Fitness as of Late and I Made a Casserole

Date: July 19, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy weekend!

I wanted to talk a bit about fitness as of late, more exploring DC, and the big milestone in my life.

Wednesday I went to Crossfit and worked on cleans-as I already stated. I did some single leg RDLs after. Not a lot, and not heavy. But my legs were SOOOORE. Plus I was really sore from all the cleans. But holy hamstrings. Whew. I decided that my hamstrings have gotten weak and inflexible so I’m going to tack some single leg RDLs on the end of my workout every week or so. But not right before run club…

Lucky for me, run club was easy on Thursday. The fast people weren’t there, so we just did a basic 3 mile route at a reasonable place. Super easy.

Friday morning, I had a 4 miler at an early hour. I was taking it easy, but my taking it easy this week was faster than my taking it easy last week, so that’s always good to see! Getting faster!

Friday evening was Crossfit. We did bench presses and negative chin ups. Despite doing bench press most weeks since I’ve been here, I can probably still count on one hand the number of times I’ve bench pressed. For some reason it was just one of those things I almost never did, so I’m sore from that!

Saturday morning I went to another OutRun. This week was the same instructor as the first time I went, and it was a much faster pace than last week’s OutRun! Lots and lots of hills too-I guess I don’t have to worry about the SF hills for my half!

This afternoon, I went to a big mall to get my iPod fixed. I dropped it on an early morning groggy run and jammed the power button down. I had to exchange it, but I’m happy I got the same model-I like that it has a clip!

Afterwards, I stopped at Arlington Cemetery on the way back.

It was so peaceful and quiet there. I don’t think I can accurately portray the sense of respect and honor, so I’m not going to try.

I walked up high onto the hill, with an amazing view of the whole city. I sat there for a while, just looking down on everything. It’s amazing to me how much I’ve fallen in love with this city in such a short time.

On a much lighter note, my milestone is that I’ve officially made a casserole. That makes me officially old.

It has quinoa, spinach, corn, milk, and various types of cheese.

It was good but not great.

Then again, I just threw things together so I had no idea what to expect! Also make note of my loaf pan-aka the only pan I have.

Have you ever made a casserole? How did it turn out?

I Don’t Understand the Cupcake Craze

Date: July 12, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello everyone!

This morning, I went to another OutRun!

I fueled up beforehand with some banana-oatmeal balls and blueberries.

The workout was fun-it was in a different place this time, and included plenty of hills, including trail running. I generally hate trail running-although to be fair I now have a good excuse for hating it. I have foot issues that are worse on trails-and the foot doctor even confirmed it. Not sure if I ever talked about this specifically but all the pain and numbness I talk about in my feet on long runs is apparently something called a neuroma, which is scar tissue build up on/around the nerve. This is probably from years of bruised feet when I played softball and had the cleats stick up through the shoe into my foot. Anyways-the foot thing isn’t an issue on shorter runs anyways!

I only wiped out on the trail once! By some miracle I landed perfectly, without a scratch. This OutRun was-I guess I would say-an easier workout than the last one. It was a larger group, so there was more pace differential so I didn’t feel like I was pushing the pace much. However, I’ve logged a lot of miles this week-kind of out of nowhere-so my legs were dragging a bit. I was especially worried about my calves. They were super tight, and my left one wasn’t feeling that great, so I kept a close eye on it. Not sure if my “long run” (5 miles) is going to happen tomorrow though, just as a precaution. I’ll play it by ear, but it is definitely not worth it to push myself and get hurt 2 weeks into training. I’m currently wearing compression socks, hoping they work their magic!

My running for the week was as follows:

Mon-off

Tues-3 mile training run

Weds-November Project+running there and back, so ~3 miles?

Thurs-Run Club. Between 3-4?

Friday-4 mile training run+maybe a mile or so at Crossfit?

Saturday-OutRun, about 4 miles

Sunday- (5 miles)

While the mileage isn’t that high, it’s much more than I’ve been running lately. The thing is, I don’t know what to cut out! It’s definitely something to figure out, especially as the long runs get longer.

After the workout, I decided to try my luck at Georgetown Cupcake. The line is always INSANE there, so I was hoping that before 11am, it would be reasonable! It was better, but it was still a wait, and I ran out of water so I was SO thirsty! I bought 2 bottles of water there. Worth every penny.

I had a lava fudge cupcake.

It was a chocolate base with cream cheese frosting and fudge sauce on top.

