MIMM-Guacamole Sunday

Date: February 2, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Monday! Today I will be linking up with the fabulous Katie for MIMM!

Today’s post will focus on all things guacamole-including my race!

I’ll back up to Saturday night-I went to a hall dinner for my dorm, and we went to a fabulous (and very dark) Mediterranean type of place. So here are so really poor quality pictures of my chicken shish kabob plate. But everything was delicious!

I went to bed an early as I could given it was a Saturday night and I live on a college campus. In the morning, I quickly scarfed down breakfast-a homemade granola bar.

Oats, banana, chia seeds, cocoa powder, coconut flour. For some reason this was less bland than when I made it last time!

This morning was one of the first times all winter that it rained. We’re in a drought-so who would have thought a race day would have gotten poured on? I was suited up in my best attempt at an intimidation outfit-all black. I was there to race! When we arrived, I picked up my bib and promptly headed into a coffeeshop to stay warm until the start. It was a really small race, so there was no issue arriving at the start at the last minute.

We used the coffeeshop as an opportunity for a dry photo opp. Because it’s not a race unless there are tons of pictures to prove it.

Then, I bundled back up to go to the starting line. I clearly chose the best day for shorts. But if I’m getting wet anyways, what does it matter?

My mom always likes to take awkward pictures of me stretching:

Also, I’m pretty sure I’m the least attractive person ever running.

I decided to go out not stupidly on this race. My goal was to hit an 8:00 pace for the first 2 miles, and then turn it up as much as possible at the end, which would give me a PR. I hit the first mile around that, but as soon as I reached the turnaround point, I realized this was definitely not going to be a PR race-the rain and wind had picked up quite a bit, and I was running into a really strong headwind. I felt like I was pushing, but not really going anywhere. So I shifted my goals from PRing to racing. I felt really good for two miles, and not too badly like death at the end. I finished in 25:32, which was I think 4 seconds faster than my 5k in December. But I consider that a major win, given the weather conditions today.

Even more marvelous? It really was a win! I got first place in my age group! There was supposed to be a fancy ceremony with a band and everything, but the weather did not permit that. Instead, I had to tough out the weather for about half an hour extra, but I couldn’t care less! I got my winner’s cup!

And then we rushed inside for some warm food and a change of clothes. Yay for a free race shirt! Bonus: it says “I earned my guacamole” on the back.

At Panera, my mom and I shared the tomato and feta soufflé (I just ate the insides out).

And I had turkey chili.

As for the Super Bowl, I watched the first half but to be honest, I wasn’t into it. I was rooting for the Broncos just because I don’t like the Seahawks, but I’m not really a fan of Payton Manning, so definitely not my favorite match up. I didn’t eat anything during the game, but here are the before and after snacks.

We got goat gouda at Whole Foods the other day, and it’s so delicious! And bonus-I found crackers (Mary’s) that basically just have seeds and brown rice-score!

For after the game (or after I gave up watching), I had to have my guacamole-I earned it! I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

And ate it with some more crackers and carrots.

Overall, a pretty darn good day! Sadly though, my Chemistry is most certainly not studied for Tuesday’s midterm….at all. I’m off to the library now-have a Marvelous day!

Favorite Super Bowl commercial?

Thanksgiving Eve

Date: November 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

If you’re reading this on Thanksgiving, then Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to pop in quickly to share some eats from Thanksgiving Eve (it’s currently Wednesday night).

Today was our last day in Napa. We decided to go out for a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I ordered fruit with yogurt, which was of course delicious.

What really stole the show was the Belgian waffle. Can you believe I hadn’t had a waffle in months? I haven’t had one at school yet-it used to be a weekly thing! My closest dining hall doesn’t have frozen blueberries to top it with (so totally not worth it) and the lines at the other dining hall WITH the berries are insane, so that’s not happening. But this little guy was fantastic! My family ordered one for the table to share.

Topped with vanilla berry compote.

On our way into downtown, we made a stop at Whole Foods-the granola bar I wanted to eat before my Turkey Trot is no longer carried by my local Whole Foods-sadly we struck out in Napa as well so I’m going into the race on an untested breakfast (YOLO). However, we did see that this Whole Foods had a coffee bar, and decided it would probably be a good idea to test it out.

A cappuccino-of course. I also tried some of my mom’s Pumpkin Spice Caramel latte, and I actually really liked it! I normally can’t do sweet coffee, but this wasn’t too sweet (ok, or that coffee-y). Maybe next time!

After walking around downtown, we stopped in an interesting marketplace for lunch. We decided on a Venezuelan place, and each ordered an arepa.

