Yoga

Yoga is fun. Fun and challenging. There are times when I'm holding a pose that's fairly difficult (for me anyway) and in my mind I'm begging the instructor to END IT ALREADY. At those times I'm not so fond of yoga. But in the end, I feel good and I'm always glad I did it.

I recently bought a yoga DVD called "Yoga for Athletes" for those times I can't/won't get to the gym. On the one hand, doing the routines in the comfort of my own home is great; I can dress however I want, do it at any time of the day or night and don't have to worry about what the person behind me is thinking of the size of my butt. But on the other hand......CATS AND DOGS! I can't even count the number of times I have to tell Augie to "GO" or push a cat off of me. Apparently laying on the floor makes you fair game. At one point I was making my best effort to breathe correctly, find my happy place and hold a Downward Facing Dog, when Augie decided to stand underneath me and lick my face. When I tried to scold him, he got nervous (but stayed where he was), turned around and started licking his junk. Then he wanted to kiss me again. UGH. 

Ultimately it ends up still being a good workout - just slightly less peaceful than I think yoga is supposed to be.  =)

Arg

Yesterday's long run was a disaster, at least in my mind. It started out okay, I was feeling pretty strong and was going along at my usual pace listening to some upbeat songs on my iPod. Having done some pre-planning, I had hidden a bottle of Gatorade and an apple-cinnamon flavored GU at mile 5 knowing I was going to need some additional fuel to help get me through the 12 miles I was hoping for. I stopped for about 2 minutes while I ingested the Gu and drank several mouthfuls of Gatorade then off I went on the second half of the run.

Around mile 7 - 7.5 I started to feel heavy and worn out. It was warmer than I expected (about 63) and I was sweating pretty good too. According to my heart rate monitor my heart rate had also increased a bit even though I had slowed my pace a tiny bit. I drank the last of my water around mile 8.5 and that's also when I started having to walk some of my route. I would walk for a couple minutes then would start running again but I felt reeeeeally heavy and sluggish. I discarded my plan to run 12 miles and headed home at that point which would make it only a 10.5 mile run including my .5 mile cool down.

As soon as I arrived home I drank many ounces of Gatorade and water which tells me that I most likely didn't drink enough while I was out there. (I wear a Nathan fuel belt that has two 10 ounce bottles for fluids). But was that the cause of my sluggishness? Or did I fuel incorrectly before and/or during the run?

I will definitely be searching the Internet for advice from the experts on how I should be fueling my runs in the future. If I want to continue long distance running - which I do - I will definitely need to resolve this issue. And I hope I can do that before my first half marathon scheduled for February 20, 2011. A meer 13 days away......