Here’s a throwback: does anyone remember when I trained at the Olympic Rowing training center?

They had a countdown clock down to the seconds. Crazy how that seemed insanely far away then, yet here we are!

All the plates in the cafeteria had the Olympic rings on them!

I’ve spent most of the weekend on the couch, between the Olympics and baseball. It’s been fantastic. I’m watching swimming as I type this up! Food and workouts have been good as well.

Friday morning Crossfit was heavy deadlifts, then conditioning: 1000m row, 30 thrusters, 30 dips, 1000m row.

Friday eats:

Corn chowder with white cheddar, and avocado toast. A classic.

Greek salad with chicken.

I’m sort of obsessed with halo top+leftover GF chocolate cake from the freezer.

These bars are really delicious. I like the blueberry one better, but they legitimately taste like pie.

Friday night, I got to hang out with my high school friends. It was so great to see everyone; it’s absolutely insane, but some of these people I hadn’t seen in 3 years! Time flies, doesn’t it?

Saturday morning, I went to Crossfit. The workout didn’t feel bad at the time but I’m actually pretty sore!

It was heavyish bench press, and then a team workout. For a team of 3, we split up 75 hand stand push ups, 75 pull ups, 75 GHD sit ups, and 75 pistols. We did 25 each, in sets of 5 or 10. For the push ups, I did them off a box. My shoulder still isn’t 100% from last year’s injury, and it turns out hand stand push ups are one of the few things that doesn’t feel great. For the pull ups, I went unbanded kipping and they weren’t too pretty by the final sets, because there wasn’t a lot of rest time. I did the pistols with assistance because flexibility and balance is not my forte.

I’ve been craving pancakes lately, so I finally made some for brunch afterwards.

I made them with a sweet potato base, and added oats, cinnamon, egg beaters, vanilla, and baking powder. I tried to blend them for a smoother texture but that wasn’t happening as it turns out because the blender didn’t have enough in it.

I got some greens in while they cooked up. I had a salad with ginger dressing.

Finished product! They didn’t have as much flavor as I was hoping; they could have probably used a pinch of salt, and more cinnamon. I remedied this by topping them with cinnamon sugar and Grade B maple syrup. Someday I would love to try Grade C, but you have to go to Canada to do that, as I understand it!

For snack, I made quite the throwback recipe. I don’t think I’ve made my banana chocolate chip custard in 3 years! I don’t know why—it took 2 minutes to whip up, and tasted delicious!

I had a pretty simple dinner—pizza on tortilla, some kale roasted with nutritional yeast, and a salad with fresh mozzarella.

For dessert, I finished off my chocolate Halo Top, with a dab of sunbutter. Kind of the chocolate pb ice cream.

That night, I drove down to see some of my college friends. It was so, so nice to see everyone again. I’m really trying to make the most of the 3 weeks I’m home! These people are awesome.

Also, I had the opportunity to cut a watermelon, which makes me unreasonably excited. I consider myself a professionally trained watermelon cutter, after learning at a fruit and veggie cutting workshop as part of my summer internship a few summers ago. I meant to do a tutorial post years ago. I’m not sure if I never actually wrote it (I took pictures!) or if I just can’t find it. Maybe I should try to get that up!

In the past week, I feel like all my worlds have been colliding and it’s incredibly confusing. Knoxville was totally different from college, which is totally different from high school. I don’t know what to think! And of course, St. Louis is going to be even more different!

This morning, I went to an 8:15 spin class, which felt incredibly early after a late night. I wanted to try this hour long class. It wasn’t my favorite; it was pretty traditional (no crazy choreography) which isn’t a bad thing, but I felt it could have used a little spice. We did 3 15 minute hill progressions.

Speaking of which, did anyone catching the men’s cycling race? It was absolutely crazy! I’m subbing spin this week, and I might have to do an Olympics themed class, based on the profile of the Olympic course.

After spin, I went straight to the farmer’s market with the intention of buying figs. I was a little early for most of the stands to have all their samples out, unfortunately, so I didn’t end up buying as much fruit as I might have otherwise.

I got a mild chicken tamale to refuel from spin, which was delicious!

I’ve gotten into tamales lately!

A little bit later, lunch was served in front of the Giant’s game.

My mom made bruscetta out of the beautiful heirloom tomato I bought.

On the side, I had some strawberries, plus a little experiment. I was curious what would happen if you tried to make nachos out of crackers. The result?

They just tasted like crackers with melted cheese. Definitely not a bad thing, but not nachos.

For dessert, I had another Halo Top bowl. This time, Birthday Cake ice cream over GF chocolate cake. Plus sprinkles. 

Yum!

Now, the women’s bike race is on. It simultaneously makes me want to do a race, and convinces me I will never do one. I love the idea of it, but I’m far too worried about crashing. In the men’s race yesterday, there were some nasty crashes going downhill.

What is your favorite Olympic sport to watch?

Gymnastics and diving are always amazing. I also want to catch weight lifting and rowing (because I know a few rowers from my rowing days!)

Let’s compare:

What the heck?? How did that happen??

