Chicago: #dontstopbeliEVEN

Date: October 9, 2016

Author: astottler

Wow guys, what a trip. I’m so, so glad I was able to make it happen, even though the games didn’t turn out like I might have hoped.

I headed out first thing Friday morning after a quick run. While leaving, I felt like this was a journey I was destined to take!

Also note that if you don’t follow baseball, this whole post may seem crazy. I dropped everything and drove 5 hours to a strange city by myself for a couple of games?

Yes. Yes I did.

I don’t know if you guys have seen How I Met Your Mother. I recently rewatched the series. (It’s interesting now that I feel like I’m more in that stage of my life…) Anyways, there’s an episode where Ted and Marshall drive to Chicago for pizza and the only song they can listen to is that “I would walk 500 miles” song on repeat, because the tape is stuck. I thought I would try that. I made a road trip playlist, and loaded the front of the playlist with 30 minutes straight of that song on repeat (8x). I thought I would see how long I lasted. I am happy to report I made it all 30 minutes. And yes, it did get better over time. In the middle there, I got a little bored with it, but by the end I came back around. It was a little jarring when a different song came on my playlist though!

I stopped for lunch about halfway, apparently in a town called Normal, IL. I found a Panera, and had the Fuji apple chicken salad.

The drive was fine until I got to Chicago. I spent about an hour less than a mile from my hotel, sitting in traffic. The Chicago Marathon was this weekend, so that just made things worse. I have never been so happy to hand my keys to a valet.

I wanted some downtime before the game so I relaxed in my room and had a flapjacked smores muffin in the room for dinner.

…which I came to regret later because I was STARVING at the game and couldn’t find anything I could eat, until I found a salad and it was the most exciting thing ever. But we’ll get to that. Let’s do some pictures.

The train was PACKED!

First view of Wrigley:

This is Wrigleyville. There are places (bars) that have stadium seats on the roof where you can watch the game without a ticket!

And the inside. I was at the top of the centerfield bleachers, right below the old scoreboard.

I was surrounded my plenty of nice Cubs fans, who grew rowdier as the beer flowed. I definitely got messed with a little bit, but it was all in good fun. Anytime anyone found out I had come by myself, they said “you’re brave.” It was a good game, but a frustrating ending. That being said, I also now really understand how much home field advantage matters. The momentum is everything.

Saturday morning I went for a run along Lake Michigan. To be perfectly honest, the lake made me strangely claustrophobic. It’s so strange to be to have something that looks like an ocean, but to know there’s land on the other side. I felt very landlocked. California problems, I suppose. It was a beautiful morning for an exploratory run though!

On my run, I actually had an extremely awkward encounter with one of the Giants’ broadcasters. I said hi…and she looked confused and then I realized I didn’t actually have anything to say…awkward all around. Oh well.

Next on the agenda was brunch! I went to Wheat’s End, a totally gluten free cafe and bakery. There was a bit of a wait, so I put my name on the list and walked around a little bit.

I started with a decaf cappuccino, and then got a side salad and popover with honey butter.

I also got a pumpkin cinnamon roll for later but had half of it then because it was warm! Yum!

Next stop?

The bean!

Obligatory bean photos:

I hung out at the bean for a little while. It was an interesting place to sit back and watch the city.

The other “must do” thing for Chicago was a visit to the Field Museum. It was about 2 miles away, so I meandered my way over, stopping to finish my cinnamon roll along the way.

Look what I found! Lots of streets were blocked off for the marathon.

I really enjoyed looking at the animal exhibits, especially now that I work at a zoo. It was interesting to read about and compare the animals to what we have at the Saint Louis Zoo.

Look—Somali Wild Asses! I watch these guys 🙂

Terra Cotta soldiers.

Next on the agenda was a super quick coffee date with a Stanford friend who just moved to Chicago. It took me FOREVER to get there thanks to traffic, and unfortunately we didn’t have a ton of time together, but it was great to catch up!

I headed to the hotel to get ready. I felt so puffy every night: long sleeves+sweatshirt+giants shirt+fleece. I was cold in the bleachers thanks to wind, but my seats the next night were much more covered (and better!)

