Bodyweight Benchmark

Date: July 12, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey guys! First I’ve been meaning to say this-I’ve been really awful about commenting on other people’s posts lately. I’m still reading blogs but I’ve gotten a little lazy!

This morning I had an early doctor’s appointment, so I just had a quick breakfast. I tried my new caramel pineapple Chobani!

It was pretty good. I liked it but it’s not my first choice.

My friend Jessica tweeted me the other day saying that she didn’t like this flavor, and Chobani tweeted her back! Whoops!

After my appointment, I finished up some work in the lab, since it’s right next to the doctor. Afterwards, my mom and I stopped by Fleet Feet, the place I got my running shoes, to pick up some more Cliff goo, since that’s the only place I’ve seen it. I like Cliff because it has all normal ingredients, and therefore tastes fine. We walked through the downtown area, and suddenly felt tea-deprived. Since we were South-ish, I remembered a place about 20 minutes away that I’ve been wanting to try ever since I saw it on Gina‘s blog: Bumble.

It’s a super cute place. It has “tea for two” as well as a lot of other healthy and delicious sounding things. My mom and I chose the tea for two. This would be a great place to take kids as well; they even had a sandbox in the front.

We ordered a pot of Earl Grey-it seemed like the perfect tea for a ‘tea party.’

The “tea for two” included 2 scones, 2 tea sandwiches of choice, and 2 cookies. We decided on the egg salad, and the Brie, honey, and pecan.

One scone was chocolate chip with cinnamon, and the other was savory with cheddar cheese and bacon. We split them, but I picked out the bacon. They were both delicious. I know, I said I would avoid gluten this week. To kind of make up for it, I ate my sandwiches open faced. That kind of helps, right? The cookies were chocolate chip and chocolate with peanut butter chips.

Everything was delicious and thoroughly enjoyed. It was about the right amount of food-I was worried it would be too much, but I left full but not overly stuffed. However,given all the bread products, a nap was in order, with my favorite nap buddy.

I ended up skipping today’s run. I was sore and tired, and with the running I’ve done in Crossfit, I only really am a mile short of the weekly plan so I have no problem with that. Crossfit tonight was surprisingly deadly. It was all the things I’m the worst at. In general, I’m not a fast person. Anything with bodyweight will be bad more me just because I’m slow. I do way better at anything with weights-I can Rx most lifts, but I can’t even do a pull up! This was the workout:

5 rounds of:

200m run

10 push ups

15 burpees

20 lunges (each leg)

This is a workout any of you guys can do-no special equipment or experience necessary! While this killed me (I barely made it under the cutoff time…), I think it’s something I can drastically improve on. I want to try it in a month or so to see how much I can improve. Now that I’m not doing softball, I don’t do a ton involving speed. And half marathon training doesn’t exactly make you quick. So we’ll see. Also, my Crossfit coach wanted me to enter a rookie Crossfit competition in August, but I’m leaving for Hawaii that day! Darn! That would have been so fun! (Not that Hawaii won’t be fun…) I really want to do a competition at some point though. It might help if I can do a pull up first…

Anyways, here’s dinner. Teriyaki chicken, tomatoes and basil, steamed veggies, an artichoke, and some sourdough. Hit the spot!

Have a great weekend!

Do you like to compete?

Kitten Updates

Date: July 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I haven’t posted in a couple of nights so let’s go through a 2-day recap! Wednesday morning started with a kefir/granola/sunflower seed butter cup, with a side of a plum.

Note to self-this is not the best pre-run fuel. I was getting a little tired of my pre-run breakfast, so I went with something different and it was not a great idea. I had a stomachache before the run even started but it ended up not being too much of an issue.

I pushed the pace a little bit more than I have lately, but here are some scenes WHILE running, since I ran with my phone for music.

This was my attempt to catch a picture of the bunnies I saw. You can sort of see them in the distance!

After my run, I had to go down to school to work in the lab, and then go to class. I drove half an hour down there, only to realize I forgot both my key card to get in the building and my key to get in the door. Awesome. I had to go all the way back home, losing an hour. That was a pain.