It should be no surprise that mine had avocado! It also had tofu, plaintain, black bean, and garlic aioli, all on a sweet corn “bun.” Delish!

And since we were in a marketplace, there were plenty of dessert options. I had a pumpkin pie cupcake-it was filled with caramel! I probably could have done without the buttery icing though!

And on our way out, we stopped at an Italian bakery for what were more or less cream puffs-mine was milk and honey.

Dinner later was a new to me flavor of kombucha, plus broccoli and an omelet with mushrooms, spinach, and gouda.

And of course, I’m enjoying plenty of love from this guy.

Now, I’m off to hopefully fall asleep and dream of trotting turkeys! I have my playlist made (which may or may not be half Christmas music), my clothes laid out, and my alarm set! Now I just need to get sleepy…maybe I’ll go read my textbook for school-that should do the trick! Yayy finals in a week.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy your Turkey Trots, but make sure to take in all the precious family time you can get!

Ghost Run

Date: October 26, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

We made it to the weekend! Woohoo! I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m about ready for a nap. But let’s go through the past day first, shall we?

I stayed up too late on Thursday night. I wanted to make a spin class for Friday morning, but I decided to do a “Spin Challenge” instead. Which is another way of saying I was too tired to make a class, so I’d throw a ton of songs together and wing it-it was practice making up a routine on the spot.

My Friday morning started off with a crash and a bang. As in, I fell off my bike. At the bike racks. And it was not moving. Yeahhh it was too early….

Anyways, the playlist turned out really well, and I really enjoyed the class I made.

One thing about making a class on the spot is you get to go with whatever feels right on the bike in that sequence-it’s much harder to think about all the rhythms when I’m not on a bike. When I’m making real classes, I might actually take me notecard to the gym and write everything out as I go. The only problem? I started cooling it down on Song 15….and then another song came on. Whoops.

One tendency I have is to spend a lot of time in the saddle when I’m making classes myself. If I’m leading classes like that, everyone will hate me. So I tried to work on that a little bit. Another thing-I feel like I get a better workout when I’m doing a class I made than the classes I go to here. I can’t tell if I’m pushing harder on my own because I’m distracted by all the choreography or if I just make different/harder classes.

Nothing noteworthy happened the rest of the day. But TODAY I woke up and ran a 5k! It was a Ghost Run (and I think the name is super cute given Brooks sponsored it!), so everyone dressed in costume, which was AWESOME. Not going to lie, it was great having such a low key race. And short. Last night, I stayed up late and ate cheese fries (not sure how I feel about them….), and I lifted heavy weights in Crossfit. Not exactly the best pre-race practice, but it didn’t matter! Plus, I could haven whatever I wanted pre-race since it wasn’t 13.1 miles.

Pumpkin bread from the freezer.

I was a baseball player. That should be no surprise, given my previous years’ costumes.

Just for fun, why don’t we look at some costumes from the past few years?

Super awkward photo of me from last year.

Sophomore year of high school. Junior year I looked the same too…

Anyways, back to the race! I ran it with a friend, so I just went her pace the whole time.

They had some pre-race food-mini bagels and black and orange fortune cookies-so cute!

There was one family who went all out-check it out!

Too cute!

10am…

And then we were off! We ran through neighborhood areas-the trees were so pretty!

There were a lot of houses decorated for Halloween!

Along the way, there were “ghosts” you had to catch who would give you prizes!

Here’s one!

I ended up with these:

And before we knew it, there was the finish line!

This was such a fun race! I love Halloween and dressing up-it was convenient my go-to costume was so runnable! AND, this was my first run post-half marathon! How did it feel? Not bad-the feet behaved. I thought my calf was sore…but then remembered it’s just a bruise from falling off my bike. My legs were kind of heavy from not enough sleep and Crossfit last night, but overall it was good!

On a semi-related note, my knee has been hurting since yesterday afternoon. It feels like it’s hyperextended (so running is fine-walking kinda hurts). I finally figured out it’s probably from…you guessed it, falling off my bike.

After the race, we went out for brunch.

This was good, but a little dry for my taste!

Aaaand just now I decided I should actually have some vegetables and protein so I made myself what turned out to be an incredibly spicy Mexican salad at the dining hall.

I’ve been really bad about eating “real food” lately. When I’m in my dorm or in a rush, it’s so easy to just grab a bar, or a slice of pumpkin bread, or chocolate milk. I have definitely not been eating enough veggies!