To be honest, I wasn’t feeling too great most of the day, and the soup place right by the train stop was a godsend. Exactly what I needed. It was called Soupbox, and I got carrot ginger bisque which was fantastic on a chilly day!

(It came with a free topping, so I went with artichoke hearts.)

My seats for Saturday’s game were awesome. I was on the first base side in the lower level. It was also a lot less rowdy. A lot of older couples with season tickets. I apparently got the woman next to me’s son’s ticket!

See that old scoreboard? I was right under that the previous night. Near the second to left column at the top.

Sadly, we lost again. It was rough. To be honest, it was really hard being a Giants fan in a different city. It was sort of demoralizing/soul crushing. I’m so glad I had the awesome experience of going to Wrigley to see a playoff game, but I left feeling sort of emotionally crushed. I think my boys need to go home to the home crowd. We still have a chance, and we need to get it done!

Luckily, I had a blueberry muffin from the cafe early to ease my pain.

The next morning, I walked around a little and stopped at Starbucks for some herbal tea and a banana, which I paired with a Luna for breakfast.

I loved walking around the chilly city in the morning. I really liked Chicago. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco, and it makes me want to take more advantage of SF when I get home.

Then, it was time to make the trek back. It was actually not bad at all, although I was expecting it to be rough. I blasted some music (my Knoxville playlist) and enjoyed the open country. I’m at the point in my life where there is just SO much to think about. Driving through the midwest countryside is also super easy, compared to driving through CA (like from SF to LA).

I stopped halfway through for lunch+gas. I didn’t leave with a full tank because there wasn’t much in Chicago, so I got pretty nervous when it was time to get gas and I was in the middle of NOWHERE. Seeing gas+Subway was beautiful.

I got a chopped salad with carved turkey (WAY more delicious than the normal turkey breast—it’s thicker cut), provolone, olives, tomatoes, oil and vinegar, and salt and pepper. I think Subway is the most underrated “healthy fast food.” There are a lot of great options, and you can literally find one anywhere, which is great if you’re in the middle of nowhere or in an unknown place.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, but it was nice to see the arch as I drove in. St. Louis is much more familiar! Also, coming home to cats? The best.

It’s honestly so great to be at a point in my life where I can just drive to a new city alone, and have a great weekend. It also gives me more confidence that no matter where I end up, I’ll be just find. I think the people you’re with are ultimately more important to the place, and it’s so exciting to go to different parts of the country, even driving through farmland.

It was quite the trip. I’m glad the drive went well, because I have an even longer solo drive coming up soon!

In summary: Chicago is a fantastic city, I had a great time, and GO GIANTS! Don’t stop beliEVEN!

Answers

Date: December 17, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I had an interesting day on Monday. As you probably know, I’ve been dealing with some sort of mysterious stomach condition since February. I’ve had tons of tests, and everything was coming up negative. There was one last test to try and since I was feeling significantly better I put it off until winter break because it took 5 hours. But the reality was although I was feeling better, I don’t feel like a normal person.

All this led to be fasting for 16 hours and then eating radioactive eggs.

It’s weird going to the doctor and having them feed you, right? I did a gastric emptying study. Basically, they fed me radioactive eggs that they can then track through my stomach with an MRI type of thing, over the course of 4 hours, beginning with a 30 minute long picture. The process was long and involved a lot of waiting, but was relatively painless. While waiting, I googled symptoms/treatments for delayed stomach emptying and found myself nodding along with the symptoms, so I wasn’t too surprised when the test came up positive for delayed stomach emptying.

After a follow up appointment, it sounds like this is likely what is causing the problems. Treatment is mostly managing the symptoms and changing eating habits. I basically have to avoid eating too much. I have to eat more mini meals throughout the day, instead of full meals. I’ve actually been pretty good about eating fairly light over break so far, and I think that has kept most symptoms at bay. So I will be eating lot of small meals, and soups (since liquid can be easier to handle).

Lunch today was a mini bowl of soup and a baby piece of cornbread.

