What a Difference a Few Months Makes

Date: October 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey guys! I had a pretty awesome day, despite a little hiccup. I recently changed my pre-run breakfast, and I’m experimenting with the timing of it a little-it’s not as hard on my stomach so I don’t have to wake up as early!

Banana. Egg. Cocoa powder. Plus a coconut garnish. Which somehow managed to get all over my desk…Plus blackberries.

I went home today, so I ran on my favorite route. Since I’m tapering, I’m thinking a little more about speed-my last couple of runs were hilly so I didn’t even consider pace.

I pulled into a parking space and began gathering my running stuff when all of the sudden, the car parked in front of my starts backing up….quickly. I guess he never even saw me, because he rammed into the front of my car. I’m fine-but it definitely shook me up a little bit! My car is pretty much ok-my front bumper has a crack in it. First of all-how does a bumper crack? Oh yeah, my car is made out of plastic. So I have a plastic bumper. Awesome. I’ve never been in an accident (knock on wood!) but I’ve been backed into 3 times. Talk about pre-run adrenaline though!

My run felt really good-minus some more technical issues. I stopped the clock a couple of times to adjust my shoes-I think my foot inserts help prevent the toe pain I get, but they cause such bad rubbing that I had to stop and take them out 2 miles in. I ran another 4 miles without, and then my feet starting bothering me so I put them back in…only to have to remove them a mile later.

What a difference a few months makes! A lot of my training runs (the flat ones) have been faster than the last training cycle for my first half, but this one really stood out. A few months ago (the picture on the left), I ran 9 miles, in the same place, at the same point in my training. The run was by far my fastest long run, but I destroyed my calf doing it, and was barely able to race. Today, I killed that time. I wasn’t dead. My legs are still intact. I’m ready to rock this race!

I visited my parents and kitties after running. And ate a snack.

I then met up with one of my best friends from high school for lunch. We got sandwiches-turkey and avocado for me! I can’t remember the last time I had a sandwich!

We then both had the genius idea of stopping by an amazing cake shop on the way back to the car-Nothing Bundt Cakes.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that I immediately went for the pumpkin spice cake…I’m a tad obsessed.

We also got a chocolate chocolate chip cake. We shared them both.

Since Jessica is super artistic, I dragged her to a party favor store for a little craft project-I’m Sunshine Chair in my sorority which means I’m in charge of sending out inspirational messages, kitten pictures, and recognizing people’s birthdays (ok, I kind of read between the lines about the kitten pictures…). I wanted to have sometime nice to give people for their birthdays…with the secret hope that they will keep it and put in on their walls for ever. This is the end result (it’s a girl’s birthday tomorrow!)

I then settled in with this baby-it’s time to get serious folks!

And then the tiredness from the past few days began to hit me, and I started to fall asleep with images of freshly cut mango dancing through my head. I think this is a sign that I’m severely mango deprived. I then went to a quick dinner.

And then I proceeded to break into the giant can of pumpkin pie filling my mom got me. Spoons up! (To be fair, there was some yogurt involved.) I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I may be kind of pumpkin-ed out for a while!

I hope you all had great weekends!

What is something you are proud of that you accomplished lately?

WIAW and Relearning to Run

Date: October 2, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! I’m dead tired and I’m staying up to write this post, but I simply couldn’t miss WIAW. I just finished marathon Chem and Physics problem sets so let’s hope this post is at least kind of coherent. Thanks Jenn!

This WIAW is a collection of a ton of random shots I took of my food. I think it pretty accurately describes my eating right now. #dormlife

Before I get into that, I wanted to talk about this morning’s workout. I took a 45 minute spin class, and then went our for a 4 mile training run. I had some…technical difficulties. It’s never good when your shoes don’t finish in the same state they began.

