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Return to Running

Well folks, for months and months I was planning on running a half marathon this morning. That very much did not happen. However, I’m SO glad I made the decision not to run. And the fact that it’s been about 95 degrees lately here and the race was in San Jose and not SF, which is much hotter. I’m so glad I didn’t run because had I run, I wouldn’t be able to walk right now. Or tomorrow, and possibly not for the next week. I wouldn’t be running for a while, and that’s still assuming I didn’t injure myself in a more serious manner (I was worried I was going to give myself stress fractures from limp-running so strangely).

Instead, here I am, capable of walking. I’m making my triumphant return to running tomorrow morning after 2 weeks off. I swear, it’s like I have completely different feet. My plantar fasciitis is still there, and it still has its ups and downs, but my feet feel better than they did in months.

I also rediscovered my love of spinning during this time. I think I spun 10 times in the past two weeks? It was awesome. I didn’t make it to much spin this past summer due to schedule issues.

So that’s what things have been like on the workout front lately, plus Crossfit of course. Friday’s workout was pausing back squats for the strength-it’s amazing how much harder these are than regular squats! To do a pausing back squat, count 2 seconds at the bottom. I used a weight that would have been insanely light for regular squats and it still left me sore! The conditioning portion was a bit brutal as well. What could be better than starting your Friday night with 90 wall balls? *I have no clue if I’m being sarcastic here or not.”

3 rds:

200m run (This was short and my feet felt good so I did this run)

100m Farmers carry

10 man makers

30 wall balls

[Man makers are performed with two dumbbells. One push up (on dumbbells), one row with each arm, and then a thruster with the dumbbells.]

In terms of food, meals have been sort of hit or miss lately.

HIT:

Yogurt bowl with mashed banana and cocoa powder, topped with sunbutter.

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MISS:

The fact that the above yogurt bowl turned into brunch because I had lab through lunch. Or lunch could be the food I scarfed down immediately before dinner. Take your pick.

HIT:

These persimmons are amazing. I love my roommate.

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MISS:

Dining hall dinner-the lentils were pretty salty. The kabocha was good though!

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HIT:

Coffee from my favorite coffeeshop. A cappuccino.

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MISS:

The above cappuccino was quite the trek across campus. At least biking back was easier caffeinated.

HIT:

Going to a different dining hall for breakfast and finding that they actually had edible eggs.

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MISS:

Being too nervous to get up or move during the Giant’s game on Friday and instead scarfing down a bowl of egg whites and spinach before my afternoon class.

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HIT:

Dining hall brunches have been good lately. Yesterday’s had butternut squash ravioli which was amazing, and a cinnamon roll that was good.

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(Note: I try to stick to one “treat” during brunch.)

And then Sunday’s brunch which was banana chocolate chip pancakes and huevos rancheros.

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Although I wasn’t a fan of the sides (vinegary kale and bulgar pilaf) for that one.

MISS:

Once again, I was glued to the Giant’s game through dinner so dinner consisted of pumpkin muffins my roommate made (amazing, by the way), egg whites, and cheese and crackers. It is what it is.

On that note, did anyone watch Saturday’s Giant’s game?? 18 innings! Insane. What a fantastic game (if you’re a Giant’s fan). Although I will admit, I stopped watching around the 15th inning because I decided it was time to move on with my life!

What are some of your “hits and misses” as of late?

 

 

 

Pumpkin Emergency

I’m aware it’s been way too long since I’ve posted but sometimes life gets in the way, and that’s a good thing! Anyways, Thursday evening after I finished my 3 hour lab, I walked into my room and said “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m having a pumpkin emergency. We need to go RIGHT NOW.”

So, my attempts at waiting to get ALLTHEPUMPKIN until October failed and I gave in. We headed to Trader Joe’s. I proceeded to spend much too much time looking for the perfect pumpkin.

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(But he is perfect, isn’t he?)

Then, I proceeded to clear the shelves pick out several items. My noteworthy purchases were pumpkin butter, pumpkin cream cheese (my favorite!), pumpkin spiced pumpkin seeds, and cinnamon apple chèvre (goat cheese). Also noteworthy finds that I restrained myself from purchasing were pumpkin mochi, pumpkin cranberry granola, pumpkin pop tarts, and some really, really delicious pumpkin cranberry crackers (they were the free sample with honey chèvre).