Yesterday, I didn’t have time to run to the dining hall for an egg, so my protein source was a “protein shake.” If you take the word “shake” literally! I found vanilla Designer Whey protein, at CVS of all places. I’ve been wanting it for a while, so I bought some. I ended up mixing it with almond milk, Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice chai mix, and sunflower seed butter, and shaking it up in my water bottle. It was delicious! If I had more time in the morning, I would have thrown some actual pumpkin in there too!

Ok, I think it is most definitely nap time for me. I have a full to-do list for this weekend-including laundry, vacuuming, and rearranging/cleaning my room. My plans for this afternoon are to go hole up in a local coffeeshop and do homework all day.

Have a great weekend!

What is your favorite Halloween costume?

Currently Pumped

Date: August 2, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Audrey tagged me in this survey and I thought it would tie nicely in to this weekend’s big event! My race!

First a couple of things-for some reason my Internet has been down off and on at home so if I don’t reply to your comments right away, that’s why!

Also, I messed around with the look of my blog and in the end decided on a new header. Thoughts?

Currently

Current Book:

This is super interesting. It has random facts (some surprising) about exercise. It talks about HIIT training. While I’ve heard of HIIT, this goes in to some of the studies that prove that it works. It discusses one study: mice are made to swim for 3 hours straight. Then they rest for 45 minutes before swimming for another 3 hours. The scientists measure the changes in muscle fibers as a result of this endurance training. Another group of mice is made to swim for 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, 14 times, with a weighted vest. This is a total of 4.5 minutes of work (vs. 6 hours). The muscles of both groups of mice showed the same changes, despite one group exercising for a fraction of the time. Crazy!

And can we take a second to appreciate a) a mouse’s ability to swim. 3 hours straight?? I couldn’t do that! and b) how cute a little weighted mouse vest would be.

Current music

Here’s a sneak peek of my race day playlist! It’s funny. I’m not a huge fan of pop in general, but I do like working out to it. I tried picking the most upbeat songs…ever. It’s going to be a long race!

Also, I’m slightly obsessed with Spanish music. Any time a Spanish song comes on anywhere, I know it. Spanish pop=awesome.

Current Guilty Pleasure

Naps. Specifically naps with my cat. Since it’s summer and my schedule is pretty flexible, there’s absolutely no reason to be sleep deprived, even if I’m waking up super early for spin. Post-spin nap? Best thing ever.

Current nail color

None. For some reason it drives me crazy to have my finger nails painted. Toe nails are a different story, but I haven’t painted them since spring break…whoops.

Current drink:

Water at the moment (I seriously can’t go 15 minutes without it…) but this morning a chocolate banana protein smoothie. 1 banana, 1/2 cup almond milk, pinch of xantham gum, a little spinach, cocoa powder, chocolate protein powder, and LOTS of ice. Perfection.

Current food

I have to admit, I’ve been slightly obsessed with Laughing Cow lately. It’s awesome in eggs, polenta, and my new favorite, with carrots. I can’t wait to try Audrey‘s idea-in a turkey burger!

Current TV show

My family and I don’t watch anything except Giant’s games on TV, but we have a ton of DVDs of TV shows. Our current obsession is Veronica Mars (which is a few years old). Something about a detective show mixed with high school drama is so addictive. This is also why I may have slacked on the blogging front lately…

Current wish list

Chobani’s new flavors! Specifically coconut! It’s so depressing.

Also, a black kitten (like this guy I fell in love with yesterday).

I was raised having only black cats, and I really miss them!

They have so much…personality.

Current needs

See above?

Haha.

Hmm I probably need some back to school clothes. Nothing I need that is too pressing at the moment.

Current Indulgence

I’m going to go with a) mango logs-seriously SO good.

and b) dark chocolate.

I wouldn’t consider this in and of itself an indulgence, but it high quantities, then yes it is. High enough quantities to keep me up all night? Oops…It’s surprisingly high in caffeine….

Current blessing

That my calf is feeling pretty good for this weekend!

Current excitement

This weekend’s race! SO PUMPED. I get to go to the expo tomorrow to pick up my race packet! People keep telling me that the race will go by quickly, it’ll be over before I know it. Hah. I don’t believe that for one second. 13.1 miles is a lottt. But I guess for rowing, everyone said a 6k would be over fast, and it really was. Of course, that’s only like 25 minutes…

For this race, I had a goal pace in mind-I know I shouldn’t have since this is my first half but whatever. I trained with that pace in mind, and given how my last few long runs went, I probably would have made it. However, given the state of my calf, I need to back off the pace and go slowww. So goodbye pace goal, hello hope of walking within a few weeks of the race. Haha. I mean hey, I have another half in October, I can run fast then!

And with that, have a great Friday and weekend folks!

Have you ever run a half? Any last minute tips?