This morning I went for my first run longer than 2.5 miles since my half. It was uneventful. I’ve been embracing the shorter runs lately, especially with midterms and other life craziness! Plus I’m in love with my 2.5 mile route. It feels like fall! I broke out my santa run shirt-after Halloween means that’s officially acceptable. My spin classes are going to love me when I start busting out the holiday tunes! For the sake of my own dignity I will wait until after Thanksgiving for that. I’m a firm believer that the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is the magical period when it is acceptable to start celebrating Christmas but also to still eat all the pumpkin.

The weather here has been gorgeous as well, minus a rainstorm earlier this week. It’s quite brisk in the mornings, but warm enough during the day that long sleeves/cardigans and scarves are tolerable.

I spent my Sunday doing reading from our hammock!

For some reason, I haven’t been feeling sunflower seed butter at breakfasts and have been doing greek yogurt with jam.

I know this looks like a spoonful but the bowls+spoons are huge!

The food situation has been better as well. I think our new chef is adapting to the tastes and needs of my house. More vegetables, less oil, the return of grilled chicken to the salad bar, and sufficient food for leftovers.

One day for lunch, it was all salads, which was awesome. Asian with shrimp, chicken caesar, and butternut squash with parmesan and brussels sprouts.

Dinner of chicken, kale+veggie+tomatoes, and parmesan polenta.

Make your own tacos in salad form-Mexican rice, black beans, chicken, tomato vinaigrette. There has also been homemade salad dressings lately which have been awesome!

A dinner of leftovers because I was gone late at Crossfit-chicken, more polenta, leftover salad, roasted sage sweet potatoes.

Salad+chicken with roasted cruciferous veggies (my fave) and rice pilaf.

I made my own little concoction today as well-cinnamon apples heated up in the microwave on top of oats, sun butter, and a touch of honey. I heated this up in the microwave as well and the oats actually got toasty! The things you learn.

In other life news-check out this photo of my little guy!

And finally-I’ve been loving time hop. Today’s memory from 3 years ago was great. The context is it was my first regatta for crew.

My father, everyone!

Since it’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, I thought I’d share some photos!

The last of my Easter eggs! It only took a few days to eat them all, with the help of my roommate of course!

Lunchtime coffee…which really was the main event but there was also a veggie sandwich in there. I did it for the avocado!

Ok, I promise this is better than it looks. I made a little pretzel dip out of mashed banana mixed with sunflower seed butter. Super tasty! You could definitely do this with peanut butter, or any nut butter.

One of my school’s cafe-type of places recently started carrying green smoothies. Clearly, I had to try it out. It was very mango-orangey! And definitely a bit chunky-my friends thought it was guacamole! I love avocados but I’d have to draw the line at drinking them through a straw!

This cappuccino has a twist…it’s decaf! Crazy, right? This was the morning after I took Benadryl, so I slept REALLY well. Haha!

Check out this new Trader Joe’s purchase-I just had to get it, didn’t I?? The verdict-good but surprisingly subtle. I put mine in eggs, which I will admit, looks a bit odd.

So…the other day, I finally broke out my blender. I’ve been wanting to make a chocolate mint smoothie forever, and since I had fresh mint, it was time. So-I’m pretty sure the last time I used my blender was when I tried to make a chocolate mint smoothie and put in way too much mint extract…which was 1.5 years ago.

In the mix was lots of fresh mint, cocoa powder, frozen banana, almond milk, and chocolate whey protein. It tasted just like a milkshake!

There was a bit of an…issue. My blender is a tiny, one person blender. It also has individual cups that you can screw into the blade to make the smoothie into a cup. I’ve never used it like that before, so I thought I’d try it because it would mean less clean up. (HAH.) Well…this requires turning the cup upside down. I blended up banana and almond milk, and was ready to add everything else…when I accidentally unscrewed the cup in the blender base…upside down. Which meant I opened the contents of the cup all over my desk. It was fabulous. Thanks to amazing reflexes, I managed to not drip it all over my chair and the carpet…but yeah. The smoothie pictured above is 2.0.

Yesterday, the craziest thing happened. It rained. AND I didn’t have a race! This is the only time all year that it has rained without me having a race that week. I’m 100% serious. It’s also Admit Weekend, where all the prospective freshman come and stay. Why am I telling you this? I wanted something warm for lunch, at a place that didn’t have a million prospective students. A little cafe tucked into a basement in the corner of the quad was perfect. A tomato and mozzarella panini!

And lastly:

I went on a mango run post-Crossfit. And also picked up a green smoothie and blueberry muffin. I may have to make this a Saturday morning tradition!

On the fitness front:

Thursday morning I did an abbreviated version of my treadmill workout. I haven’t done much speed work lately, and I wasn’t exactly loaded with time, so I did 7 intervals instead of 10 and shortened the warm up to .5 miles. In the afternoon, I had my last sound wave treatment on my Achilles. My Achilles wasn’t doing so well last week, but the good news is it seems to be feeling a bit better now. The treatment can actually take up to 3 months to work! So we shall see.

Friday morning I did a bit of Spin on my own. And made the poor decision to do a late night rowing workout after sitting around all day. I rowed about 6k (which would have been nothing to my former self) at like 10pm…So at Crossfit this morning my legs started out feeling heavy! This morning’s Crossfit was called “Lumberjack 20” which was the following:

20 deadlifts (I used 165 lbs)

400m run

20 kettlebell swings

400m run

20 overhead squats (I used 65 lbs)

400m run

20 burpees

400m run

20 pull ups

400m run

20 box jumps

400m run

20 dumbbell cleans

400m run

It was a long one! It took me just over half an hour!

