately decided to do it at home. I was happy with that choice; it feels like summer now, it was great to see everyone, and now I’m a bit more excited for summer (aka post-grad).

Since I have a stress fracture in my foot, I had to modify. I figured I could do push ups and pull ups, so I was at least half way there! For those of your unfamiliar with Murph, it is a hero WOD typically done every memorial day. It is:

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

The pull ups, push ups, and squats can be broken up however you want, but most people do 5-10-15.

I knew I would have to sub the assault bike for the runs, but wan’t sure about the squats. I can do deadlifts because the weight is entirely on my heels, but I’ve stayed away from squats. I decided to see how it felt. If I felt like it was at all unsafe for my foot, I planned to switch to sit ups in place of squats. As it turned out, the squats were fine, I just couldn’t rush them.

This was my fourth time doing Murph. (Just for fun, here, here, and here.)

So how did it go? Let’s just start by remembering that I haven’t done a single squat in 4 weeks. Moving on.

I did 3 miles on the bike for the mile run, which took about 9 minutes. I used a band for the pull ups and did strict, but it actually felt really easy, so about halfway through (round 10 of 20) I started doing kipping no-band pull ups for 3-5 of my sets of 5. I honestly probably could/should have ditched the band for the whole workout and just done kipping pull ups the whole way, but it really surprised me that I felt as good as I did. I’ve definitely gotten stronger since hurting my foot: before, I could only string together 3 kips, and now I can do 5, even in round 20! The push ups I scaled on my knees, and they actually felt much easier than expected as well. Next year, I hope to do the workout unscaled!

For the squats, they felt hdd but less awful than they could have been.

I finished Murph in about 51:00. One of my slower times, but I have no problem with that! I was so happy I was able to do what I did. Murph is one of my favorites, as I mentioned, and was really the only exercise thing I was sad about missing out on with my foot.

Boot takes on Murph.

Afterwards, I went home, ready for some PROTEIN. We had grilled chicken and peach salad with goat cheese, plus some baked Lays on the side while watching the Giant’s game.

After cleaning myself up, I made a recipe I’ve had bookmarked for a while, Blueberry Zucchini bread.

It came out beautifully, and was delicious! Although its 1/2c of sugar is a little higher than I’m used to, so I think it would still be great with 1/3 of a cup!

My main task/reason for going home was to clean out my closet before I dump a whole bunch of stuff from school there. I’m entering a new stage of my life, so it’s out with the old! I think I made pretty decent progress. Someone decided to be oh so helpful. In denial that she is not a lap dog.

A few nights again, my friends and I had a little Pinterest party, and I learned they had entire boards devoted to soup. Um, YES. Soup was courtesy of my friend Kate’s pin. Sweet potato, kale, and corn chowder. Served with GF avocado toast.

I love that despite having soup more or less every week, I’m still finding new and different recipes!

I watched about an hour of the Warriors game, before rushing back to campus for my last sorority initiation.

And now it’s back to reality. Sort of. I only have classes Tuesday and Wednesday this week before finals start Friday, and only have 1 class Tuesdays. Summer is so close! Not sure how I feel about impending graduation though….

Also, if you’re wondering whether or not you should do 300 squats after not doing them in a month, the answer is a solid no. I’m in a world of pain! Last night (Monday), I wasn’t feeling too bad, but throughout Tuesday I’m growing progressively more and more immobile. My quads are just LIT UP right now. Stairs are the mortal enemy. Both up and down. Between that and the boot, it’s rough walking! My arms/shoulders actually aren’t crazy sore, though the soreness is starting to come in a little stronger. Nothing compared to legs though. I basically don’t want to move at all. For a while.

(Want to see the aftermath of past memorial day Murphs? Here and here.)

Have you ever done Murph? What’s the hardest part for you?

