Frozen Yoga

Instead of petting my cats and eating cereal right out of the box, or trying on every dress in my closet then discarding them in a heaping pile on the floor, I did yoga last night.  Well, actually I did also manage to find time to pet my cats and eat cereal, albeit in a bowl with soymilk like any civilized lady with lactose intolerance.

I believe the calf pain I had a few weeks ago was caused by not stretching enough after runs, and when I say “enough”, I really mean “at all”.  A doesn’t give a lot of credence to a stretching routine, but he is also someone who’s nonplussed about being unable to touch his toes.  I however once prided myself on being a pretty flexible kid, but as with so many things that took flight on the wings of that sweet bird of youth, my limberness has left me.

In the interest of staving off future injury and to prep for a race next week, I have been ramping up my yoga-ing.  I realize yoga is not a verb but I cannot bring myself to refer to what I’m doing as “my practice” because that implies a dedication that I don’t have and a obnoxiousness that I don’t want people to think I have.

The type of yoga I do is famous for being held in a room that’s heated to over 100°F (38°C).  I, however, usually forego the hot and stuffy yoga studio and instead opt for the cold comfort of my bedroom.  I understand the intended benefit of stretching in a hot room, but my reasons for eschewing the heat are threefold: 1) driving to the nearest yoga studio turns a ninety minute class into a three hour commitment, 2) I still manage to work up a decent sweat without the heat, and 3) the purveyor of this yoga is such a phenomenal ass that I cannot bring myself to pay the exorbitant drop-in fee knowing he’s getting a slice of those royalties.  

Despite these objections, there are many things I like about this type of yoga, particularly that it is the same set of poses executed in the same order every time.  In other types of yoga where there is no dedicated sequence, I find that my mind wanders the whole class and the best stretch I get is my neck craning every two minutes to see the clock.  Just like I prefer running on a familiar course because I always know exactly how much I’ve done and how much is left, with this type of yoga I always know where I am in the sequence and how soon I'll be finished. Additionally, I am fortunate to have audio of the class that I can follow along to at home, having done it in studio enough to know that my form is at least fairly correct, if not excellent.  

Pairing yoga and running seems like a no-brainer, but it’s always nice to wake-up to a little validation from a pro.  Maybe after A sees this he’ll finally start his practice.