That’s all I have today-I hope everyone has a great weekend!

How did you move this week?

A cappuccino, as always. I actually slept pretty late this morning. I stayed up late last night doing pretty wild things- helping my roommate start a food blog, reading my old blog posts, watching a Biochem lecture for fun, and rearranging my furniture at 1am. I’m clearly the life of the party. 

Also, I may finally be pumpkined out. For a snack, I had this:

Pumpkin bread, cottage cheese with pumpkin butter and sunflower seed butter, and a pumpkin spice chai latte. 

But I may or may not have had pumpkin bread for breakfast….

A few things though-this is the video I was watching: Sugar: The Bitter Truth. If you do anything today, please please please watch this! It’s one of my favorite videos, and this stuff is basically what I want to spend my life studying-and it’s been way too long since I last watched it!

Also-guess what? Instead of taking another Chem lab next quarter, I’m taking Human Nutrition, a higher level class than the Intro to Nutrition class I took last fall. I’m really excited-except that after I take this class, I’ll have taken all the Nutrition classes at my school. Yes, all 2. 

When I was helping my roommate figure out some blog things, I got sucked into reading some of my first blog posts. And possibly making fun of my past self a little bit. If you’re interested, here’s my first post. I think this was really great for me to re-read, because it reminds me of why I initially started blogging. 

I also read a lot of the posts from when I was rowing. It really made me miss rowing! I miss my teammates, being part of a team, and just in general doing a sport. However, there is a lot that sounds pretty torturous. Like my post titled “Cold and Wet…Again.” Key phrases such as “day 2 of our 3 workouts a day,” “it was sooo cold,” and “it started pouring while we were in the boat.” Yeah, given I’m such a wimp in the cold, it’s no wonder I got mono!

I read through some of the posts from last winter-I feel like my eating was a little more interesting, but I’m definitely in a much better place mentally now than I was then. 

Anyway, since I crave workout structure, I decided that I’m going to follow a Cross Country training plan in preparation for PRing a 5k in December. I’m actually super excited for this-there are lots of speed workouts, which are always fun, plus the runs are a lot shorter than my half training, so it will be a really nice change. I’m tentatively planning to always run in the morning, so I have some sort of structure in my schedule. Plus, that’s one of the times I know the track team isn’t practicing on the track. 

Also, if you’re wondering, the time I’m trying to beat is 24:58. I think it’s definitely doable-I hadn’t run much before that race, but I was in awesome rowing shape, so it will be interesting to see how fast I can get in the next 8 weeks or so. 

But I may or may not have ulterior motives than just PRing-last year I placed 5th in my division-and top 3 get medals. If I can break 24:00, I have a decent shot at placing. The only problem? I have absolutely no idea how fast I am right now-my last timed mile was 8:00, but that was when I was just coming off of Mono, and hadn’t run in many months. 

But here’s the thing-the only chance I might really have to place in races is while I’m still in the same age division-and in at my next birthday, I’ll move up a division. In my division, I was actually able to come in first in my 10k a year ago. So I think I need to run a ton of 5 and 10ks before I get any older! It’s definitely nice to have something different to train for-I’m really excited! I still miss my team sports though. There’s a running club, but my friends who regularly go basically told me I’d have to be able to run 10 miles at a 6:00 pace. Yeah, not happening. 

So, I mapped out a new running schedule for myself, and I’m going to spend the weeks leading up to my race getting fast, strong, and building endurance. One other thing I realized when I was reading my old posts was that I never really go into much detail about my workouts anymore-and my blog is called “FITNESS is Sweet.” So I’ll make sure to add more detail on those! I’m really excited for my new training-I start in a week, after one more long run. 

Sidenote-on my long run, if for some reason something goes wrong and I can’t finish, the place where I’d be when that might likely happen just so happens to be at my favorite froyo place. So even if I can’t finish, it’s a win-win, right??
And my roommate and I are officially the most popular people in our dorm.

We put out candy yesterday and it was gone within an hour, so I had to restock! I lovelovelove that I still get to buy Halloween candy, even though I’m in a dorm!

Bloggers-do you ever read your old posts? Thoughts on them?

This is my first WIAW from college. First, let me just state that I hate the furniture in my room this year. It’s dark and small and immovable. So basically it’s impossible to stay organized. So I’m blogging from my headboard-less bed next to a giant pile of books that travels from my desk chair to my bed regularly because my desk and shelves are full. Such is life.

But let’s get on to the day of eats. Today was an example of both how college life doesn’t have to be unhealthy, and how it can be unhealthy.

I started my morning with a few dates pre-run. I had a 4 mile run scheduled today, and decided to do speedwork. I ran a mile of warm up and cool down(half a mile to the track, half a mile on the track). I then did 400 repeats for 2 miles. I haven’t really done these before, but they seemed perfect given all my recent foot issues. Having rest time was crucial for my foot and it actually felt really good. I liked these, but I think I prefer the 200 distance way more. 

Post run, it was breakfast time. I think this here is an example of how hard I tried to make dorm food look pretty/interesting. Plus, you all can admire my new dorm pet (aka my plant).

I am well stocked on fruit right now since I only just got here, and it’s a lifesaver. Unripe melon gets old fast.