I’m currently in the process of doing my stats homework and deleting pictures from my phone. It was brought to my attention a couple of times in the past week that it is not normal to have over 8000 pictures on your phone so I’m working on that. Also I have an embarrassing number of selfies, and that’s kind of obnoxious. I’ve only made it through like 1000-it’s going to take a while!

I haven’t done a very normal blog post lately. I feel like I’ve just sort of been a zombie, and to be honest nothing too exciting has been going on! I’m just in that end of quarter grind right now.

So…food pictures?

This is what I’ve been having for lunch. A salad with chicken (grilled from home this week!) and hummus which you can’t see. Plus a fruit bar for something sweet!

After lunch today I was craving cake. But I didn’t have cake so I went back to my room and ate a banana and a million blackberries.

At breakfast today I finally tried coffee for the first time since my stomach issues! “Try” is a bit of a generous term here. I had like 1/3 packet of instant decaf in a mug of soy milk. So not a lot of coffee, but it was nice to have a warm beverage that vaguely reminded me of coffee! And my stomach didn’t die which is always a plus.

Last night after spin I stopped at Safeway for a salad for dinner because it was on my way back. I had a BBQ ranch salad with chicken, and then I got froyo because it was next door and it’s the best froyo ever.

The last food picture I have is dinner tonight! Caesar salad, grilled chicken, roasted carrots.

The little cup is cheesy potatoes with corn but I wasn’t really feeling it.

So that’s what is up with me right now. Nothing fun or exciting unfortunately! 2 weeks until summer though!

So I went home this morning. I had planned to do Murph with home Crossfit. It’s actually my favorite Crossfit WOD. But then I thought they weren’t doing it so I signed up for a spin class. Turns out they were after all. Merp. It was a great spin class! Lots of push ups and arm stuff though. Then I went for a walk with my friend to catch up. She’s out of school and I’m jealous! We saw cats.

I then came home and ate a Grilled Chicken and Peach salad+sweet potato chips and s’mores.

And then I found out my regular Crossfit was ALSO doing Murph and despite killing my legs and arms that morning I couldn’t exactly pass that up. It ended up not feeling too bad despite the fact that I had done a lot that morning plus was sore from my run the previous day, but I was SLOW. I finished in 54:17. Which is significant given my best time is 44:xx. My running has gotten pretty slow lately as well which is fine for now. But I used a much smaller band for the pull ups so that was cool! The push ups were what killed me the most by far and I even did them on my knees….

The mistake I made was frantically scrambling around post-Murph stressing and rushing to an event that I didn’t really get to eat. When I finally got to the event, my body started freaking out and my blood sugar crashed and it was kind of scary. Luckily I had a Luna bar in my car and some chocolate soy milk that I threw in my bag post-workout which made me feel much better. I feel like normally this wouldn’t have been quite such a problem but with the sleep debt and stress and lingering illness it was just not good or smart.

And now it’s back to work. Or sleep. Just over 2 weeks left!

(Source)

I also want to spend a moment honoring those killed in the Santa Barbara shooting. This truly is a horrific thing, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for the students there. They are all in my thoughts!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! I had a pretty busy one-not a million pictures but packed with fun, friends, and family! As we speak, I’m fighting heavy eyelids, and it’s still early!

Friday night was a retreat for my sorority. The girl’s house we stayed at had a wood burning oven, which was awesome!

And a cat-even more awesome!

Here are some other Friday food pics: cappuccino, berries+banana+sunbutter, and dining hall lunch.

Saturday morning, I drove the early car back to campus and went to 10am Crossfit. The workout included lots of ring dips, ring rows, and burpees, plus a long farmer’s carry at the end! (Farmer’s carry is holding a heavy weight-I had 2 20kilo kettle bells!)

Saturday was spent doing housekeeping related things-I FINALLY got a car wash, cleaned, and did some laundry.

I then proceeded to stay up much too late prior to an early morning run. I went home to run with Crossfit people there-at one of my favorite places to run! It’s the trail I did all my long runs on last summer!

