After I got the all-clear for exercise last January, I decided that I was going to pursue healthy living on a whole other level. A cancer scare will do that to you. I started exercising again. Not that I never exercised before, it's just that, like most of us, it was the first thing to go when the going got too busy. I have a job, a husband, and a child. I will take spending more time with the husband and the child over running around the block any day, so if I couldn't fit in the workouts during my lunch time or during nap time on the weekend, I didn't do it. And when the semester picked up steam, lunchtime swims became a thing of the past.
So, in January, like an alcoholic finding sobriety again after falling off the wagon, I started exercising again. I told the wonderful student trainer, Taylor, that I worked with that I wanted to lose weight and be able to run a 5k. I guess I thought that if I told someone who is a runner that I wanted to run a 5k, that I'd just magically be able to do that. So Taylor put together a plan and we got together twice a week. She was really creative, and the sessions involved tons of cardio. I realized about halfway through that I. HATE. RUNNING. Like, I'll do it if someone was chasing me with a taser. I am the friend you want to be with in the woods if a bear attacked us because I'm so slow and would definitely get eaten while you run to safety. I sound like an 80 year old with emphysema.
So I switched gears and had read about a neat fitness goal of completing an ironman or half-ironman, but taking a month to do it. Taylor was on board, and we came up with a plan. And then I ran out of time - literally. If your running is at best a 15 minute mile and you're supposed to run 4 miles in 1 workout and then do biking and some strength, there's no way you can do that in a reasonable amount of time. So there went that idea. I got new bike gear for my birthday - clipless pedals and the shoes that went with them. The first ride I had, I fell and hit my arm so badly that I couldn't move it more than 10 degrees and my arm was so swollen that even the x-rays weren't clear. It took 3 weeks before I had full range of motion. I had 2 successful rides, then wiped out and screwed up my knee so badly that my kneecap was pushed out of place from all the swelling. Even my mother said "honey, you're not coordinated enough to ride a bike." Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. Did I mention that she and Dad came home from my first dance recital and asked if I wanted to take piano lessons? Let's just say that I play the piano beautifully now and cannot do a grande jete. This summer I was a single mom in the evenings because the hubs had to work second shift. So after working a full day at school and then coming home to an energetic toddler, exercise wasn't my main priority.
There was an ugly side to my exercise odyssey too. I would get incredibly stressed out if I missed a workout. I worked out when I went to my friend Kelli's wedding. Doing crap I didn't even enjoy doing in a hot, sweaty, tiny hotel gym, just to get a workout in. Mentally, this obsession wasn't doing me any good.
So at the end of the summer, a few weeks before Jamaica, I took a good look at the fall. It's busy, to say the least. I wanted an activity that would help me stress less, not more, and that I could do at night after Ian went to bed, in the privacy of my own house, rain or shine. I also realized that my joints were so stiff and my muscles so tight that I looked and felt like a geriatric. Yoga it is. I'd taken yoga classes before that were challenging mainly because they were painful. If you're stiff, it hurts to sit cross-legged. Or to attempt a backbend. I found My Yoga Online and it's amazing. If you want to try it, email me. If I (or any other member) refers you, you get 2 weeks free. It's yoga on demand. There are hundreds of classes, and you can sort by style, teacher, time, level, etc. David Magone is probably my favorite and I had never wound up in a hot, sweaty, breathing-hard mess from yoga before his classes. I mean, yoga is exercise, really? My first thought was "is this enough? Shouldn't I also be running, biking, swimming, etc?" Then I thought "exactly how many people who do a lot of yoga do you know that are out of shape?" The teachers at the local yoga studio in Emporia are in amazing shape. (BTW, the classes at that studio are wonderful, but don't fit my schedule.) So now I have an activity that I try to do 4 or 5 times a week. I pick different classes depending on how sore I am. More importantly to me, I pick classes on what I want to get from the class. Do I want to work on flexibility? Strength? Cardio? Mental stuff? Do I have a lot of energy? Is my back killing me? I do it after Ian goes to bed.
So, if you've stuck with me so far, I'll explain the title of this post. David Magone (and a lot of the teachers) give you something to think about either at the beginning or the end of a session. I was a hot mess after one of his classes, and the meditation for the day was about focusing more on your inward identity than your outward identity, because things that form your outward identity can change, creating a real identity crisis, but the stuff on the inside, who you really are, is the same no matter what. I identify myself SO MUCH by outward stuff. I am a professor. I'm a wife. Now I'm a mom. I'm going to try this week to work on my inward identity - I am an optimist. I try to be kind (I need to work harder on this). I want to be less judgmental. I want to be more patient. If I keep working on these things, it can only enhance the outward things. And maybe it will make attempting a headstand easier. :) Namaste.