I had one class this morning before eating some food I packed. The original plan was a salad with a hardboiled egg, but there wasn’t much left in the dining hall last night, and I was at a loss for dressing.

Plus the lettuce looked kind of old, so I tossed it in favor of some of the veggies from my fridge.

After my Physics lab, I headed to one of my favorite places to eat on campus for some mystery bread. This stuff is so good-oh how I missed it!

So why, you ask, is this one of my favorite places on campus? They have the most amazing selection of quick breads and baked goods. I pretty much always stick to the same thing since I love it, but I’m sure something pumpkin will have to happen soon.

(This is only a fraction of what they have.)

Today was a pretty snacky day. Besides what’s shown, I also had a Thinkthin bar, dried mango, multiple types of cake….more on that in a minute.

I went back to Crossfit tonight. I did like it better-that could be because the WOD had rowing, and any WOD with rowing has my heart. It was rowing+thrusters+pull ups. Hopefully in time this new box will feel like home, but it’s just not the same as my old one. 

Dinner tonight was a little different-I passed on the gross looking salad this time and went for other random veggies instead.

Grilled chicken, a taste of mashed potatoes, some type of Greekish salad, and citrus beets. Not going to lie, my expectations were way too high for those beets. But hey, dining hall food isn’t really supposed to have flavor, right?

I was all set to type up this post when I got a call from my sister. She and her boyfriend are training for a marathon, and they had just finished their 18 mile run….miles away from their apartment. Being the nice person that I am, I picked them up in my tiny car. (I usually say my car seats 2, or 2+3 others with no legs.)

Despite the little detour in my night, I did score some groceries.

While tonight I haven’t accomplished as much as I might have liked, I finish class at 12 tomorrow and have allll day to spend in the library. 

I feel like it is definitely possible to eat well in college, but it does take some discipline. Today I started to fall back into old habits a little bit. I guess one thing to consider is that it is okay to indulge occasionally, but you need to pick and choose, and other delicious things may come up later in the night (like pumpkin cake-not passing that one up). One big thing for me this year is I’ve avoided the dining hall for breakfasts, and I’ve packed lunches. As for breakfast-it’s just too hard for me to pass up pancakes and muffins everyday, and I know they make me feel awful. I’d rather keep food in my room and start the day off on the right food. As for lunches-last year I got in the habit of buying, but the serving size was almost always too large, and I felt bad throwing stuff away. Plus, it’s easier to pack something cleaner. 

So that’s that-my first few days back! I promise to try and keep my pictures interesting, even if that means buying a lot more plants. Or a puppy. 

Have a great Wednesday, and eat something good for me!

How did you/do you stay healthy in college? How do I keep my room organized when there is zero space?

Yesterday morning began with a 3 mile run. I had a pretty good pace going, which made me happy because my runs here have been pretty slow thus far. I rolled my ankle with about a mile left in the run though. As in, I was a mile away from the condo I’m staying at. So that stunk. I’m getting really sick of rolling my ankle on runs! I was able to walk it off a little, and continue the rest of the way VERY carefully. Meh. 

But guess what yesterday’s activity was? 

SEGWAY TOUR.

It was sooo cool to ride a segway! It took a little getting used to, but it was really fun. The segway is pretty sensitive to your movements, and it can make really tight turns (you can turn around in place). It actually can go pretty fast! We started out by practicing in the parking lot with it on “beginner mode” which limits the speed. After some cone drills, we were ready for the open road! 

The tour took us to the Iao Needle, where we parked the segways and hiked around.

The Iao needle is the long and skinny rock. This area was so pretty!

After our tour, we stopped at a small fruit stand. I’ve been dying to have coconut all trip, and the stand had fresh, young coconut. I’ve never had young coconut before-it was way more tender. The guy at the stand split open the husk with an ax and let us drink the water inside, and then chopped it up. We used pieces of husk for “spoons.”

It was delicious! We also bought some passion fruit and guava, which was riper and sweeter than the fruits we had back at the condo. We have a lotttt of fruit to eat in the next 2 days, since none of it can be taken back to the Mainland. 

For lunch, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant. My mom and I shared the Make Your Own “Vietnamese burrito.” Which basically meant make your own fresh spring rolls. We were given a plate of fresh veggies, herbs, and tofu, plus rice paper which we dipped in hot water to soften.

We then got to wrap it all up to form this!

Disclaimer: this roll is actually one the server demoed for us. My were much more glob-like, but by the time I wrapped them all up, my hands were covered in food and touching my phone was a no-go.

For dinner that evening, we went to a local health foods grocery, which turned out to be entirely vegetarian. Cool! It was super fun to look around in-I’m guessing you all understand this phenomenon. I ordered a sandwich for dinner which had avocado. Enough said. 

Today was also super awesome. Since I’m a cool food blogger, I wanted to tour a pineapple plantation. The plantation is in Upcountry Maui, sort of off the beaten trail in a tiny town. Since I’m obsessed, I just happened to check local Crossfit box locations, and there was one literally right across the street from where the tour left. I emailed the box last night and heard back within minutes. 

Everyone was soooo friendly. Not that they weren’t friendly in Lahaina, but even more so here. This box definitely had a small town feel, as it’s not necessarily in tourist territory. I mean, check out these pictures of the location.