After class, I had a slowpitch softball game. The difference? I was pitching. Yikes. For those of you that don’t know, I was a fastpitch pitcher for…well basically forever. Our normal pitcher was gone, so that left me to give it a try. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Fastpitch and slowpitch are slightly similar, but very different, which basically made it a mess. Let’s just say that pitching fastpitch does NOT translate to slowpitch. Plus, in slowpitch there are these weird rules that females bat with an eleven inch ball, while males bat with a twelve inch ball. As a pitcher in the past, I was super sensitive about different BRANDS of balls (I could name the brand and model of the balls with my eyes closed). So you can imagine what different SIZES of balls did to me. Needless to say I drowned my sorrows in froyo.

YUM. This is my favorite froyo place. I got salted caramel pretzel and chocolate with heath bar on one side, and tart mango and tart with fruit on the other side. Since my goal this week was no gluten, I had to make the sacrifice of choosing heath instead of brownie. I know, I have a hard life. I was going to blog last night but then I made the smart decision to actually go to bed at a reasonable time!

This morning, I was up early for the kitten nursery. There aren’t a ton of litters right now, so that all was fairly quick. A lot of the kittens are sick-nothing serious, just eye injections and colds, but it was spreading at an alarming rate. When we deal with kittens and clean their cages, we bleach EVERYTHING. Everything is bleached between litters, including the scale we weigh them on. Well, it turns out someone replaced all the bleach bottles with water, which is why things were spreading. Anyways, I did get some pictures of the youngest litter. They were even smaller last week!

The kittens are very vocal, especially when they’re hungry!

We actually had a little issue with this litter. As in, one kitten went to the bathroom right on top of ALL the kittens paperwork, which included where we record their weights and eating habits 3x a day, for al long as they’ve been here. So that was an issue.

This is from the litter that we bottle fed a few weeks ago. How on earth did they get so BIG? It’s crazy!

Here’s the steps going up from the kitten nursery to the cat shelter. I love this.

After finishing up at the shelter, I had to hurry down to school to meet with my research professor, only to get there and find out the meeting was cancelled. That wasn’t a huge deal because I had to be down there anyways to do research.
After lunch, I headed out to the bay to run. I wanted to see how far north the trail I’ve been running on goes-I had previously thought I was at the end but then I discovered another path. Before my run, I made the decision to take it at a super easy pace. I pushed the pace yesterday, and this is my heaviest week of my training plan, so I want to just get through it. It turned into a no music run because it was too windy to hear anything. I actually enjoyed the run, although it seemed to take forever. And as it turns out, a slower pace is way harder on my calves. Which have been sore ever since I didn’t wear compression socks after my long run. Smart.
For some pre-Crossfit fuel, I whipped up a smoothie with the dark chocolate almond milk in danger of expiring, a handful of spinach, half a frozen banana, a pinch of xantham gum, and a handful of ice.

This came out a lot better than I was expecting-I could only taste a hint of spinach, which just made it all the more refreshing. Oh how I love my Vitamix.
My afternoon was spent hanging out with my cat, wearing compression socks, and catching up on blogs.

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I love that guy.
While doing the WOD at Crossfit today, it occurred to me that I should probably consider the running I do in Crossfit. I mean, I ran a mile in Crossfit today, which pushes my mileage to 5 for the day. I might stick to 3 tomorrow instead of 4 because it’s likely I’ll run more at Crossfit tomorrow. Thoughts?
Dinner tonight was a good one.
Guacamole for the vegetables: the before and after.

Plus turkey burgers (my current favorite thing) and zucchini fries.

My dad also grilled up some pineapple, which I ended up adding to a little vanilla frozen yogurt.

Overall, it was a good day! And, now I have brand spanking new tires so I can nail those hairpin turns going 60. I kid. Have a great week everyone!
Do you have any funny pet stories?
Hmm maybe mine is the time my GIANT black cat chased the pet sitter around the house? The pet sitter refused to come back!