I got new inserts to in theory help with my foot problems. Do they help? Maybe? At least on shorter runs? My feet still stunk on my 12 miler. Well, there’s one little problem. Well, 2. A) I don’t own enough anti-blister socks so I need to save them for the longest runs and B) these inserts rub like crazy. After 2 miles, I couldn’t stand the intense burning on one foot, so I stopped and ran the rest of the way with the insert in my hand. The blister pain went away, but I had kind of a strange experience. I really concentrated on running correctly. I’ve done a ton of agility/sprinting training, so I know how to run. And my sprinting run is not at all like my distance run in terms of how I strike with my feet. I was being really careful to strike with my foot in a better position (just one foot…baby steps), and guess what? No foot pain. The motion was a lot different though, and my heel was burning like crazy by the end of the run. I think the only way to solve my foot issues is by relearning to run. After my race, I’m going to really work on it, which will involve a lot of barefoot running.

Aaand onto the food from the past few days.

An Asian pear with the morning view.

Leftover salad and foccacia. The salad is from the Cheesecake Factory-my friend invited me to dinner there with her grandparents Sunday night. I actually really liked this salad! Perfect leftover.

I was craving pumpkin (no surprise there) so I threw a bunch of things in the microwave in hopes of something similar to the amazing pumpkin microwave cake we made. It didn’t really come out at all like that, but it tasted just like pumpkin pie so I’m not complaining.

My newest obsession-apple chips. And yesterday/today I was pretty much out of food so it was apple chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I kid. Sort of…

A solid dining hall dinner post-Crossfit. The dill salmon was actually really good-normally dining hall salmon is pretty gross.

You know I’m out of food when…I break into my freezer supply of quick bread. This is zucchini bread-a study snack.

Post workout drink with a side of college life-that mess on my desk is what I have to deal with constantly. There is zero space in my room, if you’re wondering why a lot of pictures are of me holding food, not on a table or desk. And FYI-it’s not a good habit to get into to just plop your food down on TOP of everything…laptop included…

I was about to just grab a bar for breakfast, but I decided I should have something at least a little more real. The last of my cinnamon apple blueberry bread from who knows when in the freezer! Yum!

It’s all about balance my friends. And by that-of course I mean the balance of chocolate and vanilla. Kidding. But I’ll talk about the actual balance I’m referring to at the end.

Strange but good-harboiled egg and pesto. Add in some dried fruit, and you’ve got yourself a pre-workout snack.

Pre-workout dates. Yum.

Since I was crazy low on food and I saw some posts about all the amazing pumpkin things at Trader Joe’s, I HAD TO GO NOW. Despite the crazy amount of work I had today. Study fuel…right??

Dinner was some veggie soup from the freezer, plus some new purchases. Edamame crackers topped with pumpkin cream cheese!

GUYS. This pumpkin cream cheese is BOMB. It’s not too sweet either-that surprised me! It’s not going to last until the weekend. There’s no way.

I also got these because, I mean, come on, how cool is this? Honestly though, I wasn’t a fan. They were a bit dry and sweet for my taste. Better topped with pumpkin cream cheese. Sensing a theme here?

Today was also the night of our guac party. It was honestly a much needed brain break. Yesterday held hours of work, including late night work and an early morning.

And avocados make everything better, right?

Speaking on study snacks…apple chips+pumpkin cream cheese? YUM. If that doesn’t say fall, what does? Are you sensing WHY this cream cheese won’t be around much longer?

And onto the whole balance thing…I feel like my eating habits are starting to slip. Mostly I’m just not feeling as great. Late nights are not helping when I have a snack because I’m up late working. I’m making a 30 day challenge for myself-only eat pumpkin. Not literally-only eat sweets if they involve pumpkin. That way, I won’t eat something that will make me feel bad unless it’s seasonal and really worth it. That’s a balance I can live with. And hopefully some sleep, coffee, and fresh groceries can get me right back on track.

Favorite pumpkin product so far?

Trail Fail and Microwave Cake

Date: September 29, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello guys! I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. I have to admit, my first weekend back at school was pretty awesome. Yesterday, I had guacamole TWICE. That alone makes this a great weekend.

I also began the whole “random dorm food snack thing” yesterday when I mixed up a random bowl of chocolatey goodness.

Dried coconut, chia seeds, tons of cocoa powder, sweetener. In the microwave with almond milk, and you get a delicious snack!

Oh, and raisins! I’m starting to realize I really love dried fruit because it’s not as sweet as other desserts. My friends are awesome-they went to Costco and got me a giant bag of apple chips, which I’m ridiculously excited about.

