Things not to do

So if you have been following my tweets (Twitter ) You may have heard that I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon which was a ballsy move on my part given my lack of training as yet. However, I had tried all other options and nothing had kick started the training feel or motivation so I decided to push it along. I signed up for a half marathon with less than a few month to train for it. I needed to put my money where my mouth is and commit. I couldn’t continue on the ho-hum random training schedule and piss off my coach anymore human vortex training. Plus i wanted to start raising money for a friends charity. So here I am a bit over weight and undertrained from several months off. This weekend was the jump off point and a huge hit of reality and a hit on the ego!

So Day 1 of my training began with a Power Yoga class. I hadn’t been in a class for over 6 months and I knew I was in for it. When I arrived (15 min early) I was surprised that I had one of the last spots left, right by the door under the heater. It seemed as if the sunshine had brought everyone out from the woodwork. The class was packed with 38 of my fellow yogis and the room was already energized, hot and sweaty. This was a all levels class and I figured I could get by knowing all the position unlike if I would have gone to the later beginners class. after getting setup class began nice and slow. I kept telling myself ‘my goal is to complete nothing less nothing more even if I was in childs pose the whole time’ I was able to keep up at first but then realized my limitation. First the bit of congestion I was trying to break away from crept back in and hindered my breathing so I found myself breathing thru my mouth more than I should have, I also realized how inflexible I had begun struggling to get into the simplistic poses. Then I noticed that I hadn’t regained my balance since my surgery which was evident when I hit into the girl next to me ona few occasion. Thankfully she was understanding! I also wasn’t used to the amount of floor to standing poses and found myself getting lightheaded. It wasn’t a matter of getting into the pose but not passing out a sweat mess and dominoing over my fellow yogi try to balance in archers pose. So I took it easy and paced myself. I found myself in childs pose quite a bit and wiping up pools of sweat from my mat so I didn’t slip into the nice girl next to me. Thankfully I had a wall on the otherwise. I was happy I stuck it out and all in all I was able to keep up about 51% of the time. I did realize it was time for the ‘nanoock of the north’ look to go a way. My long hair and beard seemed to add to the heat retention. I left feeling sweaty and great and mostly energized. On the way home, I thought ‘I should go for a run’ but once I had showered and got home and ran some errands (shaved / haircut) I realized how much work I need to do. I was sore from head to toe and knew a run wasn’t happening! I found all those muscles I thought i Iost. They were still there and pissed off. Wo I have been suffering the last few days and finally feeling better today ( Mon). If this taught me anything it’s start slow and steady and get a solid base before killing yourself indirectly with things you used to do. So it’s starts training, training and more training, slow but decisive and not killing myself. I have several workout this week and I will return to the yoga mat on Friday hoping to get through 52% this time.