About once a week I go to a yoga class. Now, I'm about as supple as a plank of wood, which may be why LK is so keen on me going, but this class is mainly about de-stressing. It is a restorative yoga class, and these days I am finding it one of the only healthy ways to quiet the endless chatter in my head. This class works like a charm, and I sleep like the dead afterwards.
I started doing yoga when I was pregnant with Anna, under the impression that it might help me keep fit and strong whilst pregnant, and possibly even help with the birthing process.
HA!!
It did not help the birthing process. Apparently, my 'practice' had not quite reached the point where I could effectively breathe through open heart surgery.
I've continued with the yoga despite the intimidation factor of being one of the few people not to touch their noses to the floor during a forward fold. I used to think it was the baby bump hindering my forward fold. No, apparently I'm the tin man of yoga.
Sadly, birthing a whopping great 8lb 10oz baby has not made my yoga any easier, namely because for a long time I remained a little *loose* down there and found it quite hard not to fart. Basically, for many months after spitting out my little watermelon, trying to do a kegel exercise was like trying to wiggle my ears. There was simply nothing there. This has been a running joke between my stalwart yoga-partner RedFox and myself. So you can imagine our delight at overhearing this little gem:
Yogi: How are you ladies doing over here?
RedFox & Me: Ommmmm, ostentatious yoga breathing....
Yogi: And you, random yoga woman?
Random Yoga Woman, in reverent tones: Wonderful, I just experienced a big release.
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday Walk
If there was ever a photo that summed up my family it would be this one:
As I've mentioned before, the Sunday walk was one of the things my brother and I would dread, particularly in our petulant teens, as if staying at home and watching The Waltons was any better alternative. I miss it now though. These photos my Mum sent make me long to grab my wellies, some kendal mint cake and that extra pair of thick socks.
Of course, it's completely possible to hike in SB, and there are some beautiful trails. It's just that you have only two options; you either hike straight up to the top of the mountains, or you walk along the beach. There is nothing in between.
So here's a picture of me struggling with the inequity of living in Southern California and not being able to walk through some muddy cowpat-strewn field in my wellies:
Sometimes I don't know how I manage.
As I've mentioned before, the Sunday walk was one of the things my brother and I would dread, particularly in our petulant teens, as if staying at home and watching The Waltons was any better alternative. I miss it now though. These photos my Mum sent make me long to grab my wellies, some kendal mint cake and that extra pair of thick socks.
Of course, it's completely possible to hike in SB, and there are some beautiful trails. It's just that you have only two options; you either hike straight up to the top of the mountains, or you walk along the beach. There is nothing in between.
So here's a picture of me struggling with the inequity of living in Southern California and not being able to walk through some muddy cowpat-strewn field in my wellies:
Sometimes I don't know how I manage.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
If At First You Don't Succeed, Tri, Tri Again
Oh, how I slay myself.
The Santa Barbara Triathlon kicked my arse, as it does every year. I am thoroughly knackered and only writing this out of a perverse sense of duty to my three, maybe four readers.
I did run the entire run, although 'run' may be generous. So much for those eight minute miles I'd been practicing at the gym, geriatrics may have been able to shuffle at a faster clip. My cold was definitely a factor, but bizarrely the blisters? Never felt a thing. Either that's adrenalin for you, or my feet were still numb from the swim. Because DAMN that water was cold. Two days of slightly overcast weather and the ocean dropped 5ยบ. It made the swim seem endless. I could only see out of the lower quarter of my right goggle, and the only time people weren't bumping in to me was when I peered out of my tiny plastic porthole to realize I was seriously off course. I was so knackered by the swim that I gave up on that leg way before I was technically out of the water. You're supposed to stop when your hand touches sand, I stopped way before that and waded in, as if my mind was saying 'bugger this for a game of soldiers, I don't care if I'm in chest-deep water I'm a better wader than swimmer'. Not true.
The bike went brilliantly, I flew. LK had tweaked my gears and brakes, and it was that or maybe the sheer joy of being out of the water that gave me wings. I passed about twenty people, all of whom promptly tore right past me on the run.
Bastards (you included Mooks).
The run was hard, but I carried Anna over the finish line as was my plan, and then promptly dry-heaved on the people handing out sponges.
Good times.