Being the party person that I am, I had a pretty wild Saturday night before my 12 miler. As in, I stayed in my room all night making pumpkin cake in the microwave. Like the party animal that I am. Last year, my roommate and I made pumpkin cake in the microwave, and I think this is the same recipe that we used.

We made a few adjustments since we’re cool people and my roommate has a gluten intolerance. Personally, I think our modifications made it even better (and probably healthier). Also, I almost royally screwed this recipe up. It calls for you to divide out half the mixture. Well, I started to do that without realizing I had forgotten to add sugar. So I almost forgot the sugar in this cake. I kind of messed up the cinnamon too but not as badly!

Here’s our version of the recipe-I apologize ahead of time for the poor photo quality because my dorm has horrible lighting at night.

Microwave Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients:

1/3 c butter

1/2 c firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 c coconut sugar

1/2 c applesauce

1.25 gluten free flour mix or regular flour (my roommate mixed together a ton of flours, along with xantham gum)

3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 c plain yogurt

1/2 pumpkin

1 egg

Instructions:

In large microwave safe bowl, melt 1/3 c butter for 30-45 seconds; stir in sugars and applesauce. Min in flour, pumpkin pie spice and salt. (This will likely be kind of soft, unlike what the original recipe called for; I think this made it even better though). Remove half of the mixture and set half aside. Stir in cinnamon to one half. Then, add in other ingredients to the cinnamon half and mix. Top the bigger half with the smaller half (the one with fewer ingredients) and microwave for 8 minutes, rotating halfway through. Then, microwave for about 3 minutes, or as needed, checking every 1:30.

Pre-microwave

Ready to be eaten!

SO GOOD. Seriously guys, if you make anything, make this. Plus, it’s quick and one bowl! This is gooey, pumpkin-y and perfect for fall. The apple sauce gives the topping a touch of flavor, in the best way possible. I can’t imagine a better way to spend a Saturday night- friends and pumpkin baked goods.

I didn’t go to bed as early as I probably should have before my run, but I woke up and ate breakfast. Here’s a really unattractive picture.

I’m reconsidering my pre-run breakfast. It used to be a Thinkthin bar and fruit, but I’m liking this 2 ingredient pancake (with cocoa powder) with fruit. It’s easier on my stomach, but I feel like it’s not as hefty. I think if I do this, I need to eat closer to running, which is probably better since my race is at 6:30am-that way I won’t have to wake up as early.

After eating, I mapped out my run. I wanted to give trail running a try, as well as get some hill training in. I found a route that would accommodate my 12 miles and wrote it out. I also actually carried my phone since I was running alone in the wilderness, so here are a couple of pictures.

This trail was really nice at the beginning. I was thinking how much fun trail runs are. The first few minutes were all downhill. The 12 mile route I had planned out had 1000 feet elevation change, to put this in perspective. It took me all of 5 minutes to get horribly lost. About a mile in, I somehow ended up on a random road with no trails in sight. Some nice other runners pointed me in the correct direction, but I ended up on the street again. I don’t think I ever made it to any of the trails I had planned out, and I just ran on the smaller trails. The hills were really intense-my legs were shot a mile in. I decided that this was not going to work for 12 miles. Plus, the trail running was actually worse for my feet. At 4.5 miles, I found my car and drove down the mountain to flat road to finish the run. Well, relatively flat.

Overall, it was a weird run. But it was good to get some hill work in in a long run. And trails. I had never run trails before my last half, so the 2 miles or so of trails I was cursing the whole time. I was pretty done by the end of this run though. I stopped for water at mile 11, and I had to really give myself a pep talk to get going-although I guess it worked since my last mile was by far the fastest! Another thing-my new shoe inserts didn’t really help much. Which means for now I’m pretty much screwed. After my race, I’m going to try some barefoot running/minimalist shoes and see if that might help. Plus, I have no halfs scheduled yet for the future-just shorter races.

On the way back to campus, I happened to run into a small farmer’s market. One of the stands was a gluten free bakery, and of course I had to stop there since my roommate is gluten free. I got some delicious foccacia and a pumpkin bar. SO good. I think better than any gluten-filled foccacia I’ve had!