It was good, and the fudge on top was definitely a nice touch. I don’t get the gourmet cupcake trend though, now that I’ve had a few of the “best” places. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I could make the same thing, or better, myself at home! Sure, it wouldn’t look as nice, but that’s really not the important part! I’m much more on-board the gourmet ice cream trend that seems to be sweeping the San Francisco Bay Area. How am I going to make liquid nitrogen ice cream at home?? (Wait-new life goal!)

So while this famous cupcake was good, I won’t wait in line for another!

Since I ate a pre-lunch cupcake, I decided I should get some veggies in my system. I happened to pass a SweetGreens-they’re seriously everywhere! I got the seasonal salad, which has peaches, goat cheese, basil, and balsamic. I added chicken.

I really liked the basil in this. It was such a nice touch that gave the salad a whole summer-y feel.

After lunch, I walked around Georgetown a bit, and then walked home.

My afternoon has been really low key. I decided to save the exciting things for tomorrow. I’m meeting up with some people to watch the game, and depending on if I’m running or not, I might hit up a Smithsonian.

For snack, I had some leftover brussels sprouts. They were a little firmer than I would have liked, so I heated them up in the microwave liberally to cook them a bit more. I then topped them with smoked gouda. Delicious.

Since I ate plenty of veggies in my snack (that bowl x2 or 3), I opted for a simple dinner of an egg and some very egg heavy chocolate chip pancakes.

They came out super dense, and not the most amazing things ever, but it got the job done!

Have a fantastic rest of your weekend!

WIAW-The Battle of the Can

Date: July 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! Thanks for your feedback on length of posts-I’ll try to Goldilocks it and have it juuust right-not too long or short!

Thanks to Jenn for helping us celebrate this day!

My morning began with a hazy 5:30am wake up call. I’m pretty sure I was hungry when I woke up but too dazed to realize it. I’ve had the worst time falling asleep lately so I’ve been dragging a bit!

Somehow I made it out the door…but managed to drop my iPod on the cement twice. The on/off button jammed down and it turned itself off…indefinitely. Hopefully it can be fixed!

The first run of the week was a 3 miler. I’m going to run the same 3 mile route for a while to compare paces.

And you can’t beat this view! It never gets old.

My pace this week was 30s/mile faster than last week, which is much closer to where I need to be! My legs have still been feeling sort of off though!

Breakfast was a quick fruit bowl with a beautiful glob of sunflower seed butter.

…And then coffee at work.

I had a lunchtime meeting thing at work so I didn’t have time to buy anything there, and I got back too late last night to deal with cooking anything. So I grabbed what I could.

I swear, this was the crunchiest lunch ever! Everything was SO loud, in a very quiet room. Whoops!

After work, I headed to Crossfit. It hasn’t been anything too crazy the past couple of days. Today we worked on split jerks, which really needed work for me. For the past 3 years, I’ve had my left leg forward as my dominant leg. Today I learned I’m much better on my right leg now. Go figure…

The WOD was a 10 minute EMOM of 10 double unders (or 20 single unders if you are me) plus 2* russian kettle bell swings. Except every minute, the amount of swings increases by 2, so the last set had much less rest time!

As soon as I stepped outside, I could tell a storm was coming. It was INSANELY windy, and also dark! I wasn’t worried about getting rained on though because every time I’ve carried my umbrella, the rain has held off. And I had my umbrella. I literally got back 2 minutes before the storm started.

While it was all dark and gloomy outside, I whipped up a new to me recipe. Anne’s “Cheesy” Mushroom Quinoa. I added extra kale in place of boo choi (I could’t find it) and olive oil in place of coconut oil because I couldn’t rationalize buying an entire jar of it. I also had a nice little moment when I realized my beans were in a can and I lacked a can opener. I got it open, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend my methods! But I still have all my fingers so I guess it’s all good!

This was such a good dish for a gloomy evening, and i’m already looking forward to leftovers!

I also whipped up some more banana bread! This is the third time since I’ve been in DC! It was lemon-blueberry banana bread, but the recipe is not ready to share yet.

It tasted good still, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting the lemon flavor to come through. Any suggestions? I used the juice of a lemon, lemon rind, and 1.5 teaspoons of lemon extract. More lemon juice? Maybe lemon concentrate? Is that a thing?

And there’s my day!

What was the best thing you ate this week?

I can cook!