I can say with all honesty that I'll be more than happy to be a 5-time triathlete and leave it at that. Although, if Anna ever wants to do the mother-daughter race I'd be thrilled. Knowing her gene pool, she might just want to consider the father-daughter race though. LK placed 5th in his age group, coming 18th overall, in an open course (open to professional triathletes). My good friend Sooz sent me an e-mail recently regarding 'assortive mating', the idea being that organisms tend to mate with like organisms, ergo, said Sooz, LK and I must be equally fit. Which was a lovely thought, but fails to explain the FIFTEEN MINUTE discrepancy in our race times, a race where LK missed the trophies by one place and 18 seconds and I dry-heaved on my daughter.
I'll update with photos and times when I get them - and if I feel like being honest!
The Santa Barbara Triathlon kicked my arse, as it does every year. I am thoroughly knackered and only writing this out of a perverse sense of duty to my three, maybe four readers.
I did run the entire run, although 'run' may be generous. So much for those eight minute miles I'd been practicing at the gym, geriatrics may have been able to shuffle at a faster clip. My cold was definitely a factor, but bizarrely the blisters? Never felt a thing. Either that's adrenalin for you, or my feet were still numb from the swim. Because DAMN that water was cold. Two days of slightly overcast weather and the ocean dropped 5ยบ. It made the swim seem endless. I could only see out of the lower quarter of my right goggle, and the only time people weren't bumping in to me was when I peered out of my tiny plastic porthole to realize I was seriously off course. I was so knackered by the swim that I gave up on that leg way before I was technically out of the water. You're supposed to stop when your hand touches sand, I stopped way before that and waded in, as if my mind was saying 'bugger this for a game of soldiers, I don't care if I'm in chest-deep water I'm a better wader than swimmer'. Not true.
The bike went brilliantly, I flew. LK had tweaked my gears and brakes, and it was that or maybe the sheer joy of being out of the water that gave me wings. I passed about twenty people, all of whom promptly tore right past me on the run.
Bastards (you included Mooks).
The run was hard, but I carried Anna over the finish line as was my plan, and then promptly dry-heaved on the people handing out sponges.
Good times.
I can say with all honesty that I'll be more than happy to be a 5-time triathlete and leave it at that. Although, if Anna ever wants to do the mother-daughter race I'd be thrilled. Knowing her gene pool, she might just want to consider the father-daughter race though. LK placed 5th in his age group, coming 18th overall, in an open course (open to professional triathletes). My good friend Sooz sent me an e-mail recently regarding 'assortive mating', the idea being that organisms tend to mate with like organisms, ergo, said Sooz, LK and I must be equally fit. Which was a lovely thought, but fails to explain the FIFTEEN MINUTE discrepancy in our race times, a race where LK missed the trophies by one place and 18 seconds and I dry-heaved on my daughter.
I'll update with photos and times when I get them - and if I feel like being honest!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Big Lump of Lard
One week to go 'til the triathlon and these are all recent excuses I've given for not exercising:
- I would lose a good street-parking spot.
- I've just eaten a bag of pretzels and half a pint of ice-cream.
- Anna might have a cold and they might not take her at the gym daycare.
- It's smoky and ashy outside and my health could be affected.
- Can't be arsed.
- I don't have $3 to park down at the beach, and I'm too knackered to walk.
- My wetsuit is wet.
- I have a wetsuit rash that looks like a giant hickey/love-bite and I don't want to make it worse.
- I have to watch six episodes of Weeds back-to-back.
- My cell-phone isn't charged and LK wouldn't know where I was.
- Anna OD'd on ibuprofen.
- Periods could attract sharks.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Fit To Be Tired
I used to be fit.
Many, many years ago I was superbly, effortlessly fit. The type of fit you take for granted as a pre-pubescent girl.
It was that long ago.
We were an active family; I did swimming, ballet, judo (all of them reluctantly and without talent), and we would do marathon 'walks' in the Yorkshire Dales every Sunday fortified only by cheese and pickle sandwiches and the occasional lump of Kendal mint cake. It's good stuff, pure sugar, but still provided barely enough calories to help us face the drizzle and drag our muck-clad wellies round that final escarpment.