This was also a life saver. I was sooo hungry at this point-it was already around 1:30. My run was probably the longest time I’ve run, since my pace was so slow on the trails.

After my run, I prettied myself up-with one problem. I had a tea party to go to that I needed to dress up for, and I didn’t pack my maxi skirt. And I knew if I didn’t wear compression socks, I would really regret it tomorrow. I was actually thinking back to my last training-one time I didn’t wear my socks after a run, and my calves were really sore all week. And I’m pretty sure that was the week I hurt my calf. So I was not going to neglect to wear those socks-it was the same point in my training last time that I got hurt!

New fashion trend? Yes? I was going to go out like that when I had a genius idea-boots! Here’s a picture where you can kind of see.

Here I am at the tea party with my friends.

There was lots of delicious food. Pumpkin cookies, maple cookies, sandwich cookies. And grapes. Lots and lots of grapes (they were in front of me and I ran 12 miles this morning so…). It was bring your own mug, so I brought my classy piggy mug.

Yum.

I’m a big fan of tea parties-I need to make those a regular thing. Also, my roommate and I have an abundance of ripe avocados, so a guac party may be in our near future.

Do you like trails? Any good microwave recipes?

Ready to Run

Date: September 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I can’t believe I’m going to be living in my dorm in a week. Where did the summer go? Since I’m pretty local, I’m going to do kind of a “rolling” move in. I have a ton of stuff in a storage unit, so I’m going to take all that on Thursday, and then move in completely on Saturday. And then wake up Sunday and do the brutal run I have planned for myself. It’ll be my first hilly long run.

Let’s back up a little bit. Let’s talk food. And workouts. I cleaned up my eating habits a lot since coming home from vacation, and have been hitting it pretty hard on the exercise front. And I can definitely see and feel the difference. It’s incredible what healthy eating can do for you! I’m concerned though that I’ve given myself too much energy as a result because I can’t fall asleep at night! But that could also be jet lag. So here are some eats.

A salad with spicy avocado hummus, avocado, onion, tomato, and a runny egg. I’m loving the hummus salads right now.

Caesar salad with grilled chicken. I’m trying to see how many different types of chicken salad I can eat.

Sunflower seed butter on toast, plus a white nectarine from what will probably be my last farmer’s market visit in a long time.

A new fall recipe for you guys! Baby Pumpkin Pie.

Other things:

I’ve still been having the same foot issues when I run longer distances, despite the inserts for my shoes the foot doctor recommended. SInce I haven’t had full feeling in my toe since my race over a month ago, my mom has been insisting I see the foot doctor again. I finally took a look at my inserts and realized they weren’t taking pressure off the right spot, so I made an appointment. I’m getting expensive (booo) custom made inserts that are supposed to solve the problem. Yesterday, I got the mold of my foot taken, and I should get them in about 2 weeks. However, I still have 2-3 long runs before then. I decided to try my hand at carving out a hole in the base of some old inserts to try and relieve some of the pressure. DIY at its finest.

However, I didn’t get a chance to try them out before tomorrow’s 10 mile run, so I’m really hoping it will help. Hope for a more comfortable run, combined with a few light workout days has me more than ready to tackle this run. I forced myself to take yesterday off of Crossfit because I had gone 4 days straight and on Thursday my legs were donezo. Now, I feel much more rested and have an excess of energy!

Today, I also did a little back to school shopping to avoid the dust storm going on in my house as a result of my parents cleaning everything out. I really want boots so I can wear workout pants all the time and pass it off as acceptable. I didn’t find the ones I was looking for though. Fashion question-do black boots go ok with black leggings?

Naturally, I didn’t exactly stay on task.

When I get the new laces for my new shoes, these will match PERFECTLY. I admit it, Nike shorts are my weakness.

Here are some other things I picked out:

I’m in love with infinity scarves right now. I’ve vowed not to wear regular scarves anymore, because I can never figure out how to wrap them and make them look good. Speaking of which, I started knitting my own infinity scarf! So we’ll see how that turns out!

