First PR of the Year

Date: January 21, 2015

Author: astottler

Happy Wednesday! I’m blogging in the sunshine between classes. I have a few food pictures and a few recent workouts to share today.

Food

Monday morning, since I didn’t have class, I went out to brunch with friends.

I got a brie omelet with green onions and mushrooms. YUM. This may be a new favorite brunch plate, because I also want to try the goat cheese omelet!

I debated for a while whether to get hash browns or fruit. Next time I would do fruit-I guess I’m not a huge hash brown person, although these were good ones.

At breakfast, I’ve been making instant coffee a lot lately. It’s actually pretty good if you make it with just milk and no water. If I want less of a caffeine kick, I’ll do half a pack of it.

A giant cup of milk has been surprisingly filling, so I’ve kept the rest of breakfast a bit lighter. Whole wheat english muffin with cream cheese and eggs.

Yet another freezer meal-grilled chicken, balsamic brussels, and mashed yams.

I completely forgot to thaw a lunch for today, so I went to the dining halls t breakfast and grabbed the essentials for an egg sandwich-whole wheat english muffin, cream cheese, and hard boiled egg. Served with some grapes.

And then dinner last night was basic but solid. They had my favorite cabbage-miso salad, plus lemon caper salmon. There were also stuffed peppers but I wasn’t a fan, mostly because I don’t really like peppers.

Workouts

Monday: 1 rep max front squats at Crossfit. I PRed at 165#! ONLY 5# PR but I’ll take it! The conditioning portion was a little running, kettle bell swings, and fairly heavy dumbbell push presses.

Tuesday: Crossfit-over head squats and toes to bar (knees to elbow) for strength, and a pretty tough conditioning workout.

AMRAP 15

10 Wall Ball (14#)
20 Double Under
10 DB Snatch (25#)

I did actual double unders- and those gassed me! I’ve randomly made a double under breakthrough recently, and they’ve been pretty good. The downside? I whipped myself. A lot. Pretty badly. I think it’s a cute look.

I was supposed to do a tempo run that evening but I had a lot of school work. I have a race in 1.5 weeks and I’m feeling pretty unprepared!

Wednesday: 6 mile run. Since I skipped my tempo run, I picked it up a bit at the turnaround point, and did a mile at a fairly fast clip (definitely not race pace though). So….a week and a half to get fast…?

How do you work on speed?

Santa Run 2014

Date: December 15, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! Is anyone else done with finals and on winter break yet? It’s an amazing feeling! It’s been a rainy week here in California, although I was lucky to get some sun for my 5k!

Yesterday, I did the Silicon Valley Santa Run, which is in its 3rd year. This is also my 3rd year doing it! It’s a fun race that raises money for Christmas in the Park in San Jose, which is a fun holiday setup they do every year.

This year.

Last year.

2 years ago.

It’s turned into a fun holiday tradition for my family. There are lots of kids running the race, and tons of people dress up as Santa!

I knew I wasn’t in the best speed shape, and an afternoon race (3pm start) was not ideal for eating, so I didn’t have too many expectations for myself. I wanted to stay in the 8:3xs and ended with a pace of 8:40, so I’ll take it. Th run flew by! 5ks seem so short!

At the finish line, we were greeted by “snow” plus milk and cookies.

We then explored Christmas in the Park.

To start-a chocolate tamale! It was really good-sort of like a corny less sweet brownie?

I got a coin in the mouth!

It was a really festive way to kick off the season!

For dinner post-race, we made a teriyaki chicken salad from Cooking Light, served with brown rice/quinoa.

The red comes from heirloom spinach!

For dessert, I made gingerbread bars. I think I found the recipe on Buzzfeed?

They were supposed to separate and be custard on the bottom, cake on top. It only sort of did that, but that was fine! They sort of had the texture of pumpkin pie.

Since this post is long, I’ll save a food/what I’ve been doing recap for another time!

What have you done to get in the holiday spirit?

Skipping Burpees

Date: November 18, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Do you ever have one of those days when you just feel like you killed your workouts?

That was yesterday for me. I’m loving these afternoon treadmill runs!

I did my heavy squats, and then I knocked out a treadmill speedy run. I started with 2 miles at an 8:00 pace. This is big for me, since I haven’t run fast much lately! I’m hoping to slowly increase this distance-honestly it’s harder mentally than physically! So maybe if I do that I’ll have some hope of being prepared for the turkey trot? I followed those 2 miles with 5 intervals-2:00 @ 7:30, 2 min walking. I covered 4 miles total. It felt amazing. After all that running though, I made sure to come back and ice my foot right away! I’m pretty sure my feet like the extra cushion of the treadmill.

In terms of food, yesterday was pretty clean cut.

Breakfast part 1: cranberry orange bread (so good!!).

Breakfast part 2:

Lunch: Leftover Goat Cheese Souffle+ roasted carrots and a persimmon.

Snack immediately post run: coconut covered date roll.

After my workout, I was pretty ravenous for dinner. I had a salad with BBQ chicken, more veggies, and then I went back for a roll on the side.