My Dad had a way of guiding a car key around an Ordinance Survey map that instilled fear and awe in my brother and I. He would prop the map up on the bonnet of our car, the drizzle-laden North-Easterly winds whipping it out from under him until he had it pinned with rocks. He would point at the 'suggested route' and instead would drag 'the magic key' towards a cluster of such tightly-packed contours that it looked like the skin of a chain-smoking 75-year-old Floridian. All I could usually see of my brother's face under his yashmak-like Peter Storm was the glint of panic in his eyes.
We both knew what was coming next.
'Now the map seems to suggest we go along this meadow here' he would say, passing the key tantalizingly close to a flat riverbed area, 'but I'm inclined to think that if we just cut up this road, and go along here', jabbing at the angry-looking contours while my brother and I look at him in growing alarm, 'here's where we might be able to cut across and make these two suggested five-mile walks in to something a little more interesting'. We knew that to mean a marathon 10 mile Man vs Wild survival challenge with the outside chance of a Cadbury's creme egg at a village shop or a shandy and lemonade at the Miner's Arms if we made it back to the car park. Both of us wondering why we weren't at home watching the Waltons along with the rest of humanity.
My Mum would be sitting in the car, shielded from the weather, listening to the Archers on the radio until the last possible moment.
We certainly ended up fit though.
I remember our first ever 'Double Games' at secondary school. We went for a cross-country run, up past the hockey pitch, further even than the athletics track, a piece of school turf so remote we called it the 'North Pole'. Past the 'bog fields' and then for good measure up a delightfully steep and deliberate hill. It was probably about 3 miles all told. I remember coming in in 2nd place and being genuinely puzzled at the tattered wrecks of humanity who collapsed into the changing rooms later that day. Ex-friends looking at me with pure hatred 'you could've waited with us ya cow.'
That was when I was fit.
Now I get it. Now when I run it feels like my lungs are going to burst through my nose in pursuit of oxygen. My legs feel like they weigh 100lbs each. Training has made it easier, but it's only 3 weeks to the race and I know that I will be no way near fit enough to do it without pain, let alone effortlessly. I would love to be able to do the race and enjoy it. I would love to have trained enough so that doing the race and having fun with it would be my reward. To be able to do the race like LK, and breeze through the disciplines.
My husband, the pre-pubescent teenage girl.
Many, many years ago I was superbly, effortlessly fit. The type of fit you take for granted as a pre-pubescent girl.
It was that long ago.
We were an active family; I did swimming, ballet, judo (all of them reluctantly and without talent), and we would do marathon 'walks' in the Yorkshire Dales every Sunday fortified only by cheese and pickle sandwiches and the occasional lump of Kendal mint cake. It's good stuff, pure sugar, but still provided barely enough calories to help us face the drizzle and drag our muck-clad wellies round that final escarpment.
My Dad had a way of guiding a car key around an Ordinance Survey map that instilled fear and awe in my brother and I. He would prop the map up on the bonnet of our car, the drizzle-laden North-Easterly winds whipping it out from under him until he had it pinned with rocks. He would point at the 'suggested route' and instead would drag 'the magic key' towards a cluster of such tightly-packed contours that it looked like the skin of a chain-smoking 75-year-old Floridian. All I could usually see of my brother's face under his yashmak-like Peter Storm was the glint of panic in his eyes.
We both knew what was coming next.
'Now the map seems to suggest we go along this meadow here' he would say, passing the key tantalizingly close to a flat riverbed area, 'but I'm inclined to think that if we just cut up this road, and go along here', jabbing at the angry-looking contours while my brother and I look at him in growing alarm, 'here's where we might be able to cut across and make these two suggested five-mile walks in to something a little more interesting'. We knew that to mean a marathon 10 mile Man vs Wild survival challenge with the outside chance of a Cadbury's creme egg at a village shop or a shandy and lemonade at the Miner's Arms if we made it back to the car park. Both of us wondering why we weren't at home watching the Waltons along with the rest of humanity.
My Mum would be sitting in the car, shielded from the weather, listening to the Archers on the radio until the last possible moment.
We certainly ended up fit though.
I remember our first ever 'Double Games' at secondary school. We went for a cross-country run, up past the hockey pitch, further even than the athletics track, a piece of school turf so remote we called it the 'North Pole'. Past the 'bog fields' and then for good measure up a delightfully steep and deliberate hill. It was probably about 3 miles all told. I remember coming in in 2nd place and being genuinely puzzled at the tattered wrecks of humanity who collapsed into the changing rooms later that day. Ex-friends looking at me with pure hatred 'you could've waited with us ya cow.'