I’m sorry this post was all over the place-I had a lot of random things to talk about.

What’s in your back to school shopping bag? What are you looking forward to most about fall?

The Enforcer

Date: August 24, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I haven’t shared a general life type of post with you all lately so let’s go through some highlights!

I of course have obligatory kitten nursery pictures. I only have a few more weeks-crazy! I’ll miss seeing those faces every week!

After the nursery, I drove one highway exit away for training run #2. I ran by the bay where I normally would do my long runs. It wasn’t my first location choice for a shorter run, but one highway exit was all I could manage in that traffic!

Being the smarty pants that I am, I failed to bring my Garmin. That wasn’t really an issue for me. I planned to run for time, but I kind of failed with that too. Luckily, when you do enough hard, long runs in a place, you have a very good sense of when you have 2 miles left. Since my run was 4 miles, I hit that out and back point from memory and it was fine. I felt kind of tired-the run felt long. At the same time though, I think I was going at a good pace. My original plan was 3x per week of running, but I think I’m going to bump that up to 4 for the next few weeks. Unfortunately, me feet weren’t great by the end-my new inserts aren’t the solution…

Overnight oats were exactly what I was craving for lunch, so I whipped them up from my vanilla yogurt that was on its last legs. 15 minutes of waiting, and they were good enough for me!

I listen to an audiobook on my long runs. I had the idea a week or so ago that in the afternoons, instead of reading a book, I should just take my audiobook and go for long walks. This summer, I’ve felt pretty sedentary when I’m not working out.

I really enjoyed it-my walk ended up being 2 hours long and very hilly. I’m thinking these walks will be decent training at least for the downhills of my half, sicne the movement is pretty similar.

Here are some of the views:

I didn’t sleep enough Thursday night. I had a 5:10 wake up for spin Friday morning. The thought of staying in bed could have crossed my mind if it wasn’t for this.

At 5:08 am, this guy busted my door open (not really sure how…) and started meowing his lungs out for me to get up. Not for attention, not to be petted, but so I would get my rear end out of bed. So, on 5 hours of sleep, I got up before my alarm. I don’t understand how he knows. When I wake up early for a workout (or the kitten nursery) he always wakes up and gets ready with me. I’m not sure how he can possibly know the day and time, since Thursdays I wake up an hour later. I swear, that cat!

After spin, I refueled with a plum, and eggs with kale and chive and onion cream cheese.

After a quick nap, I helped my mom take our car in for service. While the car was being worked on, we headed downtown in search of a coffee shop.

We happened upon a little place that attracted us with its produce and Blue Bottle coffee. Blue Bottle for some reason sounded familiar to me, so we decided to check it out.

I ordered an oat bar and a cappuccino.

How adorable is this??

We got talking about health, nutrition, weight, eating plans, and life. We ended up staying for 2 hours, leaving only when the parking meter was going to run out. This little discussion sparked my last post, as well as another one I wrote at the same time, which should appear on Monday. It was really, really nice.

That evening, I went to Crossfit and was able to Rx the workout (go at the prescribed weight/height of box). The workout was 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 of kettle bell swings and box jumps. The kettle bell swings were a non-issue. The box was higher than I was expected…And I thought for sure the workout would end with me picking pieces of Aurora out of the box. I have a bit of a fear of box jumps-and a pretty little scar on my shin to prove it. I’ll spare you the pictures of when it first happened. When I first began working with my trainer 3 years ago, I bashed my shin REALLY badly in one of the first sessions with him. He later told me he thought I’d never be back after that! I did it again a year ago, and now box jumps always make me nervous when I know they’re not a super easy height.

I was worried also that I’d be tired at the end and mess up. It took intense focus, and a lot of nerves, but I successfully Rxed the workout! I don’t care that I was the last to finish-I still did, I pushed my boundaries, and had a ton of focus.

That evening I visited my sister in her new apartment where she invited a whole bunch of friends over. It was a ton of fun-pizza, boba, games. The highlight was learning how to make paper airplanes-which of course degenerated into all out paper airplane warfare.

That’s all I have for you today! Also-expect a recipe coming your way soon!

What did you do this weekend? What is one exercise you’re terrified to do?