Typical Mid-Quarter Crisis

Date: April 27, 2014

Author: astottler

Guys, I think I’m losing my mind again. I’m having my typical mid-quarter crisis. This is different than my usual one-normally it’s something like “I’m not good enough for this” and “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.” This time, it’s more of “I don’t know what I’m doing with my time,” and “I need other non-academic goals.” So I spent a lot of time pondering my life and my free time, and deciding what I should be doing with my non-academic life. Suggestions would be welcome. So far all I’ve come up with is I need to think more and that maybe I should sign up for a 5k before I go to DC this summer to try and finally PR. I guess I just kind of feel lost-in high school, I played softball ALL THE TIME. I had goals, and I worked hard for them. And now…I don’t know what I have! I need something to work towards! Something with structure-something I can accomplish! Google suggested I learn web design. Maybe… In other, less delirious things, I FINALLY went to the Farmer’s Market today. I didn’t get that many things though. A few Asian pears, and dried persimmons. The oranges were also really good, but we get them in our CSA box, so I figured I would pass.

I did get this carrot cake muffin though. Whole wheat, and free of refined sugar! And more importantly-no nuts! Although I think I sort of freaked out the person giving out free samples. She handed me something with maybe a single nut in it, and asked if I could eat nuts. To which I responded, “Not in large quantities.” Probably not the best thing to tell someone…. My only other food picture of the day was taken at dinner.

Some type of spinach pastry thing, sweet potatoes, and cabbage salad. Over dinner with my friend, I discussed other potential goals for me to do with my life. We talked about trying to eat 300g of fiber everyday…or becoming a carrotarian, and eating nothing but mass quantities of roasted carrots. Somehow that idea didn’t win… Today ended up being a rest day on the workout front. I took a pretty intense nap-does that count? I think it was much needed! Now, however, it is time to return to studying for a Bio test tomorrow. Have a great Monday!

WIAW-“If She’s Laughing it Can’t Be Good”

Date: February 4, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I’m actually especially happy this Wednesday because by some miracle, I don’t have the 2 problem sets I normally have this week, OR a lab report. Which means my week basically ended after today’s midterm. In terms of the midterm-it didn’t make me physically ill, so I’ll take that as at least a decent sign! And as always, I’m linking up for What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks to Jenn for hosting this weekly party!

Guys. I just want to say, I’m doing something crazy right now. Laundry. Go me! I had to push it until midterms were over, so now I have no excuses. And no underwear. Needless to say, it’s time! I’m just doing a single load though because that’s all I can force myself to fold in one night. Who needs darks, am I right??

But let’s talk about some food. And fitness.

Yesterday morning I did a track workout-10x400m repeats. Nothing crazy. I may have eaten a bit too much the day before and felt kind of sick during them, so I didn’t push them like crazy.

Breakfast was amazing, and a new favorite. Full fat, super high quality Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter, and berry compote (frozen berries reduced down on the stove). Amazing. Just like PB&J!

I’m going to run through the food from the last couple of days in no particular order-I had some snack days, and not everything was captured or necessarily a full meal!

Brussels sprouts with butter and parmesan, and an apple. Yeah, doing tupperware dishes is on my post-midterm to-do list as well…

Cheese and crackers, and a blood orange. We got fancy cheese at our marathon Whole Foods expedition, and they certainly have not disappointed. These two are manchego and goat gouda. And crackers never tasted so good-for the last 2 weeks, the only snacks I had very sweet things, like fruit, yogurt, and nut butter!

More brussels, more parmesan. Eaten cold. In retrospect, they probably would have been better hot…

But the microwave was in use-I’ve been dying to try making oat pancakes for the longest time! And all I have is a microwave…

It’s kind of hard to evaluate how they turned out. They might have been really awesome on a griddle. Or with the oats actually ground up. The flavor was fine-lots of vanilla and slightly sweet! Oooo I bet they would have been awesome in a waffle maker…

In the microwave, they just didn’t quite solidify. The recipe was half a cup of extra thick rolled oats, half a cup of unsweetened apple sauce, an egg, vanilla, and a pinch of baking powder. I’ll have to try these again at home sometime! (Or sneak my batter into the dining hall…hmm).

