Yog-ouch

At the end of January I shelled out a large amount of money (large to me, anyway) to get a gym membership through my work. I promptly went 3-4 times a week for the first month, but as soon as the weather got nice, I found myself outside, trying to pound the pavement in anticipation of the yet-signed-up-for 5k.

Right, so March was pretty much a waste.

However, one of my coworkers - who is better organized than I - informed me a few days ago that our gym offers free yoga classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. (I hadn't even thought of looking at a gym schedule....!) My hamstrings have been excruciatingly tight lately - radiating pain through my lower back and neck - so I thought, hey! A yoga class would be just the thing!

Last night I joined my co-worker at the yoga class (no small feat, it requires that I remember to bring a gym bag to work). I was pretty psyched, a) to be using my gym membership again and b) to get back into the yoga groove. The first ten minutes were awesome. Lots of stretching, deep breathing, arm raising, more deep breathing, etc, etc.

Then the real workout began. Now, I likes me some downward facing dog, but when it's coupled with high and low pushups, 10 minutes of triangle pose and some high leg kicks - I get tired awfully quick. I was actually sweating...and no, there were no 'Oldies' involved. At the end of it, the teacher was all "now I'm going to ease you into the splits" (!!!!!) By that time, I was shaking, my muscles were quivering and I had falled over about six times.

Even though the class totally kicked my ass, I really enjoyed it. It felt good to stretch and work some different muscles rather than keep beating away at my thighs and hips by
running. I actually walked away alot looser than when I started, which helped with my neck and back pain. And the teacher was hilarious, helpful and supportive. (I kind of have a thing about group exercise, stemming back to phy ed classes in elementary school - I'm always afraid I won't be able to do some or all of it and will embarass myself in front of everyone and/or hold the class up. Also, I like the option to stop and leave when I'm tired, and the semi-social atmosphere of a class doesn't allow that!)

The only down part - getting home from work requires that I take the metro to a bus. At that hour (8:30) busses only come about every 45 minutes. And of course when I got out of the metro, my bus was just taking off down the street, so I had to walk the mile home. So much for my loose hamstrings.

As Megan would say though, ain't no thang: when I got home I found some krispie kreme's on our kitchen table and that helped!