Burnt Out and Burnt

Date: July 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First I want to take a moment to recognize the tragedy of the plane crash at the San Francisco airport Saturday afternoon.

I haven’t gone into much depth with my workouts lately, so let’s talk about that here!

Here’s a good one for you to try. It’s tabata style, meaning you work for 20 seconds, and then rest 10 seconds. You repeat this 8 times, for a total of 4 minutes. In the following workout, you do a full tabata of each exercise. Hand release push ups are where you lower yourself chest to the ground, and then bring your hands up off the ground, and then back down and complete a push up.

We did this at Crossfit Tuesday night, and combined with a warm up full of Romanian deadlifts, my legs are still sore! I actually Rxed the deadlifts, at 95 pounds.

So let’s go through some of the workouts this week.

Monday: Abs class and Spin with one of my favorite teachers. I actually saw her at the Farmer’s market today!

Tuesday: 4 mile run-2 miles were intervals. Yoga class. Crossfit that evening with the above WOD. I also practiced handstands! I’ve never done them before and actually got kind of close against the wall. Between those and a ton of downward dogs after not much yoga, my shoulders were done.

Wednesday: Morning spin, 4 mile run (split up. I hate the treadmill). A Jillian Michaels group exercise class. This class convinced me that I’m way too uncoordinated to teach any type of group exercise (hence why I want to teach spin. Not a whole lot of coordination is necessary).

Thursday: 10 mile easy bike ride

Friday: 4 mile run, Crossfit with this WOD:

10 Minute AMRAP

5 box jumps

7 burpees

10 dumbbell snatches

We worked on pull-ups then and my arms were sore. I also got a couple of double unders-progress!

Saturday: Crossfit. The WOD was:

400 m run

6 chin ups

10 push jerks

15 toes to bar (or knees…up in my case. I’m not that flexible)

It was a good one! I’m glad they are finally letting my lift the big weights! Heehee.

Ok, so I know this seems like kind of a lot of exercise. But my body seriously can handle it-crew was 2-a-days every day, and was a lot more intense. Plus, I’m doing a ton of different things so it’s not the same muscle groups every day.

Ok, so I know this seems like kind of a lot of exercise. But my body seriously can handle it-crew was 2-a-days every day, and was a lot more intense. Plus, I’m doing a ton of different things so it’s not the same muscle groups every day. Right now I’m feeling good so I’m just going to go for it. You know how I was talking about how I lost so much muscle in my arms? I’ve done a lot of upper body strength stuff this week and I swear my arms have already grown. Crazy!

Next week is my heaviest week of half marathon training, so a lot of non-running stuff won’t be in there then. So let’s talk running.

The title of this post pretty perfectly describes my last run. Burnt Out and Burnt. I made the mistake of doing 2 treadmill runs, both over my mental treadmill limit (which is 3 miles, if you’re interested. And that’s barely). The first one was okay, I did intervals which made it a little better. Then, I thought a 5 mile treadmill run on Wednesday morning would be a great idea. Hah. I gave up after a mile. I then did 3 more miles that evening on the treadmill (again. Yeah, I’m really smart). It was not fun. I can’t accurately describe my hate for the treadmill. I don’t get how people train for long races only on the treadmill!

Friday, I ran down at school after working at the lab. I was feeling pretty burnt out pre-run. This is the hard point of the training-the load gets heavier and you’ve been doing it for almost 2 months. Beth knows what I’m talking about! I had loosely been planning on trying to beat my last time for this particular run. ….And then I realized trying to do a pace run when I’m already burning out would be stupid, so I ran un-timed and un-Garmined (yes that’s a word). Plus, my Garmin was dead. I always wondered what it takes for it to run out of battery-I used it for about a month before bothering to charge it and it was fine. This time, I accidentally left it on, which I figured out when my purse beeped and it was dying. Sad.

