I just read the Oprah story, part II, of Paige Williams journey through her 60 day Bikram Challenge. Paige is an amazing women to put her self out there and tell her story. She tells her story of her second month into the challenge, and I do mean challenge, and how it changed her life. There is also a sad part at the end about her health and how some health challenges she started off with were still with her. But she explains she is a renewed person and appreciates all she learned and gained...and is still taking Bikram yoga.
Paige says, "At first, this yoga felt exploratory, optional, but now that I know what's really going on, it feels essential to managing my day-to-day happiness and improving my overall well-being."
Well said Paige, well said.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Hot? Check. Sweaty? Check. Feel Great? Check
There is nothing like a good, hot, sweaty Bikram Yoga class to stretch out tight muscles after a run. Yesterday I ran the Too Cold to Hold 15k and my legs were feeling a bit stiff yesterday and today. I took yoga class tonight and my body feels great, loose and stretched...so great!
Have you ever had a muscle pain in your knees or hip or maybe your ankle or calf and you just couldn't figure out how to get rid of it? What I found out running is often targeting the area where the pain is does nothing to correct it, that really the cause of the pain could be in a completely different place. A perfect example is my knee pain yesterday. Rubbing my knees was doing nothing to ease the pain. Reason being, the pain was due to knots in the muscles that were pulling on the ligaments/joints of the knee. My immediate solution was to foam roll my legs to loosen the knots. So, yesterday I "rolled" my legs, focusing on my calves where I noticed there were huge knots. These knots and knots in my thighs were stretching/pulling my muscles so much my knees were hurting, a common thing for me as a result of running. I even used a pressure stick and pressed on the knot in my calf and could feel a tingling sensation in my upper thigh, the pain was way up there!
I bought my foam roller last year when I started training for my first marathon and loved how easy it was to use. Mine came with a video and it showed several ways to roll your calves, thighs, hip, back, arms, really anything that felt tight. It was amazing how rolling an area for just a few days would quickly loosen the knots and relieve the pain. I wasn't taking yoga as much then so my leg muscles would knot up quite a lot after long runs.
Even after rolling my legs yesterday, I was still feeling knots in my calves today, enough that I wore "cold and hot" pads on my legs all day. Then I went to Bikram Yoga and stretched every muscle and ligament in my body for 90 minutes. It was absolutely wonderful! My body feels so great, my knees don't hurt or feel like they are out of alignment and my hip doesn't feel strained.
If you are a runner, I highly recommend trying Bikram Yoga, it will change your running forever! In fact, I believe I have been injury free because of the yoga I was taking before I started training for marathons; because I already had a good foundation of flexibility, I was been able to prevent many common running injuries. Yea for Bikram Yoga!
This is the foam roller I bought. Under $20 and it comes with a cd that shows you how to roll. It basically allows you to give yourself a massage and it is WAY cheaper than going to the spa and getting a massage.
Have you ever had a muscle pain in your knees or hip or maybe your ankle or calf and you just couldn't figure out how to get rid of it? What I found out running is often targeting the area where the pain is does nothing to correct it, that really the cause of the pain could be in a completely different place. A perfect example is my knee pain yesterday. Rubbing my knees was doing nothing to ease the pain. Reason being, the pain was due to knots in the muscles that were pulling on the ligaments/joints of the knee. My immediate solution was to foam roll my legs to loosen the knots. So, yesterday I "rolled" my legs, focusing on my calves where I noticed there were huge knots. These knots and knots in my thighs were stretching/pulling my muscles so much my knees were hurting, a common thing for me as a result of running. I even used a pressure stick and pressed on the knot in my calf and could feel a tingling sensation in my upper thigh, the pain was way up there!
I bought my foam roller last year when I started training for my first marathon and loved how easy it was to use. Mine came with a video and it showed several ways to roll your calves, thighs, hip, back, arms, really anything that felt tight. It was amazing how rolling an area for just a few days would quickly loosen the knots and relieve the pain. I wasn't taking yoga as much then so my leg muscles would knot up quite a lot after long runs.
Even after rolling my legs yesterday, I was still feeling knots in my calves today, enough that I wore "cold and hot" pads on my legs all day. Then I went to Bikram Yoga and stretched every muscle and ligament in my body for 90 minutes. It was absolutely wonderful! My body feels so great, my knees don't hurt or feel like they are out of alignment and my hip doesn't feel strained.
If you are a runner, I highly recommend trying Bikram Yoga, it will change your running forever! In fact, I believe I have been injury free because of the yoga I was taking before I started training for marathons; because I already had a good foundation of flexibility, I was been able to prevent many common running injuries. Yea for Bikram Yoga!
This is the foam roller I bought. Under $20 and it comes with a cd that shows you how to roll. It basically allows you to give yourself a massage and it is WAY cheaper than going to the spa and getting a massage.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Too Cold to Hold was Indeed COLD
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| From 2010 Too Cold to Hold 15K |
Today was a cold one! I suppose that is why they call the 15K event, Too Cold to Hold; it was certainly COLD! It wasn't as cold as on New Years Day, that was just crazy cold but it was still very nippy. It was a good run even so. I had lots of friends there and afterward we went to Ozona for breakfast. Yum!
As usual, I hadn't trained for this 15K run unless you consider running 3 miles a week prior training. I'm not suggesting this is a good method of preparing for long runs, it makes running more challenging, things hurt a lot more and it is harder to keep a good pace. Proof I need to train more came to me when I tried to run the 3 miles a week before Too Cold to Hold and almost died on the treadmill. So why don't I train? You can read why in my other post, "Who Really Needs to Train for a Long Running Event?"
The run started off slow, both Rhonda and I wanted to stop almost as soon as we started! After a few miles we were feeling a little better about getting up early and running in the cold. We made it to about 3.5 miles before I thought to my self I wanted to be done. Neither one of us had trained and were feeling it. We both talked about how we were not trying to win the race though, we were just trying to finish. This thought kept surfacing throughout the run and helped us feel better about our speed and how the run was going. We were about at mile 7 when we calculated we could finish at about 1:50. By mile 8 we reconsidered our possible finish time. As we ran around the bend and I saw the mile 9 sign, I thought for sure we could do it...but we were both exhausted and not wanting to injure something before teacher training, I agreed to walk for a minute. Then, these two girls we had been switching lead with came up behind us and that seemed to motivate each of us and I turned to Rhonda and said, "lets go", she agreed with "You were thinking what I was thinking." No way we were going to let those nice ladies beat us!
We ran in the last .3 and sprinted to the end for a final time of 1:50:31. I consider that making 1:50 finish time. Today was a good run, harder than it needed to be but in the end, we finished. This was event 2 of my 24 I plan to finish this year as part of the 2010 Bike Run Yoga Challenge. Just 22 more to go!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
I Ran 39.3 Rock N Roll Miles!
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| From Bike Run Yoga |
I love my metals, not that I wear them out (that would be just silly) or even look at them on a daily basis but when I do look at them, they remind me of the amazing accomplishments I achieved in 2009. I not only ran my first marathon, I ran in 3 half marathons and a handful of other shorter races. In total I completed 12 athletic events in running, cycling and yoga. This from a girl that had never actually run an entire 5k - ever! So if you think running a marathon or half marathon or really any goal you have for yourself is impossible, think again, anything is possible....just set your mind to it and take it one day at a time.
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From Bike Run Yoga |
| From Bike Run Yoga |
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