More About Exercise
Filtered, as usual.
Gym last Friday. Treadmill. 40 mins or so. I don’t remember.
Unfortunately missed my yoga class on Monday due to a business call at 6 pm. Cindy is the teacher I like, so that’s a bummer. I’m going to try to do yoga Mondays and Wednesdays. I really like it a lot. It’s relaxing, challenging in a whole new way, and it’s building all-over strength really quickly. I can feel it in my upper body especially, and my legs and back really appreciate the stretching aspects, especially because the running I do tightens up my hamstrings terribly. I feel kind of unhinged or more flexible through my hips and torso after yoga. I like that.
Gym yesterday (Tuesday). Went to the one near Lucas’s school, right after I dropped him off. Treadmill for 65 mins both walking and jogging. It was pretty fun because I ran into Tina and she walked on the treadmill next to me for a long time. Chatting with a friend was entertaining and helped to pass the time. I know I would have gotten bored after about 40 minutes and stopped, but we were in mid conversation, so I kept going. Voilà. 440 calories according to the machine, but I don’t know if I can trust that because I’m certain the HR on the machine was wrong. That was no 115-bpm running I was doing at 4.3 miles per hour!
I can see rippling muscles in my legs. There’s a vertical line down the side of my thigh showing my quads, and there’s less jiggle in the rear. Yay. I keep asking Ian to notice because I’m vain and I crave praise.
Yoga tonight if Ian can get home in time for me to make it to class.
I’m happy because there’s a rhythm establishing now, even though I crave new experiences and modalities. Unfortunately, my running date with B last week didn’t work out. I’m hoping we can reschedule soon. Spinning sounds fun, but scary. Maybe I’ll check out the schedule. I’ve never tried that before…
May 11, 2006 at 10:06 am
Holy crap, lady. I don’t know where you find the drive to make the time to do the work to love your kid to cook the dinner to get your butt to the gym. AND do your hair. AND do luandry. AND garden. Wuf. I love reading about it here though. You’re amazing.
And that’s a good point. I need to go find a boy and rack up some praise. Does a girl a world of good. 😉
(Rawk! Go!)
May 11, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for the encouragement! It’s nice to be able to moan and boast to you here. It feels safe because I know you’re on a similar path and facing similar hills and potholes. I mean it when I say you have inspired me. Here in this electronic arena, we can kinda be workout buddies…kinda.
As to where I’ve been finding the time, the answer is I’m borrowing from my financial bank account. Work has been kinda slow in recent weeks. Enough that I have stuff to do, but I’m not making wads of cash right now. Thus, the hours are more manageable and I can take one here or there to work out. Also, Ian is helping by coming home early enough a couple of days a week for me to make it to yoga class. And he makes dinner probably 50-60% of the time. I’m a lucky girl.
I’m sort of heading off and countering my stress and money worries by exercising. It’s definitely helping. All that yoga breathing is really good for me, and when I leave class, I feel lighter, calmer, balanced. The spots in my body that tighten up and clench feel looser and moveable. I think I’ve only take 4 or 5 classes now (I did make it to last night’s class, and I’m coming to appreciate Peggy as an instructor more), but I can totally feel a difference in my body and my emotional life. After class I feel like stripping down and parading neked, or putting on the sexy undies. It’s good to feel good in my skin.
A confession of mean and uncharitable thoughts:
Last night in class there was a stunningly beautiful young woman (I’ll call her BeBe) with platinum streaks in her long hair, wearing a cleavage-revealing tank top and white BeBe yoga pants (with “BeBe” across the ass in rhinestones). She was thin and statuesque. I assumed that she was a regular yogini, because she had that glossy-magazine beauty. After a while, peering at her under my arms upside-down from downward facing dog and other asanas, I began to realize that she was spending more time in the resting poses than she was spending in the asanas we were doing. It dawned on me that she wasn’t, perhaps couldn’t, do it. This filled me with pride because I was doing it. Muscles and strength are beautiful, even if they come in a pair of pants that’s 3 sizes bigger than BeBe’s.
Now, yoga is not a competition. Every body is different, and I definitely know nothing about BeBe. So I feel ashamed of those prideful and mean thoughts. I am definitely human. No question about it. But damn! I can do it!