Anyway, running without my Garmin was a good decision. But the run wasn’t very pleasant, and it was 100% my fault. I wore my new shoes and didn’t wear my anti-blister socks. I figured it would be fine since it was only 4 miles but things didn’t really work out that way. I think my new shoes might be a size too big. My other Nikes have always been half a size down, but the guy at the store at first thought I’d be a full size up. Anyways, my feet were rubbing like crazy and burning up! At some point I didn’t know whether I’d be able to finish. The 4 mile run isn’t that important. I’d rather not finish and not have blistered feet for the 11 miler. I ended up finishing, but it wasn’t the prettiest thing.

Where am I going with this? I need to be smarter about not burning myself out. Why run on the treadmill if I know I hate it? I just need to get the runs done, and not worry too much about speed, etc. And I feel better about tomorrow’s 11 mile run. The unfortunate thing is I need to start training for my Nike Women’s half like a week after I run this one. I think I’m going to train this a little differently though. I’m going to take an extra week off and jump into week 2 of the training plan, and I’m probably only going to run 3 days a week instead of 4. I think the plan is especially important the first time around, and it’s not worth burning out. So we’ll see how that goes! And since this post has had like no pictures, here are some scenes from my weekend.

How do you prevent burn out?

WIAW and Graduation!

Date: July 2, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday- the one time in the week where we all come together and enjoy delicious food! And of course, thank you Jenn!

Guess what? I’m actually ahead on post ideas. As in, I have 2 posts that I’m planning on writing up. What?? Who am I? So be on the lookout for those. I also had some excellent suggestions from you guys for how to make my pictures pretty- pic monkey! So naturally I had quite the fun time today playing around with that! And…naturally this was my subject-so let us commence What I WISH I Ate Wednesday!

Heh heh. Editing is fun. Although this didn’t actually need anything to look mouthwateringly delicious. Did you guys know there’s even a spray tan and a nip and tuck feature? Although I assure you, this froyo does NOT need to appear smaller!

As you can see, I definitely have a type 😉

So let’s move on to what I ACTUALLY ate:

A salad inspired by Beth and my laziness. A salad with spicy avocado hummus and beautiful Farmer’s Market heirloom tomatoes, topped with a runny egg.

Normally I would have my hummus salad with a hardboiled egg since the yolk is delicious combined with the hummus. However, I was not about to hard boil eggs (that takes TIMEEE), so I decided to try this! My opinion? Two thumbs up!

As you may know, I’m trying to change my snacking habit. (It takes 21 days to change a habit, so that’s how long I’m skipping snacks for!) And just a clarification, I’m not necessarily trying to restrict food intake, just break the habit of mindless snacking. One thing that was interesting that without snacking, I didn’t want as much food at dinner. Interesting! So that’s one day down!

ANYWAYS. Dinner was delicious!

The breakdown: a couple of recipes courtesy of Cooking Light: Asian Lettuce Cups and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas. The lettuce cups are delicious- they have ground turkey, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. They’re fun to eat, and would also make a great finger food at a party (but granted they’re a bit messy). Also on my plate was a Garlic Brown Rice and Quinoa mixture.

I love this stuff-it’s more interesting and has more flavor than plain rice, and it’s still super versatile. I’ve seen it at both Whole Foods and Costco. For dessert, I had some papaya and dark chocolate.

I love Hawaiian papaya, I just wish it wasn’t so darn expensive! Blah.

I love super dark chocolate. The lower square is 91%.

So let’s get to today’s workouts! This morning I went to a yoga class, but I complete my 4 mile training run beforehand on the treadmill. I did some intervals and some steady. It’s amazing how much intervals can kill your legs! Yoga was really good as well. I haven’t gone in 2 weeks- not since I tried Bikram. I’m sooo tight. I guess that’s what running will do to you! I need to make it a priority to go more often. Also, my arms are pretty weak. I can’t remember ever before my arms having this little muscle. For years, I was playing softball regularly, which included pitching, which kept my arms strong and muscular. And then of course, rowing kept that up (I actually bulked up a ton in my shoulders during winter quarter…). Even after lying in bed for weeks with Mono, I still had a little of my rowing muscle left over. However, now with no sport, and running pushing weight lifting out of my routine, I’ve lost that. Yoga plus Crossfit tonight left my arms quite jello-y. At Crossfit, I worked on handstands-I was against the wall, and got about a foot away from a decent handstand. Not bad for my first time!

