Too long

It's been too long since I was in the habit of running, yoga-ing, blogging, generally focusing on fitness. And in less than 2 months, I'm running a half-marathon with the stated goal of running the whole thing. Um, yeah. I had a kind-of active holiday with lots of swimming in the lake (though that mostly took the form of hanging out in the water) and I even went for one sorry little run. Then I had a busy week last week and just didn't have the focus. This weekend we went away so I didn't do my long run, but instead we took our bikes and went for a lovely little ride through Cardiff. There's a beautiful little river that flows into Cardiff Bay and they've got a nice bike path through a beautifully maintained (but not manicured-that's not the British way) park.

But now it's time to really get back in to it. I had been thinking over the last week that I really missed the discipline of just getting on the mat - or into my trainers - in the morning. There's something therapeutic about it.

Yoga this morning with substitute teacher Michaela, who helped me with the standing one-leg postures in a very different way than Philippa usually does, so I feel like I got a better feel for how it's supposed to happen. This one seems to cause a problem for lots of people, because teachers are always going around helping people with this. It's been so long since I was in class that I realised later I forgot one of the postures, oops. And I did shoulder stands which I kind of love, despite the feeling of suffocation - energizing and relaxing all at once.

All of which helped me have a calm feeling this morning at work, good because I had to have a sit-down with the boss over some changes here, and it went better than I could ever have hoped.

Wierd hippie yoga with kids and roosters

Since this seems to have become a yoga blog of late, here's something fun for those of you who hate the yoga and think we're all weirdos:

Courtesy Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater-Kinney and now blogging for NPR at Monitor Mix.

And in class this morning...

I seem to only blog on Wednesdays lately. The week is settling down enough that I have space to breathe during my lunch hour, but it hasn't gotten so long that I sleep through my workout. Or something, I'm justifying it to myself in the hopes of changing both the workout and blogging behaviour.

Speaking of sleeping in, I went to class about a half hour later than usual today and it was PACKED. Not sure if this was because of the lateness or just random extra people - I suspect more extra people because I kept looking around (bad drishti, I know) and when the regulars came in at their normal times they all looked surprised at the number of people. I've never had to be in row 2-and-a-half in this class before! Welcome, I suppose, though selfishly I'm hoping they don't all stick around.

There was a guy there who looked completely out of place next to the skinny-flexies that I often see, the age of my dad and about that shape too, showing the effects of a sedentary lifestyle in the belly and all. But still, Philippa had just as much time for him as for everyone else, helping him to do the best he could. And that's something I love about Mysore - it takes us as we are. I do hope he'll come back.