That was when I was fit.
Now I get it. Now when I run it feels like my lungs are going to burst through my nose in pursuit of oxygen. My legs feel like they weigh 100lbs each. Training has made it easier, but it's only 3 weeks to the race and I know that I will be no way near fit enough to do it without pain, let alone effortlessly. I would love to be able to do the race and enjoy it. I would love to have trained enough so that doing the race and having fun with it would be my reward. To be able to do the race like LK, and breeze through the disciplines.
My husband, the pre-pubescent teenage girl.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Do Or Not Do There Is No Tri
I'm trying to decide whether to do the Santa Barbara triathlon, which is hmm, let me see, only a month away....and so far I've only managed to decide that I definitely need to decide something....soon.
I've already done the race four times, and trained for it five times (the fifth ended in point twelve of this list).
I signed LK up for it over the weekend, and I'm being persuaded by two erstwhile good friends to do it again.
We have an entire group of friends who train together and have Mai Tai's afterwards, we are the Mai Tris:
My nickname is 'Wonder' - sadly not because I'm any good, but because I'm whiter than Wonder Bread.
I am proud to say that I've introduced the English concept of half-hearted sporting achievement coupled with heavy drinking to the health-conscious Calif-yawn-ians.
We are the Mai Tris and we kick arse!
Although, truth be told, it is proving a little difficult to get this band of merry men (emphasis on the merry) to actually sign up this year. One is claiming a GIANT gallstone, another bi-coastal training issues, and others, well, what exactly is my excuse?
To be honest, I've never really enjoyed the race. I've always enjoyed the training and post-training bar sessions, but the race itself, lukewarm at best. For a start, it begins at about 7am, which means you have to get your kit down there at 5:30am, which is total bollocks. Then you have to deal with the massive queue for the toilets while the entire racing contingent suffers pre-race diarrhea. Lovely. Plus, it's knackering, don't be deceived by the race stats. If you tell anyone about the sprint course, they will always ask about the individual disciplines, and when you say a 1/3 mile ocean swim, 6 mile bike, and a 2 mile run, people will always go 'huh, well, that's not too bad', except it is, honestly, unfathomably bad. Anyone can do this race, but unless you're in damn good shape, it's not easy to do it without it hurting. A lot.
Here are some photos of previous races. Do I look like I'm having fun?
Also, point number 2, it costs $100. That's a bloody expensive T-shirt
Mainly though, the reason I'm prevaricating is that I can't trust my body not to throw in the towel. I'm good at tests and exams, but anything physical and there is no amount of training that will guarantee I will not spack out and under-perform on the day. I am just not a natural athlete. I went to yoga last night with a good friend, and on more than one occasion I was waving the wrong limb at the instructor. OK, obviously that's just stupidity, but in all honesty I find it very hard to get my body to do what my mind thinks should be a breeze. Also, it was rather hard to keep a straight face when our yoga teacher (and imagine your quintessential nasal Californian here) saying 'now let's go in to dolphin prelude, dolphin pray-lood'. That and 'restorative pigeon' had me biting down on my bolster.
Come race day I always get a massive stitch on the final run, and on one truly tragic occasion a remarkably sprightly but still, 68-yr old man, asked me if I needed 'medical assistance'. Good times. That's what sucks, training for months, and then having a bad race because you were nervous beforehand and swallowed too much air and then had to run with a stomach like a barrage balloon.
Now my brother on the other hand is a complete natural athlete. He's just done the Great Knaresborough Bed Race - you've probably heard of it. No? Hmm, surprising. Well, it involves something akin to a bed, but in the same say that an American SAT test will say 'contraption is to bed as absinthe is to blank'. Exactly. He also did the Great North Run and managed to keep a nifty pace for the entire race 'only because I was worried some chav was gonna nick me trainers in some of the dodgy bits'. Every athlete needs an incentive.