I also worked on deadlifts. It was a super light weight for me, but I was technically still in an Intro class. I was able to Rx the WOD though in terms of weight! Here’s what it was:

4 Minute Tabatas (20″ on 10″ off 8x) of each:

Deadlift (95)

Kettlebell Swing (35)

Hand Release Push Up

I finished with a total of 171. I did the hand release push ups on my knees though since I wanted to maintain good form, and there were a lot of them. This WOD was HARD. My arms were jello. Yoga plus hand stands+ push ups=jello arms.

But you want to know the best part? The coaches determined that I don’t have to do the “on-ramp” which is the 1 month program beginners of Crossfit have to go through to learn the lifts, since I already have a really strong lifting background and basically know all the lifts. Yay! (Hence-graduation. I’m no longer an ‘Intro’!) What does this mean for me? I get to do the regular WODs, come in for any of the workouts, and save $75! Woo hoo! I can’t wait to go in again-not sure when that’s going to be though! See you all tomorrow!

What is your favorite way to eat froyo? Are you going to the Healthy Living Summit? Crossfit-love it or hate it?

Shaping Up My Summer (and Future)

Date: June 26, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi friends! We’re almost to the second week of Summer Shape Up.

Technically I haven’t finished Week One, but I decided to do a post earlier with my plans. Paleo eating went pretty well for me, although I found my self resorting to several Paleo crutches. I’m looking at you coconut milk yogurt. For this next week, I’m not going to exactly be eating Paleo, but I want to focus on lean proteins and produce.

Although it may not be apparent from this blog, I actually love fitness…more than food. And yet I hardly ever post about fitness, in comparison to food! I want this to change! On a similar note, the new eating focus is eating to fuel my workouts. This is kind of getting back to my nutritional roots. An increase in intensity of my workouts resulted in my discovery of Nutrition. I feel like I have gotten away from this is the past year(s). Hence, the new week’s goal! I want to do well (ok, I want to complete) my upcoming half, and fueling well is really the only way I can do this. I’m going to add back in some dairy, but keep the grains out due to a possible allergy (I made a doctor’s appointment-yay!). Also, with Crossfit, I want to be able to do my absolute best on the WODs!

On a kind of sidenote, I’ve fallen in love with turkey burgers as of late. The next plan is to try them in the microwave, so I can continue this love affair next year back at school!

I also wanted to talk about my future fitness goals and plans. I love having something to train for, but I’m not sure running long distances is my true love.

So with that said, here are my upcoming race plans. The Giants race in early August (you know, the one I’ve been training for for the last month?). Then, head straight into training for the Nike Women’s marathon in October. After that, I want to take a break from distance running.

I am kind of dying to do a Turkey Trot, and a 10k sounds just about perfect. I take my Thanksgiving meals very seriously, and 6 miles sounds great to really rev up my appetite.

(Plenty of space for expansion in that dress!)

I also want to train to PR a 5k. I did a Santa Run last year, and got 25 something. I hadn’t run much (although I had been rowing a ton), so I think I can crush that PR with proper training and speed work.

Longer term, I’ll probably do some halfs in they are interesting. I might do the Giant’s race next year, but do the 10k and try to PR. (Because PRing is fun). I trained hard last summer for the 10k, and actually won my age group! (I’m super proud of this!) Sadly, next year I’ll be going up an age group, with super fast people. But with proper training, I should do pretty well (based on last year’s results).

In summary, more of this:

None of this:

(Grains are not working for me right now, and peanut butter makes my face break out like crazy. Yeah, I’m basically a mess.)

And some of this:

I’m thinking of making Sunday fro-yo a thing. I Yelped the best fro-yo places in SF, and I’ve already picked one out for after my half. Priorities people.

One more interesting thing I forgot to note-I’ve definitely eaten fewer sweets this past week. I guess eliminated grains takes away a lot of the unhealthier sweets options. I’m fine with that!

So expect more about fitness and exercise on this blog in the future!