I was also a big fan of the workout. Why? the warm up included rowing. My box never does rowing since we don’t have enough ergs, but given my background in rowing, I’ve been dying to show off a little. The warm up was a team workout-5 people per team, 6 minutes. Each person would row for a minute, while everyone else held a plank. I was the first rower so I got to go twice. We competed against another team. Sadly, we lost by 12 meters. 

We then went through some other warm ups and stretching, before doing the WOD, which was an 800 meter run and then a sequence of kettle bell swings and pull ups. 

I can’t say enough how great my experience here was. I ended up staying after for a little while talking to other Crossfitters. One couple was visiting from Texas, and they had been to some other boxes on Maui as well. 

Another bonus? The drop in class was free if you bought a t-shirt. T-shirts were $25 and normal drop in was $20. So basically I got a $5 t-shirt. Score!

Before the pineapple tour, we stopped at a little organic restaurant for brunch. My mom and I split French Toast (made with Hawaiian sweet bread, and served with maple syrup and honey butter) and an omelet with goat cheese, mushrooms, and pesto.

Next, it was time for the pineapple plantation tour! Check this view of the sugar cane out.

Pineapples take 2 years to fully grow. Here’s a shot of some babies!

T

Then we proceeded to the sea of bigger pineapples.

Then, it was sampling time! This plantation grows Maui Gold pineapples, which are sweeter and less acidic than other varieties. They are only 15% acid, and 85% sugar. They regularly test their crops to make sure this ration stays this way. They’re a pretty small operation-they only ship to the West Coast (sorry to those on the East Coast-believe me, you’re missing out!)

We sampled a few different stages of ripeness. First were the green pineapples. These were still pretty darn tasty! The core wasn’t as tough either-it was fine to eat.

Then, we sampled the green-gold. These are what you’d typically buy in stores. A few pineapple facts-pineapples are as good as they’ll ever be the moment they’re picked-they don’t ripen by sitting around your kitchen like other fruits. Also, the bottom is sweeter than the top (near the crown). We could really taste the difference. A quick tip-you can store your pineapple upside down to better distribute the sweetness. Or don’t tell anyone about this and hog the sweet part for yourself. 

Then we sampled the gold-these are yellow in color and have to be eaten within 2 days; they don’t sell these because they go bad so quickly. They were soooo good and sweet. 

Now, at this point, my tongue was feeling the pineapple burn. The delicious, sweet pain that comes with overconsumption of pineapples. But did you see how many pineapples were in the field?

Pictures were in order.

My family attempted to do a silly shot-which ended with my sister accidentally pulling my mom into the pineapple patch. “Accidentally.”

There it is-a moment preserved on the internet for all to see. 

I thought the pineapple eating was over at that point. But nooo. We each got whole pineapples to eat like giant turkey legs.

They were so juicy too-I managed to stay fairly dignified and keep the juiciness to all over my face and hands. My sister? She was dripping juice from her elbows and down her legs. The pineapple was AMAZING. HOWEVER. I probably ate like 2 whole pineapples. At least 1. Can you imagine the acid burn on my tongue from the much pineapple? Heck, the burn on my lips and chin? Owwww. I pretty much had my fill of pineapple for the next 4 years.

Except that wasn’t all! They gave us each a pineapple to take home with us as well! Luckily, these can be taken home on the plane, so my tongue has some time to recover. 

Have a great Sunday everyone! I’m hoping to get a decent run in. I wanted to do repeaters on a track, but I can’t find any tracks nearby! I think I’ll try doing them on a bike trail while nursing my wounded tongue.

Do you like pineapple? My parents once tried a crazy diet where you eat nothing but pineapple. What. Were. They. Thinking. #pain

Have you ever ridden a segway? If you do Crossfit, have you ever visited a different box?

Thank you Katie, as always

As promised, Saturday night held delicious cake. My sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner to celebrate his birthday. They came straight from their run-they got lost and ended up running 17.5 miles. Craziness! We went to our favorite local fancy restaurant. I even wore a dress-who am I?

The happy couple, and the delicious food. For my main course, I ordered salmon on a bed of couscous. It was superb. 

For the birthday cake, we made German Chocolate cake. It’s delicious, but so, so rich.

More marvelousness-my first attempt at coconut yogurt.

I’m thinking this collage would look better if I waited enough to take a picture before digging in…

I mixed together unsweetened coconut, chia seeds, and vanilla kefir, plus a drizzle of maple syrup. Since I didn’t have any vanilla yogurt, just kefir, I added the chia seeds for thickness. Overall, this was pretty good. I think it’ll work better with regular yogurt though.

Sunday marvelousness?

We family and I drove up to San Francisco to scout out the route for the Nike Women’s marathon. On the way up, we stopped for sandwiches.

The first half of the course is almost identical to the first half of the Giant’s Race, but instead of starting at the ballpark, it starts at Union square and heads downhill. The difference comes around mile 6 when, instead of turning back like in the Giant’s Race, we climb. A freaking. Huge. Hill. The worst hill is Mile 6, with the peak at Mile 7. Imagine the hills of SF, and how high they are. Now start from sea level and climb to that height in a mile until you’re at the top of everything. That’s a brutal hill. To be fair, it is a really great view. But somehow I don’t think I’m going to be thinking about that at the time…

After the peak, there’s a significant downhill. As in, you have to slow down to go down unless you want to go head over heels. I personally thought that was by far the worst hill, but according to the elevation chart the next one was equally significant. 