I also snacked on a protein bar plus some cheese and crackers later on!

So…last night I managed to be really dumb and somehow totally wiped out…in my room…Our beds are sort of raised, so I either have to jump up and down or use a chair. I tend to only use a chair when I’m lazy, which apparently I was. Somehow while I was stepping off the chair I lost my balance, and my other leg got caught on the back of the chair, so I had no where to go but down-I ended up falling pretty hard on my knee. Luckily I was wearing pants, but I still have pretty bad carpet burn plus a bruise. The only upside? It meant there was no way I was doing burpees during this morning’s Crossfit workout. I subbed 1 squat+1push up for each burpee….which was definitely much preferred!

When was the last time you wiped out?

Reasons to Back Out of a Race

Date: October 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys!

Today’s post is going to be a bit different. Since I missed my race last weekend and am 100% happy with the decision, I thought I’d post on some of the reasons why it might make sense to back out of a race.

1. You are injured. This was the reason I backed out. While I MAY have been able to tough it out, it simply wasn’t worth it, and running has felt 100% better.

2. You risk serious injury. This can apply to a lot of things. I was worried that with my limpy gait, I was going to get a secondary injury, or even a stress fracture. This could even apply to poor running conditions. If your race is on a muddy trail during a rainstorm and you are prone to slipping, it might make sense to back out.

3. Extreme weather, especially if you aren’t trained in it. If you trained in 60 degree weather all season and then show up to 100 degree temps on race day, it might make sense to rethink whether or not the race would be safe.

4. You are sick. While sometimes you can push through an illness, a lot of times it isn’t worth it to tough out a miserable race, leaving you more ill than before.

5. Life gets in the way. Maybe it’s a family thing, maybe it’s a huge opportunity. While training for a race may be a big part of life, it isn’t all of life. Sometimes it needs to take a backseat.

Have you ever skipped a race? Why?

Freaking Out

Date: October 1, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So, I’ve been freaking out a lot lately.

First, I freaked out over pumpkins. And of course pumpkin products. And while I’m mentioning that, I tried a pumpkin Oreo! It was ok. It didn’t really taste pumpkin-y to me but it wasn’t bad. It tasted like cinnamon graham crackers.

Then, I freaked out over this box my roommate brought in.

Yep, it’s the start of persimmon season! OMG. These are still very early but some are ripe now likely due to the drought. You guys. These are amazing. My roommate lives in farm country and brought back a ton last winter. I probably ate 4 a day. Obsessed.

Now, I’m freaking out over post-season baseball. The game is still going so I don’t want to jinx anything but GO GIANTS! I’m watching alone in my dorm lounge and I screamed so loudly when the grand slam was hit! I’m seriously so happy right now. Fingers crossed this game keeps going well. I’m a huge Giant’s fan and one of my summer highlights was seeing the Giants play in DC.

(AHHHH ANOTHER BASE HIT AND RUN AS I WRITE THIS!!!)

In other news, it’s October! Yay! I’m also obsessed with fall/holidays. My friends and I are thinking of throwing a Halloween party and I’M SO EXCITED! (Sensing a theme here?)

It’s also officially time to bring out the candy bowl.

In other, other news, who celebrated National Coffee Day? I started Tuesday morning with a beautiful latte (and proceeded to be on the edge of over caffeinated. I have zero tolerance now.)

And then that evening, my sister and I had a coffee date and took advantage of free coffee (in honor of National Coffee Day). I most definitely got decaf.

In terms of food, breakfasts have been yogurt bowls. This one had plain yogurt, maple sunflower seed butter (from the Farmer’s Market), and blueberries.

I also made it to the dining hall for lunch yesterday, and had a panini and salad.

And then today, I had class straight through lunch so in the afternoon, I stopped by a cafe and picked up a turkey, cranberry, and brie sandwich.

And my first pumpkin product of fall (I think). This appeared to be a pumpkin and carrot muffin.

In terms of fitness, yesterday evening was Crossfit, where we worked on cleans, and then did the following WOD:

15 minute AMRAP:

5 db push press

5 front squat (I used 95#)

200m run

12 pull ups

Then, this morning I was up bright and early for 7am Crossfit because it looked like a good workout and there was no way I was missing the game this evening for Crossfit.

The conditioning portion was 3 rds:

400m run

21 wall balls

18 push press

15 sit ups

It was a great way to start the day!

In terms of life, I can’t promise how much I’ll be blogging in the near future. I’m taking computer science this quarter for the first time, and it’s quite time intensive. Or more specifically, after coding for 4 hours straight hours, the last thing I want to do is spend more time on the computer. It’s bad. Once I’m working on something, I literally cannot stop. I dragged myself away last night after 4 straight hours to go to Crossfit, and when I got up I could barely see straight! I think this past assignment took me 12 hours. And that’s only the first assignment. Soo we shall see.

Also, my race was supposed to be this weekend. While seeing the emails makes me a little sad, I don’t regret the decision at all. My feet feel 1000x better and I have made plans that should make up for it!

Have you taken CS? Any advice?

Who’s excited for October? Baseball team you’re rooting for?