I did 6 pretty fast (for me) miles. Running with a group definitely makes me run faster than I would have otherwise! Our overall pace isn’t indicative of how we ran most of it, since the first mile was pretty slow. When I split off with a few other people from the main group, we picked up the pace quite a bit and ran most of it around a 9:15 pace.

I was definitely sore from this! I then returned home to visit my parents and kitties-but not before being convinced to spend the night at home so I could do Murph at my home Crossfit today.

I refueled with a simple egg sandwich and some of my mom’s leftover birthday cake.

After catching up with my parents, I was off to the mall for business casual shopping with my high school friends! The only picture I have from that was a froyo break.

Dinner with my family was a favorite of ours-BBQ chicken salad. The salad consists of chicken breast with barbecue sauce, on top of a salad of lettuce, fresh corn, red pepper, onion, tomato, avocado, and olive oil and lime juice.

I also managed to get plenty of kitty time! Although my allergies definitely flared up. Worth it!

Monday morning, I did” Murph”! Murph is  a Crossfit workout named after a fallen soldier, Mike Murphy, and is traditionally done at Crossfit boxes on Memorial Day. It’s one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, and consists of the following:

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

It’s one of the longest Crossfit workouts, and is recommended if you’re beastly to be done with a weighted vest (which I of course did not do).

I’ve done this workout once before. Like last time, I broke up the middle circuit into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups (banded), 10 push ups, and 15 squats. I was conservative on the run, but I’m definitely slower running than last time I did this (although my legs may have been a bit heavy from the previous day’s run). I was about 20 seconds off of last time on the first run, and significantly slower on the second. 300 squats makes the second mile feel like death! Although I didn’t beat my previous time (3 minutes off), I was the 3rd person to finish, and the first female! My time was 47:30. But here’s the super crazy part. The pull ups were so easy! I used the same band I always use for WODs, and it just never got difficult like I was expecting! So after I finished the workout and gulped down water, I figured, what the heck. I’ll try some unbounded pull ups. (If you’re keeping track, I’ve done one pull up once.) So, I just did it. And it wasn’t hard, at all. So I did another. And another. What…?!? It felt just like doing the banded pull ups! So I’ve clearly been slacking off! I think doing 100 pull ups with the band really honed in my kipping technique..or something. It was awesome though! I’m going to try to keep up this new found ability!

And here’s a group shot post-Murph.

Right before leaving this morning, I threw my experimental loaf in the oven. It was good, but still needs some work before it’s worth sharing. Any guess as to what it is?

After Crossfit, I refueled with some of that, plus some egg salad and roused carrots. No pic, so here’s breakfast pre-Murph: egg sandwich with Monterey Jack, on whole wheat.

And some of MY leftover birthday cake was consumed as well.

And now here I am! I may not have had the healthiest weekend in terms of sugar consumption, but it was definitely active-I got some great workouts in! And I loved the time spent with friends and family. Now, I just gotta push through these last few weeks until summer!

What did you do for the long weekend? 

A lot of people are doing reflections on the new year posts, but to be honest, I just don’t see the need, since I basically did the same thing for my Blogiversary. I’m also not really doing New Year’s Resolutions this year. I have some general goals and ideas of things I want to do or change in the future, but it’s more of a concept and the fact that I have no idea where my future lies in terms of exercise.

(Not relevant but I had to share this picture.)

I could set running goals, but I really don’t know what my running future holds. I want to PR a 5k this winter. I’m signed up for a half in April and am planning on one in the summer. But here’s the thing. I’m REALLY loving 5k training and speedwork and running fast. It’s fun. And right now it’s a little hard to look past the constant pain in my feet. I have tendonitis in my achilles, which is straining my feel and part of my arch, which is really painful. And that doesn’t include my mystery pain and numbness that comes with longer distances. I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks to hopefully begin treatment, but once again, it’s hard to look past this issue which for some reason popped up in the last couple of months. My 10 mile run a couple of weeks ago was painful and pretty much demolished my feet. In addition, I’m starting to get serious about teaching spin, and I have no clue where I want my weight lifting to go. 