I roasted some blueberries in the microwave for topping, plus some whipped butter.

Because sometimes you just want pancakes for dinner! I also bet these would have been even better with maple syrup-the butter kind of got to me for some reason! Mmmm or nut butter…moral of the story-microwave pancakes are hard to do!

Last night, I ended up going to the gym pretty late-as in, 10:30pm. I did an hour long spin workout-instead of a set playlist, I plugged in an hour long race playlist and just rode whatever felt right. As a spinner, I think these types of rides are especially important-figuring out what works with what, and just enjoying riding on my own an kicking my own butt. The only late night workouts I’ve done have been spin, and I actually really like it-I feel like I get extra adrenaline!

This morning, I was up bright and early to train quidditch. I always forget how much I enjoy it! And torturing them. We did a new conditioning today-and when I was explaining it, someone remarked “If she’s this happy, this can’t be good!” It was great-we really took it to the next level today with a tabata of thrusters and push ups. It’s amazing how fast these exercises get difficult when doing tabatas! My sister’s boyfriend was evening failing on the push ups by the end-and he regularly does push ups with her sitting on his back! Major success in my book 🙂 I think I’m going to do their leg workout myself this weekend. I haven’t actually done the full sequence, and I’m craving more intense workouts right now.

This pretty much sums up my morning-coffee and chemistry.

Lots of yogurt. Lots of sunflower seed butter. Lots of berries. Perfection.

Semi-homemade guacamole with carrots and the following crackers. For the guac, I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

Dinner after Crossfit tonight was a different one. We finally put some of our Whole Foods goods to use.

Roasted carrots.

And the crowning achievement-sushi bowls! My roommate suggested we try making sushi, and I suggested we just be lazy and throw it all into a bowl.

We threw some short grain brown rice in the rice cooker, and then mixed it with some rice vinegar for that sushi rice flavor. Plus some Nori (seaweed), toasted sesame seeds, steamed kale, avocado, cabbage, coconut amines, and tuna. The tuna was really good-we got some in a jar marinated with herbs and olive oil. I’m no usually a tuna person (I’ve lived with cats way too long to not associate it with cat food) but this was flavorful in all the right ways! Major win in my books! Plus-leftovers!

Also-I’m starting to really fall in love with running. Which is fabulous. My race was great. Aside from the result, it actually was fairly enjoyable. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up until the last .5 miles, which was a huge improvement from my previous 5k where I felt really sick pretty much as soon as I took off…

But the biggest reason? I’m starting to feel fast again. I’m starting to feel like myself again. I’m freaking excited for tomorrow morning’s tempo run. I’m doing hill sprints later in the afternoon-can’t wait for those. I want to do sprints. I want to be fast.

These last few months of running (aka my whole “official” running career) have been sort of tough-I’ve improved so much, and definitely done distance I never imagined before, but the few extra pounds from my freshman year put a HUGE dent on my speed. Plus, my feet kind of hated me. To be honest, I credit my project for helping me find my love of running again-due to some miracle, my feet are cooperating and I cannot wait for my next long run. And to be honest, losing some weight is definitely helping. Heck, maybe that’s even why my feet are improving. But I have the desire to run-as an athlete, as a racer. I also think that with these continued diet changes, I could make leaps and bounds with my speed, which is exciting. Post-project, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. But for now, I’m going to roll with it.

(I really like this picture but I couldn’t come up with an excuse to include it…so here?)

What is your favorite pancake topping?

I’m Flying Jack!