I have mixed feelings about this. I’m glad to finally have some answers, but I’m nervous this lifestyle change will be either difficult to adhere to or won’t “cure” anything. When I think to how bad off it was when it first started, I can’t imagine that smaller meals would make a difference. Thankfully I am better than that, but the threat of that worries me. I just want to be normal! If mini meals might get me there, then that’s what I’m going to have to do. But I feel like at least for now the threat of a full on flare is still very present.

So what else have I been up to?

More soup-Greek lemon chicken. We added carrots and lemon juice. This was topped with chives and feta, and the feta linked all the flavors perfectly. On the side was Trader Joe’s Gluten Free cornbread (from a mix). I really liked it! With butter and honey.

My first ever flat white.

Peppermint hot chocolate with my sister from Peet’s.

Last night’s dinner: sage, chicken, and mushroom soup, with a gluten free rosemary roll on the side. The roll is from Mariposa in San Francisco. Yesterday my mom and I went up to San Francisco to go to the Ferry Building.

We started out with a gluten free lunch at Mariposa, and I got a turkey sandwich with cheddar and cranberry sauce.

We also stopped by the gourmet ice cream shop. I was hoping they would have olive oil ice cream like I had last time, but they didn’t so I settled for some delicious chocolate.

We wandered the shops a little bit before heading home.

Another food excitement—new energy bars! It’s nearly impossible for me to find bars that meet all my various restrictions, so when I saw a website for custom bars on Kaila‘s blog, I jumped at the chance.

I got mine with a date and sunflower seed butter base, and then had whey protein, chia seeds, chocolate chips, vanilla, and honey. SO delicious!

In terms of workouts, this morning I went to the track to do my simple 6x200m. Love the view from this track though!

The other night, I went to a fun Santa Themed spin class, which I dressed up for with Santa socks and a holiday bow in my hair.

I’ve also been going to my home Crossfit, which has been SUPER fun. My first workout back was Tuesday, and the WOD was 5 rounds of 400m run, 30 sit ups, and 15 back squats at 115#. This is exactly the type of workout I LOVE, and it was fun! However, I haven’t done a ton of back squats since hurting my shoulder (I think the first time I was able to do them was like a month ago?) so while the weight wasn’t too heavy, the underuse plus high reps has left me unbelievably sore! Man!

Currently, I am blogging from under both a cat and heated blanket. Winter break isn’t too bad!

Nike Women’s Half SF Preview

Date: September 7, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Today, I had my first “real” long run of half marathon training. By real, I mean above what I might do while not training for a particular race. 6 miles is routine. 8 is half marathon training. Since school hasn’t starting and my puppy was going to be at her playgroup all day, I thought I would take the opportunity to go up to San Francisco and train on some hills.

When I ran this race 2 years ago (Nike Women’s Half), the course was different. The course this year is sort of like a backwards version of how it used to be.

If I had to guess why they changed it, it would be to not have to close the Great Highway and to make the hills a little better. Do you see that big downhill around mile 12? That 300 feet of fast elevation gain used to be a pretty brutal hill in the past. Just based on the course map, my experience today, and my experience in previous races, the hills should be not nearly as bad as in the past! I wanted to get at least one hill in from the race in my run today, so I started in Golden Gate Park and worked my way over to the Golden Gate bridge, taking the following route (about miles 5-10 of the race).

Granted I’ve been training on worse hills this summer, but the hills during this portion were not bad-I think running the reverse of this portion actually was worse.

I haven’t spent much time in Golden Gate Park besides during races, so I took lots of pictures. I was able to park on a side street right at the Western edge of the park, by the windmill.

It was an absolutely beautiful day in the city-75 and sunny! What?? I actually got to see the amazing views that I missed running this race the previous time because it was super foggy and you couldn’t even see the beach/ocean!

Golden Gate Park is nice. I should spend more time there.

First view of the bridge!

I ended up stoping regularly to make sure I was staying on track. I didn’t think I was, but I think I actually stuck to it pretty well until I reached Lincoln Highway, which I was supposed to run up, but there was no sidewalk. Instead, I cut down into a parking lot and got some good views of the bridge!

