Showing posts with label yoga studio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoga studio. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2014

Fitness Class Challenge

After my pre-marathon injury scare, I discovered a new yoga studio in town. They had so many cool classes I'd never even heard of, and couldn't wait until after the marathon to try them out. Now that the race is over, I'm excited to give them a try!

My challenge is to try every class they have to offer in the next 3-4 weeks. My biggest challenge when it comes to anxiety is the fear of the unknown, and this spills over into something as silly as a fitness class. Will I look weird, will I know what I'm doing, will I look weird... I'm hoping that by making myself go to a variety of classes in a short time period, I will be forced to step out of my comfort zone, learn about some new classes that I may LOVE and may help me with my running/strength/flexibility/injury prevention, and I'll get the "unknown" out of the way so I'll be excited to go more frequently.

The classes:

  • Indo Row
  • Yoga Sculpt
  • BarreAmped Fire
  • Tabata Row
  • BarreAmped Bootcamp
  • Fusion Yoga
  • Shockwave Express
  • Row & Core
  • Power Vinyasa Yoga
  • BarreAmped
  • Power Row
  • Row X
  • Restorative Yoga
  • SIZZLE
  • Shake & Flow
  • STOTT Pilates Athletic Conditioning
  • Hot Pilates
Whoa, that's way more classes than I was expecting. Maybe I'll shoot for 75% of them by Thanksgiving. Has anyone ever done rowing classes before? They sound terrifying!





Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Peace Out Morning + Yoga Update

Dear Morning Running,

I hear by give my official resignation. The heat is gone, and quite frankly my bed is now much more enticing than you are. It was a good run (punny!). I'm sure I'll see you again next summer.


xoxo,
Jerbear


As you may recall, back when I attempted and became a morning runner, I did it primarily to keep from melting into a puddle during after work runs/getting abducted running late-late at night. Now that it's in the 40's when 5:30-6 am rolls around, I figure I can throw in the towel. Plus, after work time will always be my favorite time to work out. I think 6 years of post-school practice will do that to a gal. I love running off my work day stress. And it's a great time to people watch.


In an update on the yoga challenge, I have yoga'd every day except for 3. I've found that the most enjoyable days are the ones that I set aside a good chunk of time rather than cramming in a short 15 minute session to "get it over with." Shocker, I know.



Last night was no different. After blogging, I went home to eat a couple of lemon poppy seed muffins that I baked post-run. Um YUM! And had plenty of time until Taylor would be back from softball. I found a new series that I haven't tried because it's 35 minutes long, and I usually don't have that long to work with. I did a YogAmazing Summer Flow series. It kicked my butt. Whoa! BUT, I did finally succeed in being able to do Crow Pose (aka Crane Pose). Seriously, after 3+ years of doing yoga (off and on, of course) I've never been able to do this pose.

Of course, Taylor walked in while I was doing the final stretching and meditative portion (savasana). Side note: Since this is the only part he ever sees me do, he's convinced that that's all yoga is. When I commented that my arms and shoulders are getting more defined, and I think yoga is the cause, he actually asked me how stretching was causing me to get buff. Turd.

Anyway, after I was done, I wanted to show off the new sweet pose that I could do, so I showed him a couple of times and CLEARLY he was impressed. Competitive beast that he also is, he decided to give it a try. First time he fell, second time I gave him some pointers and, shocker, he got up. Granted he was only up for a few seconds, but still. Hmph. I also showed him some harder parts of the series that I did/struggled with, and I think he finally has a grasp on how difficult yoga can be. Hopefully he's intrigued enough to try it with me sometime. :)

I've been searching for a yoga studio in town, and have a couple of promising prospects. There's a studio downtown that offers free classes this Friday, so I might check one out after work. It is considered an Intermediate class though, so I might call and see what Intermediate consists of, because embarrassing the heck out of myself will probably cause me to NEVER go back. Also, our new health insurance at work has a couple of gyms with deals of $20 off monthly membership if you attend 4x/month. One of them is an AMAZING gym, with pool, basketball courts, tons of fitness classes, etc. etc., which would be about $45/month. They offer 3 free trials for potential members, so I figure I can try some classes out there too.

