Recently in Yoga Category

...when I'm not sore in my hamstrings from a killer yoga class!

LOVE LOVE LOVE my new boots. Had to take 'em off after a half-day in them today, though. My feet'll break in soon enough :) I don't normally go for shoes that are initially hard for me to wear. I'm more of a comfort/birkenstocks/sandals/running shoes kind of gal. But I just HAD to get these. And just my price, too!

Chris and I will check out the Thursday night yoga class tomorrow night. Why they have to have it at 8 pm, I don't know. I sure wish it were at 6! Sigh. Oh well.

3.5 on the schedule for Friday, then Saturday off while my Dad visits, and 9 miles on Sunday morning on trails, yay! Next week's schedule is way crazy, between training in Scottsdale, Ash and other random happenings. Speaking of Scottsdale, does the TRC know of any cool places I can run???

jeff has a beautiful post on a memorial run for Ryan Shay. I'll be running 5.5 miles on Saturday, Nov. 17. Will you?

Check out Lisa's post on swimming this morning. What a hoot! And...drumroll please...her artwork is done and in the mail! Once she gets it, I'll post a pic on the blog. But we've got to wait until she receives it first :) Speaking of art, I got two custom orders (non-running related, but BEAUTIFUL photos!) for Christmas presents (thanks Joyce!). I'm so excited!!!

Ash has a cold. I am doing my darnedest to attempt to stay healthy. No touching my hands to my face, and my fingers are dry dry dry from all the hand-washing (lotion doesn't seem to make a dent!). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll avoid this one!

I made a to-die-for reduced-fat yellow cake with chocolate frosting tonight. OMG, it's amazing. I also actually cooked dinner (fried tofu and sticky rice). And did the dishes. And cleaned the floor-to-ceiling mirrored doors on my closet. And did laundry. Wow. That's a lot of stuff I got done. Yay me!

The sounds of my muscles creeeeaaaaaking throughout yoga yesterday was enough to make me laugh through the pain. "C-r-e-a-k, c-r-e-a-k," they said as I moved my arms up over my head. "C-r-e-a-k, c-r-e-a-k," they said as I moved my arms into position for warrior two. "C-r-e-a-k, c-r-e-a-k," they said as I lay on my back, pulling my leg toward my face. "C-r-e-a-k, c-r-e-a-k," they said for 55 minutes, until, finally, we lay on our back for relaxation.

I haven't attended a yoga session since June, when my heart first started acting up. It feels so (creaky) good. Granted, my hamstrings are inCREDibly sore today, but my hips are open, my shoulders have the perfect amount of ache - not so much that I can't lift my arms, but enough to remind me that I worked out.

I also worked out on Saturday at the gym on the recumbant (sp?) bike and the elliptical. The bike managed to work all those hot spots in my legs - my hips, my inner thighs. Ouch. In a good way, of course.

And I ran 3.7 miles this morning with Barb; non-stop chatter about boys, half-marathons, families, various routes our lives have/will/may take. The run this morning was my best morning run yet. No need to walk parts of it, I was able to keep moving at a decent clip. I like getting back into training. This feels good.

I've planned my Christmas vacation with Ash and am so so so so excited!!! It's going to be a lot of fun.

It's been an interesting week, one full of emotions and fear and gunshots. Yeah - gunshots. In MY neighborhood! There aren't gunshots in MY neighborhood! It was something like 3 am Sunday morning when I heard the "pop...pop pop....pop pop pop...pop..........pop" and then the police sirens. Still haven't figured out exactly what happened or where. Frightening, though.

Anyway, with all the emotional stuff - I decided (what, two weeks ago?) I needed to nurture myself. I also decided to set boundaries and un-overextend myself. That was a relief. I'm still working on feeling better in general, but at least I know I'm unhappy and I'm taking measures to fix it.

I also think I need to work on my communications skills. With Ash. With my teammates at work. With Chris. With myself. And I need to stop judging myself. (Isn't that just such an easy place to go to? The judgment? The "you're not good enough and never will be so what's the use trying"?!) Sigh. Baby steps, Angie. Baby steps.

Thank you to everyone who responded to the poll in my last post. My favorite comment: whatever makes you happy :) The consensus is that above the neck = run, below the neck = don't run.

What if it's, like, *in* your neck? As in, moving from my nose to my chest? It's about at throat level now, I'm hacking and clearing my throat on a regular basis, although it's not really a cough yet.

I was concerned that running could deepen whatever I have into something more serious, and I'd miss out on crucial training time for the relay at month's end. Yet, I was also worried that if I don't train, I won't be adequately prepared for the relay. On Sunday, I chose to rest - which meant I missed my 8-mile run, and only got 8 miles for the week. Not good - half of what was needed! Yesterday, I still felt sick, and it was still windy outside. I just didn't feel like it would be good for me to run.

Because of that, I cancelled today's early morning run with my friend. My voice is getting froggy, and I'm afraid I'll lose it soon if I don't take care of myself. Running is one thing, but misssing out on crucial rest time (4 to 6 a.m.) to get a run in seemed worrisome to me. Instead, I slept in.

