After a blockbuster run on the keyboard, words trickled grudgingly this week. I managed two post for Care2, though one was nixed for not being “newsy” enough. My assistant editor really liked it, however, which is a slight consolation. The civil rights piece was a first for me, but I worry about writing stuff like that for this audience. Many of them are a hair’s breadth step from being Fox Mulder and don’t need paranoia-feeding. Oh, and I turned in a lame mommy thing to 50 Something which goes up next week, I think.
It was spring yoga cleanse at the studio. Yang-yin every morning. Yang in honor of the spring. In the fall and winter, yin rises. Coming off a training weekend, I had my doubts about energy levels, but I surprised myself, dug down and found quite a bit of strength and vigor.
Back to running too on the treadmill. Intervals. Pounded out 35 minutes without breathing heavy which is an encouraging commentary on my core fitness, but it made yoga a bit tricky.
I hadn’t thought about it before last weekend, but running undoes my yoga.
We were standing about after a practice teaching lab with Kat, the instructor, and discussing the various fitness routines – in addition to yoga – that we had and someone asked her what she did.
“Um, I do yoga,” she said, in a tone and with an expression that implied that the question itself hardly needed to be asked*.
“You don’t run or bike?” Puzzled looks all around.
“Well,” she said, “friends ask me to hike or bike and I usually don’t because those things ruin my yoga. They tighten my hamstrings and glute’s and quads. Too much could undo all my work.”
I ran this by my regular teacher, Jade, and she concurred.
“You’d need a good thirty minute post run stretch to counter the tightening, ” she said. “Also, you were a runner, so your body has learned to be tight and will want to go back to that more readily than it wants to loosen and lengthen.”
Yikes.
But I think I will keep on with intervals at the very least, just need to balance. And I am so all about the balance.
*Kat is an uber-yogina. She told us the story of a guy she worked with in L.A. who told her she had a fierce “game face” when she practiced – ashtanga – which she hadn’t realized. Our faces are supposed to be relaxed, no tension.
“Yeah,” he told her “it’s like – fuck off, I’m doing yoga.”
I love that. It should be on a t-shirt, integrated into a lotus design. Patanjali would not approve though.
anniegirl1138 
when I was in high school, I ran cross country my senior year. I remember being in the weight room doing certain stretches and lifts that were really beneficial during track season(I threw shotput and discus- there was never anyone else in my very large school who ran distances and threw- there isn’t much cross over in the two events!) and the coach told me that there is no way on her watch I should do those things because they undo all my distance work.
I guess that this is sort of the same thing.
There is definite undoing in this sort of stuff. And running definitely does weaken your arms and core. At least it did 20 years ago. Who knows what sort of science has come out since.
I am even beginning to think that blogging is undoing my ability to write fiction.
Hm. This is an interesting perspective; I assumed most fitness routines worked hand-in-hand with each other to benefit the body. For instance, dancers have INCREDIBLE bodies, and they are limber and strong. So doing something to build endurance and strength along with yoga for flexibility makes sense to me.
Evidently not so, however. Live and learn. I suppose I’ll go back to the martial arts when I’m ready to resume my fitness routine.