The return trip was actually better than expected, and I was surprised by how strong my legs felt with the increasing distance. I’ll take it!

Also-compression socks are magic. I put them on immediately and my legs felt great the next day. I mistakenly thought I was near Dynamo Donuts, and was thinking about them the entire second half of the run, so I decided to make the 20 minute drive there, especially since it was right by the freeway!

This time, I got a gluten free lemon buttermilk donut and a decaf iced latte.

Since my entire post-run lunch was sugar, I decided to stop for a hummus and avocado sandwich at the place across the street.

After leaving the city, I went to pick my puppy up from her play group and she was tired!

After a relaxing afternoon, my evening ended on a delicious note when we went to the Greek Festival down the street (it happens every year during Labor Day weekend) and picked up some Greek food for dinner. Spanikopita, or pastry with spinach and feta, is my favorite, but we also had Greek salad (traditional Greek salad doesn’t have lettuce) and chicken kebabs.

For dessert, I had my favorite-Galaktoboureko-which is phyllo dough filled with custard and soaked in honey. Plus, this is one of the only non-nut desserts!

Have you ever run a Nike Women’s Race?

Giant’s Race 2015

Date: August 27, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Guess who did a race this past weekend?

The Giant’s Race finishes in the Giant’s ballpark. It’s awesome. It was my first ever race! This year I did the 10k, not the half like I did the past 2 years. I had a hard time with my training for my April half because I was so sick, that I was just not up for it. That, and I had no time or energy to train with work. This summer I was on my feet 8 hrs a day, and half marathon training plus that would have torn up my feet!

So, I settled on the 10k.

It’s so crazy to me. 4 years ago, I ran this race for the first time.

I was about to start my freshman year of college. Where the heck did the time go?? When I ran it 4 years ago, I actually won my age group. I was in my best shape of my life at the time, and followed a strict training schedule to work up to that distance (at the time a PDR). This year, I ran the race about 7 minutes slower. Instead of moaning about how much slower I’ve gotten, I’m appreciating how my body has changed to allow me to run this distance without issue, essentially without training.

I didn’t have any expectations for the race. I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to run a decent pace. I was actually a second away from my last minute goal time. I mostly just wanted to enjoy this race. It’s an amazing course-along the Embarcadero, under the Bay Bridge, and out past Fisherman’s Wharf. Bonus-the 10k is flat. The half marathon course actually goes to Chrissy field, with a fantastic view of the Golden Gate.

The energy of the runners is amazing as well-lots of like-minded people (aka Giant’s fans). Plus, finishing on the field never gets old. I definitely enjoyed this race!

After the race, I met up with my mom and grabbed a complimentary post-race beer, just because I could. Yayy for 21. I only had a few sips though because we had other plans for beverages that morning!

There was also a little sandbag toss, for prizes. Of course, I had to take part. I nailed my first 2 bags right in the whole. I still have some softball player left in me, and walked away with some new sunglasses!

After my coffee exploration in New York, I figured I should use a trip to the city as an excuse to try some of the best San Francisco has to offer! I picked out a place, and it turned out they had gourmet and gluten free doughnuts! Dynamo Donuts. We arrived minutes before they opened.

I had a chocolate raspberry and a lemon buttermilk gluten free donut. Both were delicious, and you definitely could not tell they were gluten free.

Plus, OF COURSE a cappuccino. Excellent as well. Good coffee is just so much smoother, and without the bitterness.

Overall, it was a great morning!

Tell me-where’s the best coffee?

MIMM-Celebrating the Holidays

Date: December 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! Thanks to Katie for hosting this MARVELOUS link up every week!

I have a lot to tell you guys about! But first-who’s enjoying the holidays?? I know I am!

Saturday morning began with a nice long run. I did 10 miles- I can’t remember the last time I did a long run! It was nice to run back by the bay.

It was surprising to see the hill I run by that was brown all summer be green!

The first half of the run was much faster than the second-at the halfway point, my achilles tendon starting hurting quite a bit. Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve done any long distance running! I also tried salted caramel gu for the first time! It was so good! I would definitely recommend it-but it was not great for me personally-I’m not sure if it’s because my allergies have been bad lately, but I absolutely could not eat it without a coughing fit. I think I have issues with thinner goos-my normal chocolate is pretty thick and maybe not so sugary?

