After dropping the kids off at school I headed over to The Little Yoga Studio, next to Sunflower Market and McGuckins in Boulder.  I walked inside and was immediately so happy. My gut instinct was right. The place *felt* good.  I liked the two women at the counter and not only the warmth of the air but the welcoming feel of the place.  After stashing my stuff in a cubby I walked into the heated room.

There were 5 other people in the class, a welcome relief from the first time I did a heated class where it was wall-to-wall bodies.  There was room to lay out my mat so I wouldn’t be smacking someone in mountain pose.  As I settled in the instructor was talking and I immediately liked the sound of his voice.  He wasn’t airy and ethereal; he was real, grounded, and smiled often as he looked at each of us full in the eyes.  This felt good, to be fully acknowledged and to know that he was fully present for the class as well.

Lots of asanas, breathwork and movement.  The sweat started dripping off me and I used the towel that the studio provides at no extra charge to mop my face and hands.  My hands started to slip in Down Dog from time to time, a good reminder that the body was working hard.

Towards the end the instructor demonstrated a headstand.  I’ve never done one on my own, though I’ve seen people effortlessly get into the asana and hold it with no apparent wiggle.  He told us to get our mats set up against the wall (for those of us who needed to) and I got organized.  As I tried to throw my legs into the air and feel the wall behind me he said, “You’re bad-ass for even trying Headstand, look at you guys!”

Well that did it for me.  I cracked up and laughed really hard and loud.  I loved that he was real enough to notice when someone tries something for the first time and isn’t taking themselves too seriously.  I did note that I was the only one who found this completely amusing, but it felt good to release the sound of laughter into the practice of being fully engaged with my body.

I tried the headstand again and he came over to help get my legs into the air.  “Trust the asana,” he said as his hands steadied my legs while my core worked to engage and get used to the new position.

Yes Lara. Trust the asana.  Trust in time.  Trust in yourself.  Trust.

I started seeing an acupuncturist a few weeks ago about some digestive issues that have plagued me for years. After her assessment and a few treatments, she announced that my body has been in a low level state of “fight or flight” for almost 20 years.  This stress pulls blood away from the internal organs and sends it to the head, feet and hands, which eventually creates a chronic state of unrest and ill health in the body.  “Fight or flight” is great when you’re at risk of being eaten by a mountain lion, but after you’ve made it to safety your body needs to come back down to a place of relaxation.  Problem is, my body has forgotten how to do that.

I have a heightened sense of awareness almost all the time.  When I’m around people I have no filter; I’m picking up on what everyone in the room is feeling at any given time.  I’m absorbing their energy, their intentions, and processing that within my body.  By the time I leave the gathering I’m wiped out, emotionally and physically.  My body has come to adapt to this, but in an unhealthy way.

My acupuncturist says that I HAVE to start doing meditation and/or yoga on a daily basis, to give my body a break.  I have to re-train myself release stress and find a place of calm.  I’ve said many times that I need to stretch more, find time to do yoga, and now I’m getting a literal prescription that instructs me to start taking better care of myself!  How crazy is THAT???

It’s been increasingly hard for me to get out and run lately; you may have noticed a dip in the number of posts I’ve written lately.  I couldn’t figure out anything to say, other than “Feeling depressed” or “Yup, things are still crazy”.  It seemed stupid to keep beating a dead horse, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Interestingly enough, this past weekend all of the stressors in my life came to a head, and I went into total overwhelm.  I was very depressed and cried several times a day.  A conversation late in the weekend solidified the notion that I am in total overwhelm and need to make some major changes.

I spent Monday sending out emails and making changes to my schedule.  I’ve pulled back from all but two commitments in my life; the work that I’m contracted to do this summer, and my writing.  Other than that, I’m focusing on my family, my health, and me.  I extended too far and lost my balance. 

So, this is me, trying to re-learn how to find my own center and live in that place, rather than in other people’s energy. I will always be sensitive to other people, and that’s a good thing, but I need to learn how to take care of myself.  Thank God I’m not dead yet, as I still have SOOO much to learn.

I hope to get back into a running routine soon, but I’m giving myself permission to take it easy.  I’ve been super-tired lately, the kind of tired that sleep can’t touch.

Thanks for understanding.

Stretching is a process for me.  I always start off super-easy to see what’s screaming the loudest.  My lower back is typically really tight, so I’ll start with a gentle version of Bound Angle Pose.

Bound Angle Pose, Lara-style

The trick with this is to not hunch over too much.  Keep your back moderately straight.  When you feel a little pulling in your glutes, you’ll know you’re in the right position.  Your inner thighs will feel this too, a really good thing for runners.

Because my back is tight from sitting in one position at the computer, I do a twist.  Yogis call this “Half Lord of the Fishes Pose”, or Ardha Matsyendrasana.  I do not look as pleasant as the woman demonstrating on this site, but I have a lot of fun doing this one.

