Six miles out of 100 done; I sense an elephant analogy coming on...

"How do you eat an elephant?" 

"One bite at a time."

"How do you run 100 miles?"

"One mile, one interval, heck, one minute at a time."

Ran a little over 3 miles along the lake with @jessdavis_dfw. This puts me at 6 miles in my 100 miles in May Challenge. I still have a long way to go. :) I have 31 days left, thank goodness the challenge started April 28th, and 97 miles. That's a little over 3 miles a day, every day. EEKK! Oh sure, I could do a long run and then not run some days. But really, does anyone really think I am going to run at all?

I surprised myself with running today. It was run or Bikram yoga; I couldn't do both today, I felt dehydrated earlier when I was teaching and I knew I had yard work to do still. I was thinking it might be helpful if I got was of those iv things and a canister that I can wheel behind me that is filled with fluids. It would make running and teaching much more difficult but at least I would be hydrated!

And my lack of hydration is not due to a lack of drinking water or electrolytes. I had over 180 oz of water yesterday and today I have had over 80. As a point of reference, the average person ideally should drink about half their weight in water/fluids daily. FYI, I don't weigh 360 lbs. I do however sweat all the time and just about everything I do, run, bike, yoga, yard work, makes me sweat buckets of water.

I ran, I mowed, I drank.

Run 100 miles in May?! Sure, I'll try that.

Do you know about dailymile.com? It is a great website where you can log workouts, running, yoga, cycling, crossfit, etc. You can create a route using their mapping tools and you can even put in your personal information and see how many calories you burn per workout. I'm not so great with tracking all workouts, mostly remember to post when I run, which seems to be infrequent.

If you recall in a recent post I thought it was a great idea to sign up for an event to keep you motivated. I didn't "sign up" for an official event but I did agree to participate in a challenge on dailymile.com to run 100 miles in May.  I love how it started today, that gives me an extra few days and my 3 mile run today counts. sweet! This should help me jump start my running and get me back on track for my Bike Run Yoga Challenge.

If you are interested in challenging yourself, come join me and run 100 miles in May! Look for me on dailymile.com, my username is bikerunyoga. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

See Bikram on the Today Show, Inside look at Teacher Training too!

Check out the video taping of Bikram on the Today Show. I love how the Dr. says he would worry about dehydration. UH, that is why we tell people to hydrate well before class. Plus, it's 90 minutes, not a lifetime. Ninety minutes of suffering or 90 years of suffering, you choose.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Manduka Hot Yoga Towel is the Best Towel for Bikram Yoga

Manduka has a new color in their Hot Yoga towel! Vintage Violet is a beautiful soft, muted purple; I love it! I can't wait for these to come into the studio, they will sell lot hot cakes.

The Manduka Hot Yoga towel is the best towel ever for Bikram Yoga or other hot yoga. It is double terry, very soft and absorbs and insane amount of sweat. Every time I use mine I am amazed; I lift up my towel and after 90 minutes of Bikram Yoga and my mat is bone dry, all the sweat is in my towel! Why is this so great?! It is great because the mat doesn't get saturated with sweat. Usually sweat gets stuck in the mat, resulting in bacteria getting embedded into the mat. With the Manduka towel the mat stays clean and fresh, a light spray of mat spray and that's it!

I've tried a lot of towels. I have several four yogitoes, a kulae towel and two Manduka Hot Yoga towels, the Manduka towel by far is my favorite for Bikram Yoga. I love my other towels too but for a really hot, sweaty yoga class, the extra absorbency is a must.

What towels do you like when you practice?

Fire in Oak Hill near Y was a little too close to home, literally

I just returned from a weekend in Austin. I had intended to leave Austin nearly 10 hours ago and as I opened the door of the house my mom and I both noticed a huge amounts of smoke, the smell of wood burning and a bazillion sirens going off. Cars were stopped on the hill, some blocking our driveway, others just trying to get by; as it turns out they had evacuated Callbram Lane. Emergency vehicles of all kinds were rushing by.

As the hours went on more even fire trucks came. I saw trucks from Westlake, Oak hill, Lake Travis and Austin. It was a crazy and awesome sight to see everyone working together. Smoke was everywhere and ash was falling like snow flurries. 

 

We got the voluntary evacuation notices and started to pack things up; computers, important documents, clothes, etc. We waited though, it seemed the fire had moved farther down the hill and over and our area was clearing up. It was unpredictable though, the wind was fierce, making it difficult for fire fighters to contain the fire. This is about the time the news picked it up, because the fire was close to the Pinnacle where ACC has a campus. 

People on their roof tops watering down their houses

Just as we were calling my dad to tell him things were ok and we were staying in the house, the power went out. Ok, NOT, staying in the house. lol 

Helicopter helping fight the fire

A fire fighter soon came to the house and said we should get inside because they were bringing large planes in to drop water and he didn't want us to get hurt. He said we could leave but we would need to hurry, before the planes started dropping water. So we gathered everything up and headed out. We are all safe, thank goodness!