Anyway, I'm looking for advice - should I do this or not? I had decided that tonight's ocean swim with the girls would be an acid test. If I felt good, and could swim the half mile no problem, then yes, I should consider the race. As it turns out I got halfway out to the buoy and I was already struggling. I wasn't feeling streamlined, there was a tonne of kelp in the water which kept freaking me out, and I felt like my wetsuit was twice the size as normal. Well, note to self, remember to zip up your chuffing wetsuit before embarking on a half mile swim. By the time I got out I looked like a whale with edema.
So, yes or no?
I've already done the race four times, and trained for it five times (the fifth ended in point twelve of this list).
I signed LK up for it over the weekend, and I'm being persuaded by two erstwhile good friends to do it again.
We have an entire group of friends who train together and have Mai Tai's afterwards, we are the Mai Tris:
My nickname is 'Wonder' - sadly not because I'm any good, but because I'm whiter than Wonder Bread.
I am proud to say that I've introduced the English concept of half-hearted sporting achievement coupled with heavy drinking to the health-conscious Calif-yawn-ians.
We are the Mai Tris and we kick arse!
Although, truth be told, it is proving a little difficult to get this band of merry men (emphasis on the merry) to actually sign up this year. One is claiming a GIANT gallstone, another bi-coastal training issues, and others, well, what exactly is my excuse?
To be honest, I've never really enjoyed the race. I've always enjoyed the training and post-training bar sessions, but the race itself, lukewarm at best. For a start, it begins at about 7am, which means you have to get your kit down there at 5:30am, which is total bollocks. Then you have to deal with the massive queue for the toilets while the entire racing contingent suffers pre-race diarrhea. Lovely. Plus, it's knackering, don't be deceived by the race stats. If you tell anyone about the sprint course, they will always ask about the individual disciplines, and when you say a 1/3 mile ocean swim, 6 mile bike, and a 2 mile run, people will always go 'huh, well, that's not too bad', except it is, honestly, unfathomably bad. Anyone can do this race, but unless you're in damn good shape, it's not easy to do it without it hurting. A lot.
Here are some photos of previous races. Do I look like I'm having fun?
Also, point number 2, it costs $100. That's a bloody expensive T-shirt
Mainly though, the reason I'm prevaricating is that I can't trust my body not to throw in the towel. I'm good at tests and exams, but anything physical and there is no amount of training that will guarantee I will not spack out and under-perform on the day. I am just not a natural athlete. I went to yoga last night with a good friend, and on more than one occasion I was waving the wrong limb at the instructor. OK, obviously that's just stupidity, but in all honesty I find it very hard to get my body to do what my mind thinks should be a breeze. Also, it was rather hard to keep a straight face when our yoga teacher (and imagine your quintessential nasal Californian here) saying 'now let's go in to dolphin prelude, dolphin pray-lood'. That and 'restorative pigeon' had me biting down on my bolster.
Come race day I always get a massive stitch on the final run, and on one truly tragic occasion a remarkably sprightly but still, 68-yr old man, asked me if I needed 'medical assistance'. Good times. That's what sucks, training for months, and then having a bad race because you were nervous beforehand and swallowed too much air and then had to run with a stomach like a barrage balloon.
Now my brother on the other hand is a complete natural athlete. He's just done the Great Knaresborough Bed Race - you've probably heard of it. No? Hmm, surprising. Well, it involves something akin to a bed, but in the same say that an American SAT test will say 'contraption is to bed as absinthe is to blank'. Exactly. He also did the Great North Run and managed to keep a nifty pace for the entire race 'only because I was worried some chav was gonna nick me trainers in some of the dodgy bits'. Every athlete needs an incentive.
Anyway, I'm looking for advice - should I do this or not? I had decided that tonight's ocean swim with the girls would be an acid test. If I felt good, and could swim the half mile no problem, then yes, I should consider the race. As it turns out I got halfway out to the buoy and I was already struggling. I wasn't feeling streamlined, there was a tonne of kelp in the water which kept freaking me out, and I felt like my wetsuit was twice the size as normal. Well, note to self, remember to zip up your chuffing wetsuit before embarking on a half mile swim. By the time I got out I looked like a whale with edema.
So, yes or no?
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Easy Does It
On our way to the beach this evening to go running:
Me: I just had a Coke so I might get a stitch
LK: I just had a Dr. Pepper so my legs'll probably fall off.
Me: I just had a Coke so I might get a stitch
LK: I just had a Dr. Pepper so my legs'll probably fall off.
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