Fish Pose

Next up is the one that I love the most, called “Wide Angle Seated Forward Bend”.  Here’s a link to Yoga Journal’s more detailed description.  Note:  you do not need to be able to do the full expression of the splits to get a lot out of this!!!

Sometimes I’ll head to the bedroom, light a few candles and sink into this pose for up to 10 minutes.  Warning:  Start slow with this and let gravity dictate the amount of stretch for your body. 

I love doing this modified version of the splits because it works my inner and outer thighs, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and side abdominal muscles.  A good Sports PT can tell you more about it, but here’s the thing; with a little rotation of the upper body, you can stretch just about any major muscle group.  Usually when I first sit down, I can barely reach my toes.  My back is hunched and my hamstrings are tight.  This is typical of runners, where the major muscles of the legs are trained for forward motion.  However, over-use can lead to injury or, in my case, a noticeable decrease in performance.

Sophie took these pictures for me today (she’s still home recovering from pneumonia).  Kirby got in on the action and demanded a belly rub while I was in her vicinity.   

Kirby and I stretching on the floor

Hamstring stretch in Wide Angle Seated Forward Bend

Side Stretch, opens the back, sides and inner thighs

After 5, 10, or 15 minutes, my legs are looser, my lower back is limber, and even though my chest doesn’t QUITE touch the floor, I have a much better view of the crud that’s in the carpet!  Pretty good return for one little stretch!  And the icing on the cake?  I sleep so soundly when I do these right before bed.

 What’s YOUR favorite stretch, the thing you COULD do more of, even in front of the TV?  How about making a promise to yourself to do 60 seconds of a stretch that makes you feel good.  Start small, and remember; you can do ANYTHING for 60 seconds.

I headed out a little after 7:30 AM.  While I was running, something someone said to me on Twitter kept rolling around in my head.  He mentioned that it’s good to do a long run once a week, when you don’t focus on distance and go purely for time.  This gets the body used to running for longer amounts of time.  I’m not actively training for a race and have never used an on-line training program or even a book to get me to the start of a race, so all the theory I’ve learned is absolutely second-hand.

At around mile five I decided to just… keep going.  My pace jumped between 8:40 and 8:15 per mile, certainly not fast based on my past performances, but pretty good all the same.

Two miles later I hit the sixty minute mark.  I was seven miles in and at this pace, if I were doing a half-marathon, I’d be coming in at about 1:51:30, a full nine minutes slower than my half-marathon PR back in December 2009 (the Rock N Roll Las Vegas race).  So, since I wasn’t going for speed, how about running just for the sake of running?  JuliBell writes a blog and commented the other day “it’s called yoga PRACTICE, not yoga PERFECT”.  At this moment in time, my running felt like yoga.  I was practicing the art of running, not the perfection.  What freedom. 

And so it went.  I ran for ninety one minutes and covered eleven miles.  This is the longest I’ve run since my half-marathon race, and my immediate thought was “why did you wait so long?”  Honestly?  I don’t know.

I’m happily tired now.  I’ve put in a good day’s play and I’m mellow and sated.  I thought briefly that I should pick a marathon and start training for it, so I could get in lots MORE long runs.  But then, the happiness that I felt in practicing my run all but disappeared.  Having to work out a training plan, financially commit and then register…  I want to enjoy the art of practice.

Today was all about finishing a ninety minute run.  I wasn’t racing myself, I wasn’t trying to do a 90-minute tempo run at sub-8’s.  Today was about running for ninety minutes and enjoying the time.

When was the last time you let yourself enjoy an activity without pushing yourself harder, faster, stronger?  I don’t mean when you play with the kids, either.  Maybe you’re gentler with yourself than I am with myself.   But on the off-chance that you’re as competitive with yourself as I am with myself, then maybe we all need to reassess, even just a little, to find the joy in the motion.

Today, I woke up feeling a little sore between my shoulder blades. It’s a soreness that tells me I really opened up my back muscles. My posture is better today, and my usual tendency to cock my head to the right is gone. I tell ya, if this continues, I’ll be going back to the YMCA classes. This is fantastic.

The teacher’s name is Carmen. She has a slight accent, though I couldn’t place it exactly. Her face is lined from years of smiling (I LOVE that. I want to look exactly like when I grow up) and her eyes are extremely kind. Before the class she went around and said hello to EVERYONE in the room. Anyone she didn’t know, she stopped, sat down, made beautiful eye contact, and asked if there was anything she should know about us (injuries, sore spots, etc). There were two pregnant ladies in the room, and an extremely cute old lady. She modified each pose for the pregnant people, and I noticed how she wandered the room and ended up next to the cute old lady on the side wall, making sure she was comfortable and safe in her poses.