The verdict? I have a lot of hill training in my future. And this is really not a good race to try and PR. Apart from the hills, apparently the first few miles are super crowded with walkers, so I can’t really get ahead on my pace. But I’ll train for a 9:30 pace in my tempo runs and see what happens. 

More good news-we’re going to stay at a hotel the night before the race. It’s literally at the finish line, so my parents can drive me to the start and then wait at the finish line. AND, we got the last 2 rooms (for my sis and her bf too). Score! Transportation was going to be a big issue!

Marvelous-amazing ice cream. Since we were in the city, we stopped at Smitten, a place that makes nitrogen ice cream from scratch in front of you.

There was a pretty sizable line when we got there-and it wasn’t exactly in a building. The store was kind of out of an old shipping crate. Very hipster, if you ask me. But let’s just say there was a reason for the line.

I spent the entire time in line debating about whether I should get salted caramel ice cream with TCHO chocolate sauce, or TCHO chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce. My dad solved that problem by ordering an extra chocolate in a cone for the family to share (pictured above).

OMG.

That was BY FAR the best ice cream I’ve ever had, ever. Without a doubt. I was IN LOVE with the chocolate ice cream-I would order that instead of the caramel next time. It was the smoothest ice cream I’ve ver had-apparently flash freezing with the liquid nitrogen prevents any ice crystals. It also had a hint of salty flavor. I could eat that every day. And, the cone tasted like a crunchy, light sugar cookie. If you’re ever in SF, you need to try this place! Order the chocolate Plus, TCHO is the SF chocolate.

The salted caramel was excellent as well. Just not quite as good as the chocolate. But just look at that!

Yummmm.

We sat on a bench inside (ish) the store to eat. The pigeons were awfully…’friendly.’ They would just walk over you feet to get to crumbs. So glad I wasn’t wearing flip flops-one decided to take a bite out of my shoe!

Marvelous is…grilled peach and chicken salad. 

Marvelous is….cats. I petsat for one of my neighbor’s two cats for almost two weeks last summer. One time, when they were supposed to be taken care of by someone else who didn’t do it, they came and waited at my house. Well, yesterday, an entire year later, they came and waited at my house again. I’m not sure who was supposed to be feeding them, but they remembered me from a year ago! Crazy!

Marvelous is…rowing workouts. I’ve been trying to work them in again. I did a really short one before spin yesterday, and I did 12×2:30 today at differing speeds. It feels good to get back on the erg again! Maybe this is why I had a rowing dream last night. But last night I also dreamed about softball and Crossfit-those three things pretty much sum up the last year of my life, from beginning to end. Wow. 

Marvelous is…a new challenge! I’m taking a 7 day no sweets challenge! I kind of love doing these. I was thinking about doing one earlier, but….I didn’t really want to. I guess when I don’t have a problem overeating sweets I have no desire to do a reset, but lately, it’s been feeling like it’s time, and I’m ready. I’ve started eating desserts out of habit, not because I want to. This will give me a good opportunity to really rethink what I’m putting in my mouth. And as you can see, I wanted to wait until after that ice cream! 

Ok, that’s that for what’s marvelous! Have a great day!

Have you ever had nitrogen ice cream? Any sports you miss? Bird fears? Has anyone run the Nike Women’s Marathon in SF? I would love advice!

Ok. Now that that excitement is over, I’ll go over the last couple of days. Last night, my sister drove me to REI to get Spin shoes, and then we stopped at a Ramen restaurant afterwards for dinner. I’ve never actually had Ramen before (besides Cup o Noodles).

We started off with some delicious Japanese salads and edamame. Chopsticks are most definitely not my strong point; especially chopsticks with a salad! Jeez. 

I had chicken ramen for dinner, which was really delicious and warm. It’s been a tad chilly here lately (relatively of course).

Upon returning to school, I decided to do a little “baking” experimentation. My friends had been talking about making coconut bread, so the idea had been planted in my mind. I really don’t have a lot in the way of ingredients; I am out of eggs. So I figured, why not try egg white protein powder?I mixed up some unsweetened shredded coconut, egg white vanilla protein powder, vanilla, and a bit of sweetener, and then popped it in the microwave. I was not expecting the result- it tasted just like a coconut macaroon! I will post the recipe as soon as I perfect it. (Well, as soon as I get my act together enough to actually measure it). I tried it again today, and cooked it for a bit less, so it was almost like a pudding. As you may notice in the first picture, my hand is a bit colorful. Yesterday, I tie-dyed with my dorm. I’ve never done it before, and I had a ton of fun with it!It had to sit in a plastic bag for 24 hours, and it is currently lying in my room attempting to dye every surface. I’ll post a picture as soon as it goes through the wash! 