It was so fabulous. In terms of other non-pumpkin life events, Wednesday morning I went to an insanely early spin class which was awesome, and then proceeded to over caffeinate myself with this latte:

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Thursday morning I did the Crossfit workout that was posted just in the gym at school, which was pretty quick. I did 10 minutes of 3 snatches at 65% on the minute, and then 9 sets of 250m sprints on the rowing machine.

Friday morning I spun a little on my own, and then went to Crossfit in the evening, which I am already sore from. The strength was back squats with a pause at the bottom, which gets me every time! My legs were already done before the conditioning portion, which was a 15 minute amrap of 20 front lunges (65#), 15 burpees (blech), and 20 single arm dumbbell snatches.

In terms of food, I haven’t broken into the pumpkin THAT much. The pumpkin seeds are delicious, but my current favorite way to eat pumpkin is crackers with pumpkin cream cheese and pumpkin butter. I also tried the pumpkin Chobani-it’s good! I would recommend it.

For breakfast, yogurt bowls are nothing new. Sometimes in my room, sometimes in the dining hall. Always with sun butter.

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Here are a couple more meals:

The last of my packed lunches.

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Spinach salad with pasta from the dining hall, plus cabbage and chicken masala.

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A non-yogurt breakfast of egg whites, spinach, and cheese.

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And a perfect nectarine from the Farmer’s Market, eaten before brunch opens here.

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And just for fun, let’s end with a little progress picture.

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There’s a garden right outside my window and this little guy is making some progress right before my eyes!

What pumpkin product are you most excited for? What’s something I must try?

Moved In

Well, I’m all moved into my dorm and sort of ready for school to start! I also only sort of have Wifi so there’s that…It has been so nice to catch up with friends these past couple of days!

In terms of fitness, I went to my last class at my home Crossfit on Saturday morning. The workout was tough, and I barely made the 20 minute time cap! It was the following:

10-1(start with 10 reps of each, then 9, then 8, etc.)

overhead squats

chin ups

-Between each round: 5 strict press and 10 pistols

I used 55# for the overhead squats and 45 for the press. I’m definitely sore today!

This morning, in lieu of a 9 mile run, I took the opportunity to squeeze the last bit out of my gym membership by going to one of my favorite spin classes, and it was fantastic!

Foodwise, I just had my first dining hall meal. My closest dining hall this year is known for having the best food, and it’s also nut free! They even have sunflower seed butter!

Dinner was veggies with a vegetable pot pie:

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Plus plain yogurt, rice chex, raisins, and sunflower seed butter.

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In terms of other food, brunch after spin was from Whole Foods because I needed to buy dairy there. I had huevos rancheros and fruit.

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Breakfast the other day was eggs and berries-I love this plate! It used to be at school but I ended up taking my DC dishes to school.

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The other noteworthy food was roasted plantains that we made at home. My parents ate them with brown sugar and cinnamon, but I went to sea salt route because they were cooked in butter and it seemed just right!

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In foot news, I’m trying to treat them well. One thing that was recommended to me was getting a night brace. This keeps your foot in the flexed position so there isn’t so much stiffness in the morning. The one I got is basically just a sock with a strap that connects the knee and toes. I sort of feel like it’s a foot straight jacket. And I’m sure some night I’ll get up in the middle of the night and run into someone in the hallways, and said person will think I’m insane.

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But it seems to be helping!

In the next few days, look for another recipe post and a little tutorial on watermelon cutting!

How was/is your dining hall food?

WIAW-24 Hours

Happy Wednesday! I wasn’t planning on participating in WIAW but here we are!

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I’m currently sitting at Starbucks blogging. Aaaand it’s 7am. Gotta love those 5:45am spin classes! I got my gym membership back for a month so I can go to my favorite classes. When I went to sign up, they gave my mom a free week guest pass and personal training session to try and get her to try it out. I’m currently putting pressure on here to go but she’s intimidated! So if anyone has some advice for first time gym goers, we’re all ears!

I don’t have a picture of yesterday’s breakfast, but we’ll do a 24 hour period of WIAW, so here is today’s. A cappuccino-I thought a 5am wakeup merited a full-caff (although I may be feeling it a bit already!).

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Plus a spinach and feta wrap.

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Lunch yesterday was at Calafia Cafe. I had a delicious rock cod tostada.

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And since it was basically next door, we stopped in to Tin Pot, my favorite ice cream place. Ever. I’ve tried some of the famous places in San Francisco (Bi-Rite and Smitten), and while they are deliciously amazing, this is still my favorite. I had Tcho Chocolate and it was fantastic as always. It’s amazingly creamy and just perfect in every way. Plus they put melted chocolate in the bottom of the cones so they don’t drip.