The room has a new sound floor in it, and Carmen told us how everything in the room was done intentionally. It was placed next to the administrative offices so that positive intentions would permeate into administration. The windows were purposefully places, the room was sound-proofed, and the floor was put in so that vibratory intonations would permeate the moving, opening body and allow more space. Even the color of the room was intentional. I love it.

The one thing I would have liked was for the heat to be turned up about 10 degrees. It was cold yesterday morning and even though I was wearing a coat in the car and on the walk through the parking lot, I wasn’t “warm”, per se. When I dumped my outdoor gear in the locker room I was cold, and I never really warmed up during the class. Muscles relax more when it’s warm, and the extra warmth, especially during this cold spell of days in the single digits and teens, would have been lovely.

The YMCA isn’t the same staid place it was when I was growing up. The classes are interesting and PACKED (you should have seen it at 9:30 yesterday morning, a veritable party) and there’s a wide range of activities for all levels. They have a kid-care place with friendly caregivers (I’ve utilized them in the past), there’s an ice rink, and they’re even building a pool that will open this summer! As long as we’re using our membership, it’s a great bargain. I’m going to do my best to incorporate a yoga class into my weekly schedule; there are a lot of times to choose from, and even a Monday class at 6:30 for runners, focusing solely on hammies, quads, hips, and calves. I’m going to check it out, you can bet on it!

I haven’t run since Monday morning. That morning I meant to run about four miles.  Somehow, my thoughts got going and I ran into “the zone”, where miles fall away and the ol’ brainpan works out some problems.  I was figuring out characters and the plot of a story I am starting to work on, and suddenly realized that four miles had come and gone, while I was still three miles from home.  Oops.

My energy was good and being thoroughly entertained by the images floating through my head, I kept right on going.  What else was I going to do?  My one concern was that I had agreed to try a yoga class with a friend at 8:45, and I had to get home, shower, eat, and get out the door again.  The extra three miles truncated my timing, but somehow it all got done.

The yoga class at Core Power Yoga was “warm”, as opposed to “hot” yoga.  After my 7-mile run Murphy’s Law dictated that my friend was in the “C2” class instead of the “C1” (introductory) class, so the pace was fast, the temp was up, and within minutes my toxins were dancing on the mat in the form of sweat dripping from every crevice of my body. 

The thought crossed my mind that I shouldn’t push my body too far during the 75-minute class, given that I was technically in taper mode this week.  Keeping the concept of “taper” in the forefront of my head was difficult in the warm environment that was steeped with yogi’s and yogini’s that exuded suppleness, strength and fluidity.  I persevered though, and even came out of warrior pose when I felt my gluts and quads raise their little ruckus.  I’ve avoided injury thus far, and I really didn’t want to tempt fate by getting out of my “runner’s box” too much during the first yoga class I’ve attended in over a year.

I was thirsty, very thirsty, after class.  The rest of the day I guzzled water and peed buckets.  I slept hard that night and didn’t wake until 5:55 AM, possibly a new world’s record for me.  Tuesday I was tired and felt run-down, though rallied and kept to my busy schedule.  I put on a good game-face and made it through the day, though just barely.  I was cold all day as well, absolutely chilled to the bone.  The temperature was dropping fast in advance of the cold front that was to settle over the Front Range for the next two days; even though I wore a coat, hat and gloves, my extremities were numb with cold.  While Bill took Connor to Cub Scouts, I stood in the shower letting hot, healing water run over my body.  When I was finally warm I dove into bed with my new library book, “The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle” and proceeded to hibernate.  I drank three glassess of Emergen-C, a cup of hot tea, and went to bed by 8:30, feeling like a cold was upon me.

I woke Wednesday knowing I had dodged a bullet.  The “I have a cold” feeling had passed, my energy was up, and I was only cold whenever I went outside.  The temp never got about 20°.  Even with a warm sweater, coat, hat, gloves and boots, the cold permeated my body.  Bill and I canceled our evening plans in favor of putting up the Christmas tree with the kids and staying toasty warm in our cozy house.

The high today was 19° F.  The low this morning was 7°.  My running buddy didn’t want to brave the cold and ice at 5:30 this morning and frankly, neither did I.  The cold is hard on delicate bronchi; is it really so important to stick to a running date and time when the weather is dictating its own terms?  No.

Bill and I leave tomorrow morning for Las Vegas.  We’ll get the kids off to school then immediately head to the airport.  I’m sure we’ll do a short, easy run either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, but that will be the extent of it before the big race Sunday morning.  I meant to actually taper my training, but the circumstances of the week dictated a pure elimination from training.  That’s happened to me before and honestly, it’s a relief.  It’s nice to know that I can simply sleep, rest, eat, and hang out before a race, and then have the ability to get up on race day and give it my all.  I’ll have plenty of energy and reserves for the 13.1 mile course, and it’s been a gift to sleep in these cold, dark mornings.  Ahh, winter.  You change the gait of the training, but that makes the training all the sweeter.