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Also, I'm getting my hairs did tonight! Whoo. I'm pretty excited. I went more blonde this summer, and it's starting to look trash-tastic all grown out and such, so I'm going back to dark and beautiful. :) Perhaps I'll have some pics to share with you manana. More likely, I will forget to take any, and then will be forced to take some post-6 miles in the morning. Sweaty=sexy. :)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Easy Run + New Yoga Studio + Schedule Switcheroo

The yoga streak is still alive. As soon as I walked in the door of my apartment, I got out of my work clothes and into some workout clothes. Yoga for Stress Management? Yes please. :) It could not have been a better session. Oh man. I needed to ease some of the stress for sure. Unfortunately the rest of the evening was almost as horrible as the day had been, but all has been resolved and today is all sunshine. Except for the weather that is. No sunshine there.

I woke up this morning with a 7 mile tempo run on deck. As Taylor was leaving he gave me the heads up that it was pouring. Um no. I immediately decided to do the 5 mile easy run I have on the schedule this week instead. The rain would give me a "too easy" excuse if I didn't meet my times for the tempo, so I didn't even want to tempt myself. Untempting tempo? Whoa, mouthful.

The rain was actually perfect once I finally got up and out the door (and after waiting way too long for the Garmin to pick up a signal). Just kind of light and misting. It was pitch black outside for the first couple of miles, however, so I stepped in more than a couple of puddles. BOO. Since it was so dark, I avoided the bike trails (scary when it's dark out, trust me) and ran a random route that I've never ran before. It was definitely nice to change things up a bit. My legs felt good. My pace felt easy.

I did the 5 miles in about 47:11. I know my pace was 9:34, but I forgot to ingrain the time into my brain. I'm sure that's within about 5 seconds of the actual time.

As I was running I attempted to do some problem solving. I had previously moved my long run from Sunday to Saturday to accommodate an event all day Saturday that would render me incapable of running Sunday morning. Yesterday I learned that there is another engagement we have to go to Friday night as well. I offered to be Taylor's DD and all was set. Except I realized that I would like to partake in the birthday festivities too on Friday night, so the brainstorming was set. What I came up with: I will run my 12 mile long run tomorrow before work. [Cue the B.A. background music here please.]

I know for some of you 12 miles is your mid-week long run (p.s. you're all crazy :p) but I've never done a long run before a work day. I don't have to work until 11am, so I have plenty of time to get up and get on the road before 7am and be done long stretching, icing, showering, EATING before I need to get ready for work. The run will not suffer. Work, on the other hand, might be rough going, but we'll see. I'll have to do a 5 mile easy run Friday morning, which isn't too bad. And then my 7 mile tempo Sunday NIGHT. Then Monday is a rest day. So everything SHOULD work out, and I should get to enjoy all the fun that my weekend has the potential to offer.

In other exciting news: I HAVE MY OWN YOGA STUDIO!!! Ok, not in the theoretical sense, but I have a room solely devoted to yoga. Ok, again, that's a lie. I have a room that I get to use for yoga. WHOO! Taylor lives in a 2 bedroom apartment by himself, except when we have slumber parties, of course. His apartment is pretty old school, so he only has a wall unit air conditioner. Any room but the living room is HOT, so he finally moved his bed into the living room so we can sleep and not sweat at night. Basically he has 2 bedrooms completely open.

[Enter Jeri aka Sneaky McSneakerson.]
Me: Taylor! I turned your old bedroom into a yoga studio.
Taylor: Uh ya, I saw that.
Me: Pretty sweet huh?
Taylor: No. Don't you think you could use the OTHER room. You know, the one that doesn't have ANYTHING in it.
Me: But I like this one, it has a nice stand for me to put my computer on while I'm doing the yoga poses.....
Taylor: [Not giving in. Lame sauce.]
Me: Oh hey! Turns out the other room DOES have a stand for my computer. Huh? That'll work I guess. By the way, would you rather me bring the blue yoga mat to replace the pink one? It might help "masculinize" your new yoga room.....
--End Scene--

I haven't officially "moved" the yoga studio yet, since we've been at my place since the convo started, but I might take some sweet pics for your viewing pleasure. Because, honestly, who's sweet enough to have their own room dedicated to the practice of yoga? Oh ya, that's right, me. :) I might even start practicing hatha yoga since the room is typically about 95-100 degrees on any given day. That should work just fine. :P