But I was feeling pretty good by mid-morning, and it was warmer and not so windy outside. I was supposed to take Ash to his kids yoga class this morning, but due to scheduling conflicts, that wasn't going to happen. I still had two hours of approved off-time from work, though, so I decided to fill that time in with - what else - a run!

I headed to the river path, hoping for the entire 5.5 I should have gotten this morning. I had to settle for approximately 4.8 miles instead. I was very hot and not particularly prepared, fuel-wise (spur of the moment and all). I had to walk small parts in the middle and the last .25 mile, and at first I was down on myself for walking. I don't feel very well-prepared for this relay, let me tell you! But then I looked up at the Santa Catalina Mountains and the blue blue sky and the zig zags in the sky from planes and I just felt glad that I made it out at all. How awesome - I got 4.8 miles on a day I didn't think I'd get any! Yay!

While I was out there, I didn't really have any mucas-related issues. No snot rockets like Eric said, no hacking, nothing. I had to keep clearing my throat, because like I said, this thing seems to be stuck in my neck. But it seemed okay.

And right now, I feel great! I did yoga last night, ran today, I'll do yoga again tonight, probably get 3ish miles tomorrow, yoga the day after that, possibly another 3 - 4 miles on Friday, 3ish miles with Kiera on Saturday morning, followed by 7 miles with Kiera on Sunday! I feel good about this.

(I must admit, I have not been able to keep up with my bloglines this past week. I'm up over 200 posts behind, ack! Hopefully I'll catch up this week...)

I'm pondering the wisdom of eating a cereal touted as "low-carb" for my post-run glycogen recovery meal. I've heard cereal is one of the best nutritional values as a post-run snack; but isn't that mostly due to the carbs? If you take the carbs out of the cereal, then what's the point?

Anyway, on to my post. Oh wait, I was going to do a spiel on the Oscars. Nah, I'll leave that up to Donald. (Is that coming yet, Donald?)

Okay, now, REALLY, on to my post.

I met my friend John at the River Path trailhead at 4:40 this morning. (For those of you who don't already know from regularly reading my blog, the river path is a cool, 20-mile-long multi-use paved "trail" along the banks of a wash here in Tucson. A wash is what used to be a river, but is now just a dry river bed that carries water during floods. In some parts, the path has a gravel side path and in other parts, it's purely dirt. I like to run it, because it's not too far from home, and I still get dirt.)

We set out for our 5.5-mile loop. It's chilly and dark out, and I am slightly less-dressed than I was last week (this week I left the fleece headband at home). I can already tell I'm doing better than last week, when I was soooo sloooow. It's a relatively uneventful run for the first mile. I try to unzip my jacket sleeves and have difficulty - we have to stop so John can untangle my left sleeve. Then some random guy in a hoodie on a bike comes flying by. I pull out my pepper spray and remark to John, "This is why I don't run the river path alone in the dark..." The guy takes off and we have no problems. I'm glad that at least in the winter, it's cold, so we don't have to worry about hobos stealing our stuff or otherwise harrassing us (known to happen on the river path). The next mile and a half goes by okay, although I manage to get the zipper pocket in the back of my jacket stuck as I try to stash my hat and gloves, and I get a side stitch from taking too much, just like last week. Then suddenly, a large shape looms directly to my left. A light is shining from the figure and I scream loudly and jump across the trail, almost knocking John over. He freaks out - "What?!" - and then I realize it was just a barricade on the side of the trail, with a light glinting off the reflective orange and white stripes. Whew. Our pace picks up from the adrenaline and we laugh down the trail. We run across the bridge to the other side of the trail, through the bus stop, and have fun talking fueling strategies. Suddenly, a cyclist wearing a headlamp plunges off a pedestrian bridge towards us and freaks us out. Oh my god, I'm gonna get run over! Then I have to stop yet *again* - this time to re-tie my shoe. We start back up and I notice a gigantic shooting star overhead. Oh, oh, oh! I say, pointing, unable to come up with words. John looks up and this meteorite just hurtles through the sky forever, taking it's sweet time burning up. Sparks are flying off of it, and I'm breathless. Wow.

We make it back to our cars, and realize we were 2 minutes faster this week, even with three stops (arm zipper, back zipper, shoelace). It was the adrenaline, I think! Still over 12-minute miles, though. (12:13 to be exact.)

Last night's yoga class was a good, slow stretching class, and today is the first day for the kids yoga class that Ash and I will be participating in. I'm excited, should be fun. For some reason, I had three miles on the schedule for yesterday, even though I'm not going to be running Mondays, and I was cranky so I blew it off. I can make that up easily in this next week. I got 15.5 miles last week, yay! So it's not exactly the 10% percent increase rule, but I think I'll be okay. My knees are still doing great (whew!).

I'm off to an incredibly busy day. Happy Running!