Today, I went on a rafting trip with my dorm, and had a great time despite some initial difficulties. The river we were going to was about a two hour drive away. An hour in, the check engine light when on in the bus, and we pulled over. The driver got out and inspected things, and then we were back on the road….for less than an exit. We didn’t even make it onto an offramp before the bus driver pulled over again. The engine was pretty badly overheated and the steering was locked up. There was smoke or steam coming out of the back of the bus. We had to call for another bus which was coming from pretty far away, and wouldn’t be there for another hour. The bus driver finally agreed to at least pull off the freeway, and from there, we had a little freedom to walk around and find food. I ended up with a chocolate banana smoothie from Starbucks. It was also around this time that I realized I had lost my lunch. The dining hall gave us all packed lunches for the trip. I’m pretty sure someone stole my lunch because a lot of people had more than one, and I had…zero. Near my seat, I found a lunch that had been ransacked (as in, no sandwich or chips), so I rescued an apple out of it. 

We ended up getting to the rafting place about two hours later than we had planned. 

Before I go on, let me just clarify that this is no white water rafting. It is way tamer! We were in big rafts and had paddles, in a river with a slight current. Being out on the water made me realize how much I missed rowing! I had so much trouble rowing forward. I ended up just turning around and rowing crew-style. Of course, this wasn’t exactly heavy duty rowing. The whole trip was just super relaxing, and it was a great end of the year dorm event. I’m going to miss living with these people! It’s insane that in a little over 2 weeks, my freshman year will be over! At the same time, this has been a pretty long year in that I’ve had soooo many experiences, and so many memories. Jeez, now I’m getting nostalgic! I’m sure week 9, midterms (yes, I have a midterm in week 9), and finals will take my mind off of that! 

How has your long weekend been? What did you do?

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?

Happy weekend! Hopefully everyone has been having a good weekend so far. I missed posting yesterday, I had another paper to write last night that was due at noon today, and I had practice all morning so I had to do it last night. Seriously, who assigns a paper to be due at noon on a Saturday? Well, let’s go over 2 days then! 

Friday morning began with weights. There are 2 options for times for weights, 6:30 and 8:30. I have class at 10, so I usually go to the 6:30 so I have enough time to completely finish my workout, eat, and shower. As you may know, I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, so Friday morning when I woke up I just was not feeling it. I got ready to go, and was running pretty late so I decided to just go back to bed and go to 8:30 weights. Since it was Friday, I could move around my schedule a bit and go to a 12:15 lecture instead of my normal 10 am lecture, so I didn’t start class until math at 11. 

Weights absolutely smoked my hamstrings. We do 2 workouts for 3 weeks. Last Friday’s workout left my hamstrings completely sore up until yesterday. Ohh RDLs how I love you. Yesterday, I did more and heavier RDLs, so this week should be interesting. In theory, I should be getting more used to it, so we’ll see. I’m pretty sore right now, but it’s nothing terrible. 

After weights, I made myself a Chocolate Post-workout Recovery Drink. 

I didn’t exactly mix in the cocoa powder completely…It’s amazing what 8 little ounces of fluid can do for muscle recovery. I instantly felt 1000x better. 

I also enjoyed some frozen cherries.

After my first class, I decided to get a little caffeine, because Chem definitely has a tendency to make me sleepy, and I have been behind on sleep for a while. 

I found a little cafe that I had never been to before, and ordered the only coffee drink I recognized (I’m obviously such an expert), and went with an iced latte. Even though it was freezing out. 

For those of you that don’t know, my campus is mainly a biking campus. When I got here, I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was maybe 8. Soo the first month was interesting. But now I’ve gotten proficient enough that I can carry a fancy coffee drink while biking! Score! That is definitely the sign of a true college student. 

I’m not a big fan of the taste of coffee, but I’m getting more used to it. I also don’t need a lot of caffeine to wake me up, and even though I didn’t finish this drink, I was a little jittery. But here’s the weird thing. I’ve noticed that at some point when I’m drinking a coffee drink, it starts to taste more bitter than normal. And I have the impression that this is the point of my caffeine tolerance. Like if I keep drinking it after it starts to taste more bitter, it will be too much caffeine for me. I’ve noticed this before. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a real thing? Am I a freak of nature?

After class, I took a brief nap. (pshh what coffee?) When I woke up, I enjoyed a piece of banana bread and an apple heated in the microwave with cinnamon. 

Banana bread? Where did that come from? I thought my freezer was empty?

Delivery!

My mom brought me some bread to freeze! She had class here, so she brought me this, and my new toy:

A hand vacuum! My dorm has a vacuum, but a) it’s from the 1980s and b) I live in a college freshman dorm. I recently saw what someone used it to clean up. Never again. So now I have this little guy, which works great! I’m going to vacuum way more now!

Anyway, back to the banana bread. My mom used my favorite recipe, which can be found here.

Practice went well. It was interesting because we were short a coxswain (the little person that yells at us and steers the boat) so we had an injured rower cox us. She was actually really good, but I felt really bad for her because she’s really tall and the places where the coxswains sit is tiny! I was definitely cracking up some of the time because she kept forgetting she had a microphone on, and was being projected by speakers in the boat. Especially when she was complaining about some sailors docking their boats on our dock!

After practice, I came back and made one of my favorite meals ever, that conveniently can be made in my dorm room. 

Yes, you can make scrambled eggs on a paper plate in the microwave. Saving dishes baby! I cannot fully describe how awesome this meal is. Egg beaters (liquid egg whites), spinach, mozzarella, pesto, and avocado. So delicious. 