Date: July 6, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So today I came to the conclusion that I can actually cook. Now that I’ve entered into the meat-cooking world, I think it’s fair to say that! Exhibit A is tonight’s dinner-Greek salad!

From the few times I’ve cooked chicken, I’ve learned that the key is to season the #$%# out of it. I have a few spices, and I basically go after it with all I’ve got. Seems to work!

Also on the food front, I have something to share with you guys. I’ve made the coconut flour quesadilla from Blogilates a few times now. Recently, I started making just a plain quesadilla, with the coconut flour tortilla base, and then cheese in the middle. It whips up in minutes, and all the ingredients are staples. In the past couple of days, (especially as my fridge grew sparse) whenever I was hungry I’d whip up one of these guys.

I turned it into a pancake version this afternoon by adding mashed banana and some white chocolate chips.

Those came out as kind of a fail (I burned them a bit) but it is versatile.

Now, onto the run. I had planned to do 6 but ended up deciding on 5. I’m really hoping it’s the heat and humidity getting to me, and I’m not just super out of shape, but every time I run it’s so HARD. Which is concerning given I was running fast(ish) 6 milers at the end of school.

At least the scenery was nice. I headed out along the waterfront. I had originally planned to go North to the Georgetown area, but it was easier to go south.

I ended up turning around at the Arlington Cemetery-not that I was trying to go there in the first place! My parents lived in DC and would talk about how they would always accidentally wind up there, so I guess it runs in the family!

With a mile left, I decided to run to Georgetown Cupcakes, a super popular place I had yet to try, instead of heading back. Sadly, when I got there the line was insane (to be expected).

Georgetown^

Instead, I stopped at the Pinkberry across the street. SO good.

Another thing I learned today? I’m not in California anymore. I sunburned the heck out of my shoulders today.

This picture doesn’t come close to doing it justice, but you can see my nice burn lines from Friday as well.

Other than that, it was a very low key day. Nothing crazy!

What did you do this weekend? Can you cook?

Running the Golden Gate

Date: June 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I had the best day today. Seriously. Since I finished my first final yesterday and I don’t have another one until Wednesday, today was definitely a day off!

This morning, I ran with Crossfit in San Francisco! We carpooled up to Crissy Field and I ran with my phone for picture taking purposes.

It was an absolutely beautiful day to run. Fairly warm but windy up higher, with some fog around the bridge.

My Crossfit coach’s dog.

Please note how high up the bridge is in these pictures, and that we began at sea level.

A group of us wanted to run the bridge, which was a bit of a ways up-lots of stairs! And the bridge isn’t super flat either! So here are some bridge pictures!

And of course proof that we indeed did reach the other side:

We definitely kept up a decent pace. When we weren’t climbing, it was under 9:30 which is on the fast side for me, especially after the hills! I was basically dying by the end. We ended up doing just under 7 miles and my legs are definitely feeling it!

On the way to brunch afterwards we stumble upon a giant food truck gathering so we stopped there instead.

The first thing I got was the best latte I’ve ever had. By far. It was AMAZING.

Since the coffee took a while and I didn’t want to make everyone wait, I got my food from the place with a shorter line-I ended up with and Indian roll filled with Chicken Tikka Masala.

It was good but MAN was it spicy. I bought a bottle of water and was getting seriously concerned when my water was disappearing faster than the pain in my mouth! I’m the biggest wimp with spicy food!

I then went back home to drop some things off to begin the move out process and ended up getting drawn in by the air conditioning and the cats.

I actually broke my no sugar thing. Sort of. I was tentatively planning on ending it today, and I celebrated with a slice of leftover birthday cake from the freezer.

It didn’t spark any crazy cravings, so here’s to another week! I know what my next dessert will be though-I volunteered to bake a Boston Cream Pie from scotch for my sister’s graduation next weekend!

Like I said, I was sucked into the world of cats at home. I ended up not leaving until late into the evening, and I spent a lot of time with a very purry kitty.

It was such a hot day today, and since my dorm has no air conditioning, it gets pretty bad. I’m sitting here now sweating! I also had dinner at home. We had a spinach and mushroom quiche from Whole Foods, broiled asparagus, and a green bean creation I made. I sautéed up some frozen green beans (we didn’t have a lot on hand in the veggie department) with roasted garlic, green onions, and later some garlic and herb laughing cow. Yum!

A tough run in an awesome place, with awesome people, plus cat time? Does it get any better??

What did you do this weekend?