My training schedule, that is. Hopefully I'll finish it up tonight (but first I had to catch up on my blog reading).

My fab run Tuesday was followed by a fab yoga class in the evening; my first double workout this "season". I did my first headstand ever! I was very sore yesterday, and glad I was able to totally rest. This evening's yoga session was a nice, slow-paced, stretch-oriented session, exactly what I needed.

My hit counter reached 25,000 this week, wow!

Work is busy, yay! I love being in the "zone". Tomorrow marks three years at my job. I started out as a temporary receptionist and worked my way up to project manager, which is pretty darn cool :)

***UPDATE***
I thought I finalized my schedule, only to realize I had the 50k on the wrong week! Argh!

I went for a 2.4-mile lunch run today after I received my flowers for my three-year anniversary. It was AWESOME. 10:35/mile. Dark clouds surrounding me, rain in the foothills, chilly gusty wind. The way out I had a tail wind (woo hoo!) and the way back was a head wind (but I was doing so well, it didn't matter). I totally got in a great groove. This run was easy. Maybe it was the carbo-loading dinner consisting solely of a basmati/wild rice last night? In any case, I'm quite psyched with it. I wondered, though, on my run, why the southbound side of the road had so much more trash on it than the northbound? Also, I'm sure I got a few drivers scratching their heads as I ran on the flat asphalt in the bike lane instead of the the perfectly good concrete sidewalk. *grin* I made sure to run facing traffic, and I liked how the asphalt felt spongier than the concrete. And BadBen, I wish I could run solely on trails! But I must cram some running in during the week, and it's not feasible to drive 30 minutes out to the trails at lunch :( Otherwise it'd be all trails, all the time!

It's still dark out. The market and flower shop outside my window are just starting to come to life. I'm listening to KXCI and finishing my grande, non-fat, no-whip mocha while I write this. Can you see the clock in the picture above? It's just after six, I've got my Starbucks in hand, wearing the awesome Twin Peaks shirt from Jessica's race, and feeling great that I've already got 5.5 miles under my belt. I'm grateful to have friends willing to meet me at 4:40 am to go for a run in the dark in the winter :) I was dreading getting up so early this morning, but I was looking forward to the run itself. It was a good run, a solid run, albeit slow. I had to walk early on to take off my jacket (I was a wimp and chose to wear more at the start than I knew I needed; I figured I'd rather be warm and carry it all with me to the end) and eat a gel, and then later I walked due to a side stitch (I was too busy talking to keep breathing). The overall pace was 12:38/mile, which is slow on the river path, even for me. But the good part is that I did it - I got up early and made it out there to run! And with consistency, I know my pace will pick up.

My yoga class last night was incredible. It was a basic class, and we did some yang yoga - new moves for me. No warrior poses, which I thought was unusual and nice (sometimes the warrior poses get old). And by the end, I finally managed to actually allow myself to get into a deep relaxation. It was amazing. I called Johnny after the class, and he said I sounded drunk! I said, nope, no substances in my body, just a great yoga class :)

And on to my BIG NEWS:
I am going to run the PCT 50k in Oregon on July 28!!! I found cheaper airfare from Phoenix, and Olga said she will pick me up from/drop me off at the airport, as well as host me for the weekend! Many many thanks to Olga. ((hugs)) to my friend.

I'm having to go back to my schedule and redo it, now that I'm adding an ultra this summer. Plus I accidentally left out a week in April (oops). WOO HOO!!!!!!

Oh man, I was so sore yesterday. I did not want to run or go to yoga. I skipped the run, but made myself go to yoga. It was hard; I felt like a dud. I wasn’t inspired; I didn’t want to be there. I thought it was good training, though. Consistency is the key during training, and I want to keep my consistency in yoga. I’m still working on the consistency in the running :) Paki and I did go out for a short run at lunch today in the midst of crazy busy work. It was a great run that we probably could have extended, but I wanted to take it easy since I’ve been so sore and I had taken a bunch of ibuprofen. I was worried I would push it, since I was feeling okay from the ibuprofen, and then end up hurting myself more.

Kiera found a great mileage build-up plan. We’ll be modifying it over the next couple of days to make it fit our timing and schedule for the marathon.

Ash and I ate at Fronimo's tonight after we went to the park. Mmmm, gyro...mmm, baklava...

I’m running Sabino tomorrow morning with Kiera, then Ash and I will hang out for the day. Not sure yet what we’ll do; probably paint and go to the library. I want to clean my house! Saturday night will be fun; my company has won some awards and our boss is taking us to the awards dinner.

Sunday, I’ll be going to yoga, then probably out on a hike with a friend. I’ll be picking Ash back up in the afternoon and we’ll chill for Sunday night. After checking in on a friend’s cat and chickens, I might take a bath…mmm…

Sunday is the end of my running week; I’ll probably end with about 9 miles, plus whatever I hike on Sunday. That’s not much, but it is a beginning. I’ll be building from here, yay!

Which is worse to run on: sidewalks or street surface?