But let’s back it up a little, shall we?

Yesterday morning I went to an abs class, which was really hard and I’m currently suffering from the aftermath. Then, I took some of my high school friends over to my college campus for a hike.

We tried to eat lunch at a couple of places on campus, but everything was closed. We ended up going off campus and making an amazing discovery-a little place that was pretty much an Indian food version of Chipotle! You could choose a bowl or a burrito type of thing, and choose rice, meat, sauces, and veggies.

My masterpiece was a bowl with brown rice, chicken, tikka sauce, yogurt sauce, date sauce, and veggies. So delicious! 

Then, we finally tried a fancy gourmet ice cream place called the Tin Pot. I sampled sweet cream with balsamic swirl, but ended up deciding on the San Francisco chocolate Tcho ice cream. Such a good decision.

All the ingredients were local, and the texture was insanely smooth. And in the cone was a little surprise-they fill the bottom of the cone with chocolate to keep the ice cream from dripping, and the chocolate at the bottom of our cones was still warm and gooey. 

That evening, I was off to Crossfit for Crossfit totals, with dreams of PRing. Crossfit totals is basically taking one rep maxes of the back squat, press, and deadlift. 

I haven’t done a ton of max lifting in the last year and a half, and I’m definitely lacking mentally here. It’s silly, but I get nervous for the lifts. However, after failing to PR my backsquat, probably due to lack of focus and losing some of my form, the nervousness turned to fire. I PRed my press my 10 pounds, and my deadlift by 30 pounds! For anyone interested, my total was 495 lbs, which is all the maxes of the three lifts added together. I’m really happy about this-I also feel that I would get a lot stronger at my home Crossfit. I may try the weightlifting class at my school Crossfit though. I love power lifting and I don’t think I get to do it quite as much at my school Crossfit. Anyways, this was a great end to 2013. It was funny-I only did a few reps of each exercise in the hour, and felt simultaneously like I was totally normal yet I was about to fall over. Lifting heavy is a strange thing! Dinner afterwards was a good one-turkey burgers with brussels sprouts and parmesan, and sweet potato rounds. 

This morning, I went back to Crossfit to tackle “Murph.” Murph is a hero workout, meaning it was named after a fallen soldier. Hero workouts are usually long and brutal. This one?

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

This might be one of my favorite Crossfit workouts ever. And I’m glad I was able to do it at home! There’s a lot of strategy involved with pacing. I did the first mile in 8:36, which I was super happy about because it felt good, and means my speed work is probably paying off! I broke the middle part into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats. The pull ups were with a fairly light band, and the push ups were form my knees since we have to touch our chests all the way to the ground! The squats made my legs very heavy by the end! I had to push hard to make the 45 minute cut off, and finished my last mile under 9:00, so that my overall time was 44:29. Another great workout conquered!

I spent the rest of the morning helping my mom take my kitties to the vet. Charlie is the biggest scaredy cat, and it was quite the task getting him into his crate. In the vet’s office, he hid in under the table the whole time. It’s so sad!

When we returned, lunch was leftover butternut squash soup with cheese and crackers. 

I guess I don’t want to set any fitness goals because I don’t know what my future holds. After my halfs, I may be done with distance running, at least for a while. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll run a marathon. I don’t want to torture myself through tons of long distances if my feet can’t take it! 

In terms of life goals, I guess I don’t see it as much as a new year, but more as a new quarter in school. In general, I just want to be more put together. I want my room organized, my homework always done ahead of time, productive hours in the library, healthy and balanced meals. I guess I also want to spend less time on my phone or the Internet-it makes me a little more unaware of the world, and my attention span is currently non-existent. I think I’d prefer to set aside a particular amount of time for reading blogs or social media, instead of having it leak into my life. 

As for tonight? My friend and I are going to San Francisco, which I am insanely excited about! 

Have an amazing night and be safe!