The Austin American Statesman has a nice updated report on the fire and where it stands. At the moment there are several streets that have been evacuated and homeowners are not allowed to go back until tomorrow at the earliest. About 10 homes were destroyed and more were damaged. Read the story and updates here.

What to help those that were effected? There is a wonderful, Texas based, non profit organization that gives help to homeowners that have been impacted my natural disasters, Associa Cares. If you know someone that lost their home or their home was severely damaged, please contact Associa Cares and submit a request for financial or other assistance. 

And finally, before  I hit the showers and wash off the grime and smoke stench,  I just have to say thank you to all the fire fighters, police and other emergency response people throughout the Greater Austin area for doing such a wonderful job keeping everyone safe today.

Half marathons are so much easier when you train

(I started this post a few weeks ago, hazards of multi-tasking, sometimes things don't get completed.)

I ran in the Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon several weekends ago. I got my third best time out of 6 half marathons over the last few years. I was pretty proud of myself. I came in at 2:37:45. Third best time is fantastic since I had started my training one week before the race and my longest run was just 5.5 miles. I know, I am crazy.

But here is the thing. I am busy. And it was cold. Those are my lame excuses as to why I didn't train. Oh, I knew I needed to train. I thought to myself months in advance, I should start running. Just one or two miles at a time. Then on the weekends I would think to myself, wow, I should be running longer runs. But did I? Uh, no. No, instead I starting running a week before and hurt my shins which made me not run for a few days. Then I bought new shoes...ran 5.5 miles and called it done.

After the run my friends and I went to breakfast. My friend Jessica asked me, "how do you feel?" My response...."Well, for only having trained for a week, I feel exactly how you should. I hurt all over. My hip hurts, my knees hurt, my shins hurt, my feet hurt and I can barely walk. Other than that I am good!"

Don't feel sorry for me though, I know I should train. I have all the intentions of training for races too. Before every race I think I will train, then things happen and it is so much easier to not train, until I am in the race and my hip starts to seize up and I feel like my whole body is out of alignment.

Note to self...schedule training.

The run itself was good. I made it to mile six before I started to feel like running was getting annoying. I had looked up the race course before hand so I knew mile 7 and 8 were on Mockingbird...I just kept thinking...when we get to Beverly, I am almost to Mockingbird...almost to mile 7. I made it up the hill on Mockingbird and turned down Skillman, mile 8 was in sight.

Every mile marker was an opportunity to review my time and calculate in my head my pace and how long it would take me to get to the end. Of course, running and thinking is very hard for me so I would have to go over this in my head over and over again. This used up at least a quarter mile each mile marker.

Somewhere around mile 10 I knew my hip was in bad shape. It was like the femur bone was not in the socket right or something like that. It didn't hurt enough to stop and truly, stopping to walk and then run again just seemed to make it worse. The mind is a powerful thing though. If you tell yourself enough times you are not in pain, that you can keep running, that the pain you do feel is all in your head; it is truly amazing, you legs keep going. Mental determination.

Mile 12 made me cry. I was so close, I just had to keep going. I started yelling at myself to keep running. One step at a time. Every step a win. Mile 13 seemed like the longest mile of my life. I kept running, waiting for the mile 13 sign so I could sprint to the end...it seemed to never come. By the time I had rounded the last corner and I saw the sign, my legs were so beat I wasn't sure I would be able to sprint in. But there it was...mile 13, just .10 let to go. I told my legs to move fast and I gave it all I had, sprinting in to finish at for my third best time.

Never in my life did I ever think I would be a runner. Every race I do is a win for me personally.

My jeans shrunk overnight

I got up this morning and slipped on my most comfortable jeans and was a bit disappointed when I had a hard time buttoning them. I've had these jeans for almost a decade; they are perfectly worn in and fit loose enough they make me feel slim and fit. Ugh. This happens from time to time...too many Starbucks snacks, too little exercise. Time to get moving.

I recently read in Women's Running Magazine the best way to "stay fit", "lose weight", or whatever your goal is, is to find and event and do it. I whole heartily believe this is true. When you set a goal like a marathon, half marathon or even a 5k, the training involved helps achieve the goal. This of course assumes you train which I have a tenancy not to do.

But I am committing to an event; the White Rock Centennial Half Marathon on May 7, 2011. Will it achieve my goal of having my comfy jeans loose again? We'll see, I'll keep you posted. Training will certainly help!

This will be my 3rd event in my Bike Run Yoga Challenge; completing 12 events in 2011. For those of you in the challenge, how are you doing? Need an event? Come run the White Rock Centennial Half Marathon with me!