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As a pre-Crossfit snack, I had cheese and crackers. This is a recycled picture but the same thing. I got this amazing Blueberry Goat Chèvre. Amazing.

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You can find it at Trader Joe’s. Do it.

Crossfit last night was good. Today will be my last day of Crossfit before my race-I’m cutting myself off! We worked on handstands and split squats. Then, the WOD was the following:

10 minute AMRAP:

7 Overhead Squats (75#)

14 toes to bar

21 burpees

Dinner was cheesy polenta with mushrooms. It included creamy polenta topped with fontina and broiled. Then, sautéed mushrooms were added on top. Delicious. It’s from the Cookign Light app! On the side, we had a salad of arugula, mixed greens, and mint leaves, topped with aged white balsamic and lemon scented olive oil. So fresh.

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For dessert, I had a leftover chocolate muffin with ricotta orange filling.

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A perfect way to end the day!

What did you eat today?

Patriotic City, Patriotic Day, Patriotic Banana Bread

How was everyone’s fourth of July?

I had a great one-I’m pretty much in the perfect place for it!

I kicked off the festivities Thursday night. I had planned to do a run club workout that evening but with heavy rain coming, I wimped out and stayed in my bed watching Netflix until the evening when I Metro-ed over to a friends apartment for movie watching and banana bread making. I’ve been hinting at red, white, and blue banana bread, so here it is!

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I don’t have a specific amount of the ingredients, but I made my banana bread recipe without any sweetener and added about a handful each of blueberries, raspberries, and white chocolate chips. The only white chocolate chips I could find were mini, and they kind of dissolved in the baking process, but it was still SO delicious!

Friday morning I had intentions of going for a run, but I slept in because my sleep schedule is really off right now-it was much needed!

I met up with my friends to watch the DC 4th of July parade!

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I don’t think I’ve ever been to a parade before! It was fun, and I took a ton of pictures, but I condensed them into a little collage so I don’t bombard you guys!

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After the parade, we wandered around looking for a lunch place that was actually open. We ended up at a cafeteria where I had a chicken gyro sandwich.

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Then, we walked a ways to get gelato. It was perfectly refreshing on a hot day! I had vanilla chocolate chip and dark chocolate.

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After some downtime and some weirdly shaped sunburns (I always miss a spot! Or two…), we met back up at the National Mall for the concerts and the fireworks show.

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Except we never found the concert. We weren’t particularly close, and a random weird band was playing on a stage between us and the big main concert. It was ok though-I was mostly there for fireworks!

I swear it was like a movie watching the fireworks with the Washington Monument in the foreground. You know-the end of one of those rom-coms? Just me? Ok…They were really good, and I definitely haven’t watched fireworks with that many people before! The amount of screens you could see from people taking pictures was crazy!

I don’t understand how people for such good pictures…mine sort of just looked like the Washington Monument was exploding…

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After the fireworks, I experienced the madness that is the Metro on the 4th of July. The first station I tried to go to was so full they were sending people away. The next one was also insane but after waiting in hoards of people to get through the gates, I was lucky enough to be one of the few people to get on the first train that I needed. It was PACKED. And people just kept trying to get on, even as we got further from the National Mall! Even the station I got off at was being held up due to crowds. Crazy!

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After a couple of rest days, I hit the gym hard yesterday. Since I missed a training run, I started with a treadmill interval workout. 1 mile at a fast pace, then 5x of two minutes at a past pace and two minutes walking. I haven’t done this in FOREVER, and traditionally I do it 10x, but I didn’t have time for that, or the endurance! It did go better than I was expecting though!

Then, I did a short circuit (like 8 minutes) of push ups, squat jumps, mountain climbers, and sit ups, before heading to a spin class.

The class was AWESOME. The instructor was good and the music was great. I really pushed myself at the end, and the only thing that kept me pushing was seeing the big guy at the froth desk totally rocking out to our music. So great.

Since this post is getting crazy long, I’ll finish up quickly. I got a Whole Foods green smoothie, which was kind of watery but that was fantastic because it was so refreshing!

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That afternoon, I met a friend and went to the zoo. It was fun, and the pandas were so adorable! I was EXHAUSTED by the end though, and my feet were far from happy.

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I went back, grabbed a guacamole salad at SweetGreens (with blueberry basil lemonade-not a fan though) and planted myself on the couch with a movie.

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Such a fun couple of days, but I’m ready for a low key day today! The only thing I have to do is a 6 miler!

How was your 4th?