Another issue I had with my run was getting too hungry. I had a slightly smaller than usual pre-run breakfast, plus I didn’t get out of the house as quickly as I had hoped, so I totally ran out of gas by the end of the run.

My post run meal was a beautiful salad with avocado and whole wheat macaroni and cheese.

Later that evening, my best friends from high school came over for our annual cookie decorating tradition.

I made a basic sugar cookie recipe, but this time I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for while flour. The flavor was a tiny bit different but I didn’t mind, and I definitely felt less gross after eating them.

I think we did an especially nice job decorating this year-maybe because I spent so long on my annual #1 turkey, and my friends are much more artistic than me.

One thing I want to touch on is balance. I know I’ve talked about it so much already, but I want to go a little more in depth. First of all, despite posting pictures of tons of delicious desserts, I promise I’m still eating my veggies! They just never seem to make it to the blog this time of year! Second-if you want to eat mass quantities of cookies and still feel great, long runs are awesome-my body just burned through those cookies and I woke up feeling great the next morning!

There are so many articles constantly in your face about “avoiding the holiday weight gain” and “stay healthy over the holidays.” As someone who normally gains a ton of weight between Christmas and New Year’s, I have my own set of tips for you, because for me, this year has been different. Want to avoid the holiday fluff? The best way is to just not worry about it! Don’t deprive yourself, and eat what you want to. That’s what I’m doing this year, and I haven’t gained an ounce. Why? Because if you constantly are worried about gaining weight, food will carry so much stress. I will freely admit I had a couple of sugar induced meltdowns last year-and I could barely enjoy the season! But now that I’m not trying to restrain myself from sweets? I’m finding myself eating fewer, getting more enjoyment out of them, and feeling awesome.

And you know what? When you stop trying so hard-you put less weight on your food choices. At least for me-I’ve been able to enjoy the holidays much more. I ate a ton of cookies with my friends. But I didn’t feel bad. I enjoyed the cookies and had a great times with amazing people-I wasn’t blindly eating them out of some built up craving. I enjoyed every single bite.

And while you’re at it, try to focus on the most important things-family, cats, friends, traditions. I think many people would be surprised to find that food gets a lot less significant.

But let’s get back to friends. Check out what one of my friends gave me!

Twins!

For breakfast in the morning, my mom made blueberry scones, which I paired with scrambled eggs and tea.

We took the train up to the city, and must have all been a little tired because we missed our stop by two stops-luckily it was easy to get back on!

Either way, we all were ready for some caffeine upon arriving in San Francisco.

Visiting the shelter cats at Macy’s was a must. There were 3 that looked like Charlie!

And of course we needed a picture by the tree.

The only bad thing about running 10 miles before spending a day walking around the city and a mall? My feet hated me, and were hurting SO much. It was not good.

Lunch was a giant salad with chicken, avocado, and bleu cheese.

And a late afternoon pick me up, split between the three of us.

Since the sundae was more or less at dinner time, I only had a small serving of chili when I returned home. My mom even threw some kale in the chili-so proud of her!

In other news, the Crossfit WOD this morning was 12 days of Christmas-a different exercise for each day, and then the workout goes through as the song goes. It was brutal and much harder than I was expecting-a lot more cardio too! I didn’t end up finishing under the time cap of 32 minutes!

Then, I went straight down to my school gym to ~~torture~~ take my sister and her boyfriend through a weights workout. I may have mentioned this before, but my sister wants me to teach weight training to the school quidditch team in exchange for fresh green juice, so today I tested out the workout. I’m glad I tested it out because we had to make some modifications, but it was so much fun! It made me realize how knowledgable I’ve become about weight lifting. They are going to be sore tomorrow! And her boyfriend is crazy athletic-when they ran a marathon together, he wasn’t even sore the next day! So if 26.1 miles won’t do it but I can, that’s an accomplishment!

And they did deliver on their promise:

Have a great holiday everyone!

What is most important to you this time of year?