Date: October 12, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok, confession: I’ve never actually seen the Titanic. Moving on…

Yesterday morning (Friday) I donned by neon shirt and headed out for an early morning run. I checked the weather report-47 degrees was the low…and the low was at the time of my run. Awesome. The temperatures are really starting to cool down here. Want to know something bizarre? Next week we have lows of 47 and highs of 80. While it does tend to get cold at night here, that much temperature difference is insane!

3 miles were on the schedule for Friday morning. I ran half a mile there, and half a mile back, so my workout was 8x400m repeats. I really like these-and yesterday I felt like I was flying. I don’t wear my Garmin for these, but I’m sure I was well under my goal pace. Something I like even more? 200 repeats. I’ll get to do a lot of those while I train to PR my 5k. SO pumped. I just felt really great out there Friday-I felt like I was flying on my 9 mile run last weekend as well-I feel like I’ve suddenly gotten a lot faster-perfect timing though! T minus 8 days until RACE DAY.

I’m liking my new post early morning workout coffee ritual.

It’s always cold in the morning, plus if I go straight from my workout, I beat all the on the way to work/class crowd. Perfect.

Walking back to my dorm, I saw this:

I wish I lived on the first floor. The cat is back! I called to it and it came running over to me.

Such a sweetie! He almost made me late to class, but so, so worth it.

And…um…he followed me in the door. Which was obviously a problem-it was a good thing my friend was there to kick him out because I definitely didn’t have the heart to do it!

I took zero food pictures from yesterday. But I did do things. And eat things. My dorm had a “homecoming” dance, so we all got dressed up and had fun. When I get the pictures back, I’ll show you guys! I also got ready and totally showered in 15 minutes flat. Because my friends wanted to leave and I was watching How I Met Your Mother….Priorities people! It was actually a lot of fun-everyone was expecting it to be super awkward, but it really wasn’t. It was great to connect with people from my dorm.

This morning I decided to go to Crossfit. 2 weeks ago I PRed my clean and jerk, but today I just couldn’t get it up. You can’t PR everyday, and you don’t always have good lifting days. I wasn’t committing on the jerks, and I kept missing the cleans. I’m pretty sure in the last 2 weeks I’ve developed some bad habits-it felt awesome 2 weeks ago, but then the following week, I started banging up my legs doing cleans.

Which is not right. I was having the same problem today, but no bruising. I could tell I just wasn’t getting in the right position. But it happens. I was frustrated, but looking forward to the WOD: 3 400m sprints with 2 minutes of rest, and then 1 minute of rest in between. I brought my running shoes for this. I was expecting to finish last because everyone else was guys, but it didn’t turn out that way at all. I beat everyone in my heat (we split into 2 heats, starting 10 seconds apart to avoid running into each other), and even passed a person or two from the heat before me. It. Felt. Awesome. I’m starting to really look forward to training for the 5k-I haven’t done much fast running lately, and I forgot how much I liked it! And passing people? Best thing ever.

On a sidenote, I REALLY need to do a timed mile, but I’ve been putting it off. My last one was 8:00, but that was pretty soon after mono and before any half training started. I would think I’d be somewhere around 7:30. I would LOVE to get down to under 7:00 like back in the day, buttt we’ll see about that.

After my workout, I made the world’s worst smoothie. I brought my little packet of chocolate protein powder and cocoa powder to the dining hall, and even waited in the super long blender line. I added blueberries, mango, and milk. And…..WAIT FOR IT-arugula. I wanted spinach but they only had an arugula spinach mix, so I figured, why not? WRONG. WRONGWRONGWRONG. Arugula is a lot more flavorful than spinach. So I had 2 giant glasses of chocolate arugula. It was awful.

I attempted to drink it alongside a biscuit and some chicken/guac. But then gave up and just got another biscuit. Shudder.

Hopefully you guys are having something at least a little more delicious! Tomorrow is my last “long” run before my race. I’m doing 6, even though my plan calls for 8. Last time I felt like my legs really benefitted from the extra rest. The body wants what the body wants! (Which, by the way, is NOT an arugula smoothie.)

Have a great Saturday!