Followed by cocoa powder and banana! This time without peanut butter though. So sad. More on that later. I ran into the dining hall to grab some veggies for later, and a piece of whole wheat toast. I ended up heating up the veggies with some coconut oil and salt, which was tasty.  

Plus some more frozen cherries! After dinner, I cranked out my paper. My paper is on the causes of obesity in the United States, which is a topic that is super interesting to me. I actually found myself getting too excited as I was doing research. So when I write my final research paper on sugar, things are going to get interesting…After cranking out my paper, I went out to find some friends. 

This was an incredibly difficult week for me, both emotionally and academically. I began to realize how much time rowing takes up, and I became concerned that I would not be able to keep my grades up if I kept rowing. I finally decided I needed to quit. This was Wednesday night, when it was 12:30, I was doing a hard problem set, and I had an early 2x6k the next morning. Making that decision was really tough emotionally. BUT. I changed my mind. The 2x6k, combined with afternoon off gave me the motivation and energy I needed to keep going, so as of now I plan to continue. 

Being the intelligent person that I am, I ended up staying up way later than planned. 4 hours of sleep? Ick. This week was kind of a pyramid for me of sleep, minus Thursday. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 hours of sleep. Yay. But a 2 hour nap after practice certainly did the trick!

For practice today, I rowed with the lightweights because they needed a few extra people to fill out their boats. Unfortunately, the other open weight girl who was supposed to come as well didn’t get the memo…so we still had a bad number of people. That meant that instead of rowing in a 4, I switched off in a pair. Which gave me 30 minutes on the spin bike to wake up before I had to be on the water, which was fabulous. <I rowed in a pair for the first time, which is 2 rowers, each with one oar. We had buoys to make it more stable, thank goodness. We also had a 30 minute erg piece. I never realized how weird it would feel to go from rowing on the water, straight to stationary rowing. I also realized that if our ergs were later in the day, they would be so much easier for me. That or I'm getting in much better shape, which is possible. Last week, I finally got my heart rate as low as it is supposed to be for our long ergs for the first time!

One nice thing about rowing with the lightweights, is that I was back 2 hours sooner. Our Saturday rows are super inefficient. We got back just as brunch was starting!

mexican salad with loads of avocado, and frozen fruit. Plus this:

x2 with thawed blueberries on top! So good!

After brunch, I took a very nice and much needed nap. This day has been really low key for me. I was planning on lifting today, but I just didn’t feel up to it. I spent most of the afternoon reading. Tonight will be low key as well, I plan on getting some work done. I want to re-watch Sugar: The Bitter Truth for my paper, so maybe I’ll do that tonight. Since I finished my paper already, I feel like I’m really ahead on the weekend!

This afternoon, I decided to check out The Market, which is a mini grocery store on campus that I had not gone to before. It was actually really nice, they had tons of stuff. I got 2 beautiful and huge Fugi apples. In addition, I got several other non-nut containing snack items. And naturally I had to break into them right away. 

I actually really liked these! They could definitely be eaten as a healthy alternative to potato chips. 

There may or may not be any left…

I wanted to find a low-sugar bar that didn’t have nuts. This one was pretty good, I will most likely use these in the future when I need something on the go. It has 0g of sugar, but it has sugar alcohols. I’m not exactly sure what their metabolism is like, but I think it’s a step up from other artificial sweeteners, and it tastes less weird. 

I was feeling adventurous for dinner today, and I wanted to do something different, especially since I really don’t like Saturday nights at my close dining hall. But then I realized I didn’t have a ton of time before my dance rehearsal, so I just ran in quickly and had a super carb heavy, and no terribly satisfying meal (which is especially unfortunate because right after I ate, my sister texted me about going out to dinner with my parents to what was probably a much better place, but I had dance rehearsal plus I already ate).

The pesto pasta today was whole wheat, and so was the garlic bread! I definitely went back for more garlic bread, plus watermelon and some con pops. Also, I actually had to get a new salad because I topped this one with tons of salsa, which turned out to be SUPER spicy, and I couldn’t even eat it!

So what is this dance rehearsal for? Did I suddenly decide to become a dancer? Hah. No. For crew, the freshman have to do a performance in front of basically every athlete as my school, and it’s a fundraiser. I have to do a line dance, and the Hoedown Throw Down from the Hannah Montana movie. I am no dancer. This is so difficult! I have absolutely no grace or coordination! And the performance is in just over a week! 

Ok, so today was Day 2 with no nuts. And I think a few days with slightly reduced nuts. It’s so hard! I need to find new things to top oatmeal, or my banana mixture. I’m getting some unsweetened coconut, so hopefully that will do the trick! I could go for some tropical banana oats! My other idea was apple cinnamon banana oats. Or stirring blueberries into banana oats. I really like the base of banana though. Another thing I have to worry about is actually getting some healthy fats in my diet without nuts. I am hopefully getting some chia seeds soon as well. I actually really like chia seeds and the crunch they give! Especially in granola bars! So how is the whole no nuts thing going? I’m pretty sure my skin is clearing up, which is both good and bad, because it means that I am most likely allergic, and should eat significantly fewer nuts, but at the same time, my skin should be better. So we shall see. I was going to talk about another topic today, but seeing as this post is already super long, I’ll save it for tomorrow. Here is a little teaser: Real Food!

What do top your